Where do the Saints go from here with their defensive issues?
It’s hard to find anything good for the New Orleans Saints in the troubling loss to the Buccaneers on Sunday. The Saints allowed the Buccaneers to set a franchise record. New Orleans also lost a star receiver to an injury. The performance led to Dennis Allen calling out “unacceptable” problems in the loss, according to a post on X by Mike Triplett.
“Thoroughly disappointed in the game,” Allen said. “It was not acceptable. It was not good enough from a coaching standpoint, (and) was not good enough from a playing standpoint. I thought our tackling was atrocious in the game.”
Saints head coach Dennis Allen seraching for answers
Adding to the pain, the Saints coughed up almost 600 yards of offense, approaching negative record status, according to a post on X by Jeff Duncan of nola.com.
“The 594 yards surrendered by the Saints today were the second most in franchise history, per @ByLukeJohnson. The record was 605 vs. Minnesota, 10/17/04.”
One of the absolute worst moments came in the second half. Chris Godwin caught a check-down pass from quarterback Baker Mayfield. Three Saints seemed to have him hemmed in for a short gain. Instead, tackle attempts turned into whiffs and Godwin racked up a 55-yard touchdown to put the Buccaneers ahead for good.
It’s hard to fathom an NFL team giving that little effort when it is leading in the second half of a football game.
Plus, it came against a division rival, adding more salt to the wound.
Tackling is supposed to be the foundation of every defense. It should be taken care of in the preseason. But it’s Week 6 and the Saints haven’t figured out how to do it? All of this seems to fall on Allen’s shoulders. He’s supposed to be a defensive guy. The buck has to stop with him.
Allen said the Saints must improve across the board, according to the Saints YouTube page.
“We’ve got to play better than we did in all areas,” Allen said. “When you don’t tackle you give up explosive plays. And then it snowballed on us. When it comes to the defense that’s on me. I gotta do a better job with our guys. It was not a good defensive performance at all. That’s needs to be an area we can count on.”
On the brighter side, the Saints did some nice things on offense with rookie quarterback Spencer Rattler hitting on 22 of 40 passes for 243 yards and a touchdown. Also, the Saints battled back from a 17-0 deficit and scored 27 second-quarter points to take a halftime lead. But the Saints didn’t score in the second half.
