Hebert: Saints fought in loss to Bills, but goals have to be higher than just not being embarrassed

Hebert: Saints fought in loss to Bills, but goals have to be higher than just not being embarrassed

I don’t know. It’s professional football. There’s no moral victories. I mean, it’s not like, “Oh, we played hard.” Oh, so what? We didn’t get embarrassed. Correct. No. Uh, when you get embarrassed, especially at home, hopefully that’s not the case against the Giants or the Patriots, then you will get booed. You will get booed. And, you know, I don’t want the bags coming out, but that could happen at home because that’s not going to happen on the road. And you never want the Saints to become the eights where all of a sudden you’re wearing bags and then they disrespecting your NFL team. And it’s not so much, you know, you could, you know, if he’s one of they’re one of your own, you know, like you could give your kid the business, somebody you don’t want nobody else giving him the business, you know, kind of thing. Um, but I’m telling you, they going to mock us if you all of a sudden the Saints are struggling just cuz maybe you want attention. Boon’s all right, but you start wearing bags. What they going to show on the from a national perspective? That’s all they going to show. Can’t wait to show that, right? Yeah, that’s what they’re going to show. That’s what you got to try and avoid as the Saints organization. You have to play hard. I think if we play like we played today against the Giants and the Patriots again uh no moral victories but uh I think say well we have a chance to win at the end and the Bluebirds wouldn’t come out but you’ll play lay an egg like Seattle. No, you don’t want that to happen because it definitely would come out and you know you want to look like you care or you focus or you concentrating. I mean, just at times the lack of days effort of Chris Olavi. I mean, he wants to get paid to be a $20 million a year receiver. Why? Why the Saints are going to give him that much money? I mean, he’s an NFL receiver, but he’s not a number one. He looks like he finally woke up a little bit. He ended up having uh but I don’t know. He still had six targets. He had three catches. He should be having six targets, five catches or six for six. Uh you know, like Sha, their receiver, had five targets, five catches. you know, a long gain of 43 yards. If you look at Lave, his long gain was 10 yards, averaged 6.7. No, he’s he’s not that chunk receiver or something given opportunities. And then, you know, I take off a Spencer Rabbit, hit your hand, supposed to catch it. I thought the Brandon Cooks play was the touchdown. Looked like they called a touchdown on the field. Looks like he had it on his leg. It never hit the ground, but you know, they overruled it. But Spencer Ra got to make a better throw. You know, that’s easy touchdown. So, I don’t always take up for the quarterbacks. No, he has to make that throw that that was just too easy. That was tough cuz I didn’t think there was conclusive evidence to overturn the touchdown goal, especially cuz they called touchdown on the field. Exactly. So, uh yeah, to overturn that, but you know, we almost expect that maybe not to get that go our way, but uh still too many um missed tackles. Okay. the coach could put you in the right position to have success. Um, and just missed tackles. You know, got embarrassed a couple of times and uh, hit him right in the chest. Pete Warner had a poor game or I want to say he had a terrible game. Okay, I’m trying to be kind. Poor game. Pete Warner, who we paid, he ended up having uh, three tackles, but he could have had a way more impactful game. Just make the play supposed to make. Did you see that one time Josh Allen jked him? That ain’t Alvin Camra juking you. Oh, that’s not like Cooks juking you. That’s the quarterback and stuff. And then Spencer Rattler had a nice juke. But it’s just I’m tell in the meeting rooms and the quarterback jukes you unless it’s Lamar Jackson on that level or Michael Vic and all then the the the players know you can get embarrassed. I’m matter at the drop pick. But yeah. Yeah. with Pete Warner, but then but Josh Allen, you know, he can run over you and all that, but it’s not like he really put that harsh of a move when Pete Warner with that. But, you know, you’re looking at the series and we we play well in Buffalo. We’ve play we’ve never we’ve been doing the embarrassing uh um moments uh against the Buffalo Bills in their backyard. And you know, if you look at it, Buffalo, how you just got to win though uh because that’s all anyone’s going to remember. You know, a month from now, no one will remember what happened to Saints Bills game. to just go look at the scores. Oh, the Bills went easy cuz that’s a big win whenever you winning by double digits. So, 12 points. I did think the Saints were going to cover and they did. I just thought it it might have been more a backdoor cover, but it wasn’t even that cuz the Saints were right there. Um, but you look at the Bills, how their fan base, their expectations, they’ve now won 13 straight games at home. Uh, that’s not by accident. That just not all the Bills are lucky. No, they’re a pretty damn good team. And you know, we’ve only played the Bills 13 times. You know, we have a winning record against the Bills and the Bills went to four straight Super Bowls. You look at the history of the teams now. The Saints have a Super Bowl will uh bowl win. The Bills don’t. And on the road in Buffalo, you know, it was supposed to be a hostile environment. Um, you know, we had one four in a row. Now we’re four and two. So, you look at it’s not like the Bills are invincible. It is pros versus pros. That’s why I say it’s no moral victory. you have to somehow uh find a way to win a game and uh you know you could say so close but so far but um either you’re winning or you’re losing this still has to get better on offense we’re only 38%. That has to be um I’m not even seeing amongst the best, but that still needs to be instead of uh 38% I don’t know 45%. That’d be better if you high 40s, low 50s obviously, but our defense did pretty damn good, you know. Um cuz we were giving up coming into the game and I said, well, we got to flip that. We were giving up 46% on third down. Today, they were only 30%. That being Josh Allen, the Bills, they were three of 10. And coming into the game, uh, we were 35% conversion. Well, we were 38. So, that’s the same, uh, song and dance in in that regard when you look at it. Now, um, red zone, you know, you get down there, you got to score touchdowns. Like, I don’t even want to disrespect the play and call it the Philly special. No, that’s going to be an infamy. Um, the Alave special. Uh Spencer Rattler’s open probably played quarterback in high school, I’m sure. Or or or he’s thrown a lot of footballs. I thought we’d finally see Alvin Chimera throw a ball. Not not what Chris Olive do it. Well, well, maybe they had they obviously had confidence in Chris Havve, but he has to put some air in the net. It’s it’s a touchdown, you know. Uh but again, you got to get points there. And you’re saying, well, even if you get a field goal, but you can’t get no points. You can’t have a turnover down there. And speaking of turnovers, we still can’t end up on the plus side. I thought we’d have to be plus two in this type of game to win cuz the Bills didn’t turn it over. They don’t turn over. They finally turn it over uh against the Saints, but the turnover margin was zero again even for the uh game even for the season uh with all said and done. But you look at that red zone, we only was uh now this could have been great. You know, let’s say a throws or would a could have shouldave throws. Boy, nice pass. Here’s Spencer Rattler. Then all of a sudden instead of two for four, that’s acceptable 50%. You could have been three of four which is outstanding in the red zone. Uh this is not good enough defense. They were two of three. Somehow you know they moving the ball on us cuz we were at one point I wrote down I got to get this. We were getting gashed. That’s when that third quarter their touch the Buffalo Bills the third quarter Steve it kind of looked like he flipped the switch and said okay I’m not fooling around anymore. Okay enough of of that. That was after um you know when remember dropped the pass and then and then um that was later on in the third quarter. It was third and seven and um Rattler hit Joan Johnson plus four. So they got the ball back. This I wrote like missed tackles. They had runs just like the JV plus 10 plus 15 plus 11 plus 17 plus 11 plus 16. Make it stop. What? They went nine plays, 80 yards, uh 6 minutes, 9 seconds. That’s in Josh Allen, uh the 5-yard touchdown run, and it was only 14-10 to make it uh 21- 10 at that time. Now, um so looking at the red zone, bringing that down now looking, okay, can we run the ball, stop the run? I thought that’d be interesting. You look uh total touches and total yards from scrimmage. Alma Chimera and you look Cooks and Cook what what he would do. Well, we were outstanding running the ball. We’ve always been able to run the ball against the Bills that enough rushing attempts, 34 rushing attempts. We uh had 189 yards. Well, the Bills were dead last cuz they got off to such a poor horrendous start when the Ravens gashed them for over 200 yards. So they were number 32 rush defense giving up 156 yards uh uh uh on the season. So we were able to get 189 5.6 yard average. Outstanding but not so good on the defense. Uh they ran the ball 32 times which the Bills will run and they average 5.2 yards uh a carry. Now this is not acceptable. Um, this would be acceptable for half. 109 yards passing total. Spencer Rattler, uh, I guess that’s when you count the sacks and all combined, but he actually was 18 of 27, 126, only four yards.7 an attempt with Josh Allen and the Bills with 9.5 uh, yards per attempt in that regard. Now, he had a quarterback rating of 113.6 six and Spencer was like 89 uh.4 before. But so that was not good stopping the run, but it was good us rushing the ball and we did attempt to run the football uh enough. Now, the one thing that we did win, which is very encouraging, penalties. Um it’s like, yeah, well, you know, you got to look