NEW ORLEANS – The normally clutch kicker had a hat trick of misses. The team whose defense had been getting steamrolled regularly held the team with the full-functioning offense to seven points in the first half.
The running back who was arguably the best player on the field dropped what would have been a game-clinching pass. And the team with the seven-game losing streak, that was banged up with injuries and had just gotten its coach fired, gave a deserved defeat to the team that had won five of its previous six and appears headed to the playoffs.
Take a bow, Falcons-Saints rivalry. You’ve outdone yourself again.
“That’s rivalries, right?” Falcons linebacker Kaden Elliss told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It wouldn’t be one if it didn’t have those types of games.”
Elliss would know. Before signing with the Falcons prior to the 2023 season, he was a Saint for his first four NFL seasons.
Will the Falcons’ 20-17 defeat to the Saints Sunday at the Superdome turn out to be costly?
Possibly.
Did it fit in the long history of unpredictable and strange games in this rivalry?
Definitely.
To wit, the last time the Falcons were here – the finale of the 2023 season – Saints backup quarterback Jameis Winston created a kerfuffle at the end of New Orleans’ blowout win by overriding his coach’s orders to take a knee and instead running a play out of victory formation to allow a running back to score his first touchdown of the season.
And in the first Falcons-Saints game this season – Sept. 29 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium – the Falcons won despite getting outgained in yardage and failing to score an offensive touchdown. The star of that one, with a career-long 58-yard game-winning field goal, was the same guy who was 1-for-4 Sunday.
So what else would you expect?
In a game that seemed stacked for the Falcons, the game played out like the Saints, playing their first game for interim coach Darren Rizzi after the whacking of third-year coach Dennis Allen (the coach who was defied by Winston), might have hoped. While Falcons coach Raheem Morris had confirmed his awareness of the danger presented by a team that just fired its coach, the Saints had the energy advantage in the first half to take a 10-0 second-quarter lead and a 17-7 advantage at halftime. The Saints had not led any game by 10 points since their second game of the season.
Ellis said that “100%” the Saints were playing with the anticipated post-firing edge.
“You want to go out and make plays,” he said of the mindset of a team playing after a mid-season firing. “You don’t want to be embarrassed week after week.”
That includes Saints running back Alvin Kamara, the former Norcross High star who went wild Sunday after lighting up the Falcons in the teams’ first meeting at MBS. His 109 yards from scrimmage included a 31-yard catch off a screen play in which he weaved through the Falcons defense. The third-quarter play set up a Saints field goal.
Saints wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who has more letters in his name (22) than he has had days on the New Orleans roster (Sunday was day 21, having been signed Oct. 21 after multiple injuries to New Orleans wideouts), became an unexpected nightmare for the Falcons defense. He caught only three balls, but two were for touchdowns (one a 40-yarder) and a third went for 67 yards.
And the Falcons did their part. Historically reliable kicker Younghoe Koo missed three field-goal attempts – a first for him in a regular-season game, one of them blocked. In the Superdome’s din, pass protection was not up to standards (three sacks). In the first half, the defense gave up 17 points and 265 yards to a team that had averaged 16 points and 317.4 yards in its previous five games. In the third quarter, the Falcons had first-and-goal at the Saints 9 before two penalties backed them up to first-and-25. Instead of a touchdown to cut the lead to 17-14, the Falcons settled for Koo’s lone field goal of the game.
Running back Bijan Robinson contributed a standout game – running for a season-high 116 yards and two touchdowns and catching another 28 yards worth of passes – in a losing effort.
“We had all our chances in the world out there and couldn’t capitalize,” Morris said. “One of those days, one of those moments.”
But, this series being what it is, the Falcons had a chance at the end. The defense yielded only a field goal in the second half. On a third-and-4 from the Saints 44 with 1:48 remaining and the Falcons down to a final timeout, Kamara got behind the defense and was wide open for a pass down the sideline from quarterback David Carr. Somehow, Kamara couldn’t secure the pass and it fell incomplete.
As Elliss gave chase, he didn’t think the ball was going to Kamara until he saw his eyes open and his hands stretch out. His reaction: Uh-oh.
“And then he dropped it, and it was just a moment of ‘Alright,’” Elliss said. “That was not how we wanted to stop ‘em, but we stopped ‘em and time to give our offense the ball back.”
It proved moot. Starting at their 14-yard line with 1:35 to play with one timeout, the Falcons reached first-and-10 on the Saints 49 with 41 seconds left. They were eight yards from setting up to match Koo’s career-long make, but they lost 19 yards on a sack and fumble. There was not much hope after that.
This against a defense that lost cornerback Marshon Lattimore, a four-time Pro Bowler, in a trade this past week to Washington and wasn’t especially effective even when he was on the roster.
“We let an opportunity slip (Sunday) and shouldn’t have,” defensive lineman Grady Jarrett told The AJC. “But we’ve just got to get back to the drawing board and try to get back on that ‘W’ train.”
It was a setback, but the mood in the locker room after the game was unruffled. At 6-4, the Falcons have seven games left. They have proved themselves through the first 10. Losses – inexplicable losses, in this case – happen.
Especially against the Saints.
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