‘No excuses at this point’: How the desperate Saints found their backs against the wall

‘No excuses at this point’: How the desperate Saints found their backs against the wall

Football greatness is well-known to Erik McCoy. When the New Orleans Saints center joined the league in 2019, his

team finished 13-3 and advanced to the playoffs, giving him first-hand experience with it. The Saints finished 12-4

the next season and went even farther in the playoffs, reaching the divisional round.

McCoy remarked, “We’re sitting here at 7-8.” “That is disgusting.”

The Saints will be playing from a desperate position when they take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday. The

easiest route is for New Orleans to win both of its next two games and for the Buccaneers to lose their final game

against the lowly Carolina Panthers in order to have any chance at all of making the postseason, but those are tiny. It

is difficult and improbable that the Saints will finish in the wild card round as opposed to winning the division.

This wasn’t how it was intended to happen.

 

The Saints had the second-easiest schedule in the NFL going into the season, only surpassed by the Falcons. In 2022,

the combined winning percentage of their opponents was a pitiful.428. Although those preseason metrics can

occasionally be deceiving—teams do occasionally see substantial improvement—this wasn’t the case in this instance.

The total record of the Saints’ opponents in 2023 is 94-116, which is still only a.448 winning percentage.

Expectations were high for other reasons besides the cakewalk timetable. The Saints signed Derek Carr to a four-

year, $150 million contract with the sincere expectation that they would be in the running for the Super Bowl this

year. In the post-Brees era, the quarterback was expected to be the missing component, the solution to New Orleans’

quarterback instability. Also, rival Tom Brady, a future Hall of Fame quarterback, retired, leading New Orleans

management to mistakenly believe the NFC South was wide open.

Despite having a pricey and elderly squad, New Orleans was expected to succeed because of Carr, a well-known supporting cast, and a top-notch defense.

Why did everything go so wrong?

Cam Jordan, a defensive end, complained about “not capitalizing on our potential.” “We’re here because, at the

conclusion of the game, we couldn’t do the job, whether we were ahead or behind by a touchdown. There are currently no justifications.

 

Coach Dennis Allen of the Saints stated, “I don’t think anybody is trying to skirt that; this is a production-based

business.” He went on, “You would expect to win more games when you’re in the top half of the league in scoring

points and in the top 10 in (not) allowing points.”

The main reason the Saints have such a steep hill to climb in order to qualify for the playoffs is likely their inability to

defeat opponents that have a winning record. With its lone victory coming against the 8-7 Indianapolis Colts, New

Orleans has gone 1-5 this year versus clubs that are currently above.500.

Tyrann Mathieu, a safety, stated that the Saints appeared to be in “catch-up mode” throughout a significant portion

of the current campaign. That held true for both the rankings and the actual games. After blowing a promising 2-0

start, New Orleans lost ground in the division battle, and now they are in need of assistance to qualify for the

postseason for the first time since 2020.

“It is regrettable,” Mathieu remarked. In some ways, it feels exactly like last year. You put in enough work to earn a

spot in the hat, right? However, it’s difficult because many of us anticipate making it to the postseason.

expectations that seem more and more unlikely to be fulfilled.

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