Saints' late meltdown vs. Eagles costs New Orleans a 3-0 start

 On Sunday afternoon, Derek Carr and the New Orleans Saints took their first loss of the season with a 15-12 home defeat at the hands of Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles. This contest was a back and forth, defensive affair throughout the afternoon, and ultimately, a late Carr touchdown to Chris Olave was not enough to keep the Saints from dropping to 2-1.

The Saints' defense controlled this game for most of its duration, which was aided by several questionable play calls from Eagles coach Nick Sirianni throughout the first three quarters. In total, the Eagles made it into Saints' territory three separate times without cashing in a point to show for it.

This all changed when Saquon Barkley broke off a huge touchdown run early in the fourth quarter that put the Eagles up for the first time in the game.

Later on, Carr would respond by leading a drive that resulted in an impressive touchdown catch from Olave with just over two minutes remaining.

However, a miscue by the Saints' defense in which two players ran into each other resulted in a free lane down the sidelines for Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert. Barkley would score both the touchdown and the two point conversion a couple of plays later.

This gave the Saints one last chance to win the game with around a minute left, and although the drive got off to a promising start, Carr eventually forced a ball down the field into double coverage which was easily picked off by Eagles defensive back Reed Blankenship, sealing the win for Philadelphia.

A tough loss

As previously mentioned, the loss drops the Saints' record on the young 2024 season to 2-1, bringing them back down to Earth after last week's epic road win vs the Dallas Cowboys.

New Orleans' offense, which scored 40-plus points in each of the first two weeks, was held in check by the Eagles on Sunday, as Carr reverted to some of his old bad habits, including on the game-ending interception to Blankenship.

This will open up questions on which the “real” version of the New Orleans offense is, given the stark contrast between what was seen the first two weeks vs on Sunday. The answer, as with most things, is probably somewhere in the middle.

In any case, the Saints will look to get to 3-1 with a road date vs the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday. That game is slated to begin at 1:00 PM ET.