SAINTS SQUAD SHOW: New Orleans Falls JUST SHORT vs Cardinals | Kellen Moore, Brandon Staley Eval

SAINTS SQUAD SHOW: New Orleans Falls JUST SHORT vs Cardinals | Kellen Moore, Brandon Staley Eval

Hello and welcome back to the Saints Squad Show. I’m your host Dylan Sanders of Roundtable Sports. And the Saints might not be one and0, but neither are any of my fantasy teams. This is former Saints wide receiver Lance Moore, and I was looking for a little bit of comedic relief after that game. And as soon as I turned my camera on, I realized my mustache is crooked. I’m Daria Gray of Who That Dish. And apparently, I’m the only person who got the notice that on Sundays we wear gold. [Applause] It’s the Saint Squad. Everything New Orleans Saint every week, covering all the big hits and gamechanging plays from down in the Big Easy, the way only Locked on Podcast Network can. Get ready and squat up. It’s the Saint Squad Show starting now. Howdy, Internet Nation. Welcome back to the State Squad Show, part of the Lock on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thank you for making us your first listen every Sunday and now Wednesday. We’ll get a little bit more on that later. Uh we have a unique group of experts here ready to bring you a fun and informative show on everything New Orleans Saints. Uh there was a game finally the first game of the season. Uh for better or worse, we are going to jump into it uh right away. But today’s episode is brought to you by Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code locked on NFL for $20 off your first purchase. All right, the game just wrapped a couple minutes ago. Instant reaction. Let’s Let’s just start off with our our base first thoughts on the game. And let’s start off with you, Lance. So, after all of that, right, we’re not even I’m not even going to go into the negatives. We had a chance at the end of the game. That to me is a good start. Yeah. Now, the specifics about the game, the one thing that stands out to me the most on the positive side, at least we’re talking offensively, is the fact that we took care of the football. No turnovers. The best part of our defense to me in my opinion was getting after the quarterback, right? multiple sacks, pressures, like that to me is encouraging as well as not giving up a ton of yards and obviously not giving up a ton of points. 20, right? You’d like it to be 14 to 17. 20 points, I’ll take it. We cannot ever have 13 penalties in a game. And it actually should have been closer to 16 or 17, I believe, because there was penalties that happened on plays that were either third down and we didn’t convert or the offense had a play and they declined a penalty because they had first down conversions. That to me is a sign of a poorly coached football team. And part of the problem with penalties and specifically the pre- snap penalties or the alignment penalties, things like that, to me is a is is a direct impact of your starters not getting reps in preseason games or not getting enough reps in preseason games. Highly penalized teams usually are the teams that lose more games. And if we want to be a good football team, not even a great football team, if we want to be a good football team, we’ve got to clean those things up. Aggression penalties, personal fouls, things like that. Even the pass interference penalties, competitive penalties are things that you can live with as a coach. The pre-nap boneheaded penalties that kill drives over and over and over again will kill a season. And if they don’t get that fixed quickly, because look, I don’t think Arizona is going to be a great football team. So, if you can’t get those things in order to compete with a team like Arizona, what do we think is going to happen once we start playing the Buffaloos, the San Francisco, and the likes. So, for me, I’m encouraged by the fact that we had an opportunity at the end of the game. I’m discouraged by the fact that we had 13 penalties, right? And and to me, honestly, like I love the guys on this team. Arizona’s guys made more plays. Plain and simple. Their DBs made more plays on the ball. Mhm. Their receivers made more plays downfield. Ours didn’t. And that’s the difference in the game. You have a play on third and whatever in the red zone to tie the football game or potentially go for two and steal a win. We don’t make the play. That’s the name of the game in the NFL. You make plays or you don’t. The team that makes more plays wins games. It is what it is. Like we want to be a good football team. We were not today. There were some good things, but we just didn’t make enough plays and they did unfortunately. Yeah. And and Spencer Rattler to me played well. Oh yeah. I don’t think he played great. I don’t think he played great, but I think he played well. He played like a starting quarterback. Is there throws that he would like to have back? I’m sure. Would is there situations that I think his receivers let him down? Absolutely. But taking care of the football, making plays with his legs, and not putting us in harm’s way really at all, I’ll take it every single week. I will take it. I do think that needs to get more aggressive, too. He has to because if teams are going to go into to games not having to worry about the ball being thrown over the top of their heads and they can