for some positive now. We need to do the same thing as far as penalty wise, but it does matter when the penalties occur, you know, when you’re shooting yourself at at at inopportune times in the foot. But when I look at uh if we can do this, this is winning football. It depends just because of the sheer number. If we do this against the Giants, Patriots and all going forward, only four penalties for 41 yards. And the Bills would at least penalize team with 14 in the NFL. Today they had 11. Remember I told you nine penalties or more. So really, they kind of they beat us by more than 12 points. That’s like giving up a touchdown. I know McDerman, they’re going to preach that that we cannot have uh as much as 11 penalties uh when all was said and done. Now, you look at Alvin Chimera, um average 4.7 yards a carry, had a long gain of 17. He still looks like he can hit it and get it to me. Uh Cook for them, uh whenever he rest, they’re not the same team running the football, but he averaged 5.3 yards a carry. He had a long gain of 15. Alvin had a long gain of 17. But total yards of scrimmage, Camarra had 19 touches, 72 total yards. Wasn’t as involved as he needs to be. Now, he had four catches. Think of Alan Camra, a long gain of four, but four catches. He even had some minus four catches for two yards. So, he ended up with 72 total yards in scrimmage. Still missing from us. Yak, man. Yak. Yeah. Where Cook had 135 total yards of scrimmage. Now, obviously, that was more running the football with 117 and he had three catches for 18 yards. had a long gain of 18. Um, let me see that. No, a long long gain of 11. Uh, that occurred when that happened. Now, when you look at the defensive side, um, I don’t know. I don’t want I guess it is pros. They they could take it in. Uh, Kool-Aid. Um, he led the team in tackles. That’s a That’s a positive. Yeah. But way downfield or something. He might have been tripping him. Uh, no. A positive. Uh, Kool-Aid needs to um I don’t know what we looking at, Charlie. People like what’s his new nickname? Uh, Sugar Water McKinstry. Yeah, that that was one of our on our text line. Yeah, sugar water. Sugar water. Yeah, he needs to when he gets back to playing at a high level. Hopefully that’s the case. We’ll call him Kool-Aid. Right now, he’s Sugar Water. Sugar water McKinstry. Uh, too many miss tackles. You could see the game plans. The opposing teams are picking on him. Uh now we use in a rotation just seeing if somebody can work out whether it’s McKentry uh Mckenry the young uh draft pick from Louisville Quincy Raleigh he ended up with four tackles he’s in that rotation along with Isaac Gadam I thought um Carl Granderson now you can’t have him pass coverage down the sideline he got burnt on that but uh we got to get to the passer before that would ever occur but looking at Carl Granderson and Cam Jordan I think they had a similar type impactful game like they had against the Cardinals the first game. Uh and and looking at um Cam was kind of going to be on a roller coaster because of his age. He ended up with a sack. Carl Granson had a sack. Cam had two quarterback hurries, tackles for a loss. Granderson had a quarterback hurry and he had uh two tackles for a loss. and looking at um what was um it was something that coming into the game that in the last game that he had did have good production. Uh I’m going have to find this. Uh Carl Granison playing against the Bills. So that’s always been a positive thing. I think Brian Brezie, you know, terrible game. Uh the impact he had in the Seattle game, he ended up with a sack. Quarterback Curry tackle fell out lost. I mentioned Pete Wernern. Uh Nate Nathan Shepard. Uh he is what he is. He ended up having uh two quarterback um uh hurries. Yeah. Um but he’s going to have three two or three tackles a game just way he is. Chris Rump I think a nice addition. He and affected that um that uh that was the possible interception uh that we didn’t get uh with Pete Werner, but it was still, you know, kind of pass defender hit him on his hand. He had a quarterback hurt. He had two tackles on the special teams uh which led the team unassisted. Stman, um, uh, Veilis Jones Jr. also had a couple, but I mean, there’s not much difference. Again, it’s pros versus pros, but that’s a big difference whenever it’s double digit. When you’re going against a team like the Bills, I said if we would have said the Bills, it’d be the upset of the whole 2025 season. I don’t know if you agree with that, Steve, but uh, that’s just my perception. The whole NFL. Yeah. Like I think even out all the games in the future, I think us coming off this Seahawks game and the way the Bills were playing and the point spread and what Vegas thought I go, “No, there’s no way.” I’m not talking about you win like, you know, you take the points and you win that way. I’m talking about out and out win the game. Yeah. It’s like there’s no way Vegas thought the Saints were going to beat the Bills. But, you know, we did finally score in the first quarter. You know, coming into this game, we had uh given up 30 points in the first quarter. But we had zero, right? So I’m going have to break it down. Um, so we’ve been outscored uh like four to seven now. Like yeah, two to one. Uh uh uh like in even in the second third quarter, we’ve been outscored two to one. Fourth quarter, we’ve had the le edge, but we’ve been so far behind where uh it it doesn’t even matter. Now groupy, how about groupy? Two for two. He didn’t, you know, three straight games they missed a field goal. He didn’t miss one. So you can look at some positives going forward, but but groupy to me, if he’s going to miss a kick in the future in any game, it has to be over 52 yards. Any 52, he has to make them all. And then cuz that’s the way the NFL, that’s how demanding it is. Uh, you know, right now looking at coming into the game again, how I said, uh, are we running the football, stopping the run? I thought if we could flip that and we did even better running the football, you know, we’re averaging like 3.9, that’s four yards a carry where we got 5.6. No, that that’s a good trend. Offensive line winning. I mean, uh Caesar Ruiz, I think, is he hurt? We had some fans say, “Well, uh let him stay hurt. Let was with Simpkins play.” Uh uh you know, well, we’ll just have him at guard. The very first play uh that Trevor Penning was in, I wrote this in my notes. I was like, “Uh, well, that’s not good.” It was like, um, all of a sudden we on defense cuz, you know, we declined and, um, and then, uh, I wrote Chimera minus one. Trevor Penning got beat uh, you know, to start, but then we end up um, you know, able to score on on uh, on that drive. We like Kendrick Miller. That was the Kendrick Miller we drafted at 18 yard touchdown run. That was a great run. We go seven plays 69 yards to tie the game 7 to7 and finally score in uh the first quarter. But again the next time they got the ball uh too many missed tackles chunk plays. Cook had runs of plus seven plus n plus seven then that one yardd uh touchdown. too many up and downs uh roller coaster type penalties throughout uh that I I penalties um missed tackles throughout the game uh that you cannot have and there’s no one thing you cannot have. Okay, we forced a three and out after the turnover when we had the outstanding interception by Sanker. So that was a very accurate and he made back-to-back plays, great pass defended and then the next play, third and 10, he intercepts Allen and that was the Bill’s first turnover of the season and the Saints first pick. So we finally got an interception but couldn’t carry the momentum to points. No, we we we go three and out after the turnover and we’re in plus territory and that was third and eight when Rattley hit Chris on the hot rod and he just just drops it. I mean, come on. your best receiver can’t do that. And that that’s that’s a momentum killer. You have the momentum. You have a chance. You’re going to go take the lead. And we had a lot of plays on the Bills plus side of the field. Um we end up I think Duce had said this. I don’t know what the exact number off the top of my head, but we ended up when you look at you know 65 is always the measuring stick offensive plays. Well, we had 65. The Bills had 57. And I want to say off the top of my head, I think we had like 38 plays out of 65 on the Bills side of the field and we could not that this would be the type game with that kind of um field position, you should score 30 points. This would have been like a 30-point outing. What I said before the game, I don’t think we can afford to ever get in a shootout uh to be able to uh win the game. But again, there’s no moral victories. Um the Giants are going to come to town and and we playing him at home. They they coming away with their first win. We’re going to be going against a rookie quarterback now. He got his first win. We’re trying to get Spencer Rattler his first win. If Spencer Rattler don’t win the next game, he’s tied with Troy Aman to start his career at 01. Now Troy Aman made the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So what are you saying Bobby R’s going to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame? I don’t know. We have to wait and see how his career plays out. But you know, this is why I said this in the pregame. I look at the glass half full and you always look at strength and schedule, but I’m sure the Giants are saying the same thing. Oh, we can win two in a row now. Even though we going to New Orleans, we can beat the Saints and then the P didn’t the Patriots come up with a big win. I look Tell me that Patriots score because I want to say uh Darren May was like unbelievable today or something. They ended up beating the Panthers, Bobby 4213. party the NFC and the Panthers just beat the Falcons 30 to nothing. So the NFC South uh it ain’t there for the taking because that’s Tampa Bay’s division the way the Bucks are playing. But the Patriots are going to say the same thing. Oh u uh you know I don’t know who the Patriots play next week but they’re going to say oh we can take the Saints but that’s why I try to be optimistic at at um oh the Patriots are at Buffalo. Oh no no not so fast not so fast. Exactly. So not so fast. That’s why I was saying, okay, where are we at right now to begin the season? You can break it up in quarters. You know, when you had 16 games, you go four, four, four, four. It’s okay, where you at four games. Well, now they play 17, but you still can do it like three or four games kind of where you at. But, uh, New Orleans was one coming into this game, one of six 0 and3 teams in the NFL, joining the Texans, Dolphins, Titans, and both the Jets and the Giants. Now, we all know uh the Giants won, but what I was encouraged uh you know, like the black and gold, look, we play all of those teams this season except the Texans. So, there may be opportunities to come away with a few wins or, you know, that’s what I was saying, four or five wins. I don’t know. But, um shame on the Saints and we can’t take advantage playing against teams like right now the Giants, Jets, Dolphins, or Titans. Now, they probably saying the same thing about us, but that’s just where we at right now. We got to somehow find a way to win. And again, um, you know, you could say and maybe might appease a little bit where they played hard and at least we didn’t get embarrassed. But no, it’s pro football. Either you winning or you’re losing is like I said, so feel good about the game. At least you can say they didn’t look as as awful as last Sunday in Seattle. No, last Sunday in Seattle. It was like they got all their talent sucked away from them. Well, it was like um why are we even It was like a money game. It was like the Seahawks would have paid us $2 million to go play in Seattle. You know, you got those college games where they just pay you to help your budget. No, we didn’t like we even belong on the field. We look like we belonged on the field with the Bills. Correct. But it’s the same song and dance. We just can’t finish games and make enough plays to win. like you know I say so close but so far again I’d rather us win ugly boy that was we were lucky we had a horseshoe up you know what there’s no way we should have won that game I’d rather win like that then man we played hard but look all the opportunities we had we played really good eh but we didn’t win because it just they just count whether you they just count whether you won or lost the game why is it too though when it rains it pours the bounces don’t go your way the calls nothing seems to go right when you’re just in a rut. Well, no. That’s why I was kind of with the Brandon Cooks touchdown. I go, “Oh, they called a touchdown in the field. I think that they’re not going to overturn it.” And then I said, “What? They overturn it?” I said, “I got to see the angles.” And the angles that we were able to see on TV, it looked like when he trapped it, he trapped it on his leg and he pulled it in. But again, first things first, Spencer Rattler can’t throw that bad of a pass. That’s an easy touchdown. So, you can look at the little things and okay, if you do this, then that won’t happen. what occurs and then you have drop passes. Well, well, no, that that you got to catch it. You know, that’s a good pass. And I shouldn’t have been this harsh. I get harsh um at the end of the first half. I don’t know. I think we’re down on the goal line and then um you know, Spencer I think was trying to hit Rashid Shahid in the corner. I think he wiped out one of the band members or somebody playing the drum and Rashid Shah he’s going wasn’t even involving a play going or like I could see Rashahed doing that but not a lav is going and like no that’s not not that’s not not the time to be empathetic or sympathetic but you should be so focused on football you’re not worried about unless you ran over somebody you conserving their health but no here’s um Chris Olive you know the play I’m talking about I’m just laughing because just can’t do anything right right now? No. Uh I’m like um because what is uh what is why is Alave worried about the band member and then he goes out there and and under throws and throws an interception. Huh? Maybe he was worried about Shahid getting he was worried about the dude banging his drum or something. No, I I was just I was just so discouraged that you should be so focused on the game unless you’re involved in running over you know the guy usually holds that thing for the noise. You know, it seems like they always get wiped out. The one that thinks for like the football TV noise, right? And you see him do a back flip and some player will run him over and oh, they’re concerned about him. But unless you involve I mean, come on. You’re not a trainer. You shouldn’t be. I think it because it was a female, too. So, there could have been like a I didn’t I was so focused about a girl getting trucked by the football player. I I I didn’t even I didn’t even know if it was it was a girl. Was it Pat? I I don’t know. Patty, I I don’t know. Was it a girl? I mean, he’s so focused on a female that got be so focused in the game you don’t even like realize that. I don’t whatever.

WWL Radio’s Bobby Hebert sounds off after the Saints’ latest defeat, a 31-19 loss to the powerhouse Bills that dropped New Orleans to 0-4 on the season.

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