just play aggressive underneath defense, we’re going to be really really easy to defend. We got too much speed on our offense to not take shots down the field. Even if you’re just doing it just to do it, to make them think that you’re going to do it. And I’m sorry for ranting, but I feel how feel. It’s all good and no no need to apologize. Darren, um, let’s hear your thoughts. Lance covered a lot of the bases and let’s be clear when it comes to penalties, when it comes to self-inflicted errors such as poor tackling on defense that we’ve seen a couple of critical times when it comes to plays in the red zone where you have to finish. The Saints don’t have the luxury of not making those plays and still winning, right? Like some teams can first off, most teams aren’t going to be afford the storm of all of those plays happening in one game, but the Saints can’t. The margin of error is way smaller. It’s a slim margin of error. And when you look at it through that lens, yeah, Jawan has to catch that pass. Justin Reed has to bring down that tight end on third down. You look at plays where um there was a second and 15, which or first and 15, which came from a pre- snap penalty. Then Kendra Miller gets the ball. I think it was either his first or second carry. He gets 10 yards, eats up that yardage, and puts you in a favorable second down. What do you do right after that? Pre- snap penalty. So now you’re in second and 10. These are the type of plays Saints simply cannot afford. So when you start doing that repeatedly and you understand that the margin of error is slim, well, this is what you get. I like Lance feel the same way. I loved the things I saw from Spencer Rattler late. We can have arguments on talent and these things that all do come into play, but for a moment, let me just take that, put it to aside, Spencer Rattler has the mental makeup of a quarterback. Now, will the ability come through and he be able to be the starter for the Saints long term? Time will tell, but I can tell that he has the mental fortitude. I can tell that he has the ability when things get tough, he has shown his he has shown to rise to the occasion, at least late. And I think that his throw to Jawan Johnson should have been caught. Should have been a touchdown. I feel like I feel like they would have went for two. Once again, we don’t know, but I feel like they would have went for two. It just feels like when times are high, Cardinals last year in the preseason, um the I don’t know why I’m drawing the blank on which preseason game it was this year, but Spencer Rattler has had these moments where he needs or the team needs him to step up and rise, and he has. So, that’s a little bit of the good. The bad obviously outweighs it, but tackling was a problem last year. It needs to be fixed this year and in week one it wasn’t. And that was to me the biggest flaw on the defense. Yeah, I agree. I I would agree with that. I I really, you know, I think the big the big takeaway right now, it is the first game of the Keller Moore era. We’ll get a lot of our impressions on him uh more specifically a little bit later. Uh, but it also is Spencer Rattler needing to prove that he is the guy and he did everything that he was asked to do today. Really, uh, you know, I don’t love seeing 46 attempts for 200 yards, but like again, that’s really kind of what they were asking him to do. That’s kind of this offense. It’s a lot of quick hits, a lot of getting in rhythm, a lot of getting down the field. And I think whenever they whatever, again, like we saw in the preseason, whenever they let Rattler and, you know, Olive and Shahed get into a rhythm, the ball started to move. And I think that it was just uh needed to be a little bit better maybe from a play calling perspective. And and you’re right, Rattler did not make the big crazy mistakes. We saw I can think of one throw off the top of my head which was like really like you really probably shouldn’t have thrown that was the big deep ball to Shahed in the end zone that was almost intercepted very early on. But you know if that’s the one play you look at and you’re like man you really probably shouldn’t have done that. I think that’s fine. Especially whenever you come down and I think he made the throws and made the decisions on that last drive that he needed to do. It was a really impress I was really impressed by that last drive. That ball to Jawan Johnson was was abuse and uh and he should have that the receiver should have come down with the ball and I think that this game should not be Spencer Rally was not the reason the Saints lost this game. You know, you look at 13 points sometimes you think maybe the quarterback needed to do a better job. It was not Spencer Rler. No, it it it wasn’t Spencer Rler. He did everything that he needed to do in that game again to give us an opportunity to win the game. He he can’t catch the ball for Jawan. He can’t catch the ball for Chris Olive earlier on in that two-minute drive. And while people are saying the referee screwed us over, I disagree. Like, it is what it is. That that play had no no impact or bearing on the the the ultimate outcome of the game. It was an incompletion. We kept it moving. We still put ourselves in in a position to have opportunities to win with three shots to the end zone from, you know, from the 15 yard line or wherever we were. Um, yeah. I mean, I I think Spencer Rattler did what he was supposed to do. I think our offensive line let him down. I think there was plays early on in the game where I mean, Tesli Fuanga did not look great. He was getting beat. He was getting trampled a couple of times. our run game was a non-factor. Like these things are are that’s why we had to throw the ball 40 plus times because we couldn’t run the football. And then, you know, like there wasn’t a whole lot of separation on the outside a lot of the time, which to me was was the reason why his completion percentage wasn’t as high as you would like it to be. But there’s not going to be any separation on the outside if you don’t take shots down the field. If guys know that they can just sit on routes, there’s not going to be too much separation. like you as a play caller, I think Kell Moore needs to get a little bit more aggressive and it’s not about like, oh, I need to, you know, not call certain plays because, you know, I’m trying to be careful with Spencer Rattler. I think you it you have to open it up and at least make the defense think that you’re going to potentially throw the ball down the field. I mean, it’s it’s I played the position. It is hard winning on routes when guys know that everything is going to be short to intermediate, right? If you’re taking those deep shots away and there’s so much speed on the outside, like it’s it’s disappointing to see that you don’t take more shots down the field with the the plethora of speedy receivers that we have. Um, and I mean it’s the first game and and and I know it’s it’s only one loss, but I hope that there’s a whole lot that’s gained from that one loss and it doesn’t snowball into multiple losses after this. I mean, I think they can watch the film and think like, man, we really left some stuff out there and and honestly, I don’t know what more you could want from your defense in a game like this like to continue to give you opportunities and the offense not being able to cash in. they got to be kicking themselves. You know, it’s not like we lost 35 to7. You know, it’s it’s it’s a a very very winnable game. Um, one that you left out there that you can’t get back. And real quick, Dylan, let me say this real quick because I know we’re probably going to have to go to break soon. A play that we haven’t mentioned yet that we probably should have mentioned is that missed field goal by Blake. Oh, yeah. And though it only cuts it down to a four-point lead, so or a four-point deficit, you still need a touchdown to win. So it doesn’t change too much. But that felt like such a gut punch and it was a long drive. You didn’t get many drives in the sec in the third quarter. So you only had two. I just looked real quick because it felt like I was going to mention that I felt like we abandoned the run a little early. So I was trying to go and count how many runs that we had in the third quarter, but then I just thought about it. Hold on. We missed a field goal when we got down there in in field goal range. And I in my personal opinion, I think that Blake Groupy kind of has a history of being a good kicker, but when the pressure is on, and that wasn’t a gamewinner or anything, but it was a moment where, hey, we needed to respond. I don’t think that groupy has a great track record when there’s pressure involved, when it’s cool, calm. I like what groupy does when the heat’s on when we need it. And this was a needed situation because 10 points with the offense that with the lead being led by Spencer Rattler who is inexperienced, it felt like, hey, the Saints need to respond and respond quickly. He led them down the field. Another crucial moment that Spencer Rattler rose up in, but then when it came to getting the field goal, you saw that not work and you saw the inefficiencies in the red zone. Those are a couple of things that I felt like we hadn’t mentioned so far that did need to be discussed before we got to the impressions of Coach Moore. Yeah, absolutely. I I completely agree, Blake Rupy. You know, we had this off seasonason of hype. Everyone was exciting. I He missed maybe one kick all preseason. Everyone was ready and then he comes out and immediately misses a 37 yard field goal in a crucial moment. It’s really done. And I mean, and like Darien said, like any little bit of momentum that we had from the positivity of that drive, shot gone because your kicker can’t make a very manageable kick. captain. Team captain. I’m I’m not I’m not going to go into I’m not going to go into that, but you know, you you you won the kicking job. You have one job. I mean, it’s not It wasn’t a hard field goal in my opinion. I’ve never kicked a field goal in my life, but I was never paid to either. So, like, he’s got to do his job and make the field goals. All of the field goals that he’s supposed to make and most of the ones that are super duper difficult. That’s the job of an NFL kicker today. Yep. All right. Well, let’s jump into our our first impressions of the coaching staff. Uh before we do, I think we can all take a little bit of solace in the fact that Young Boy Coup missed a game tying field goal and the Falcons are also 0 and one. 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That’s code locked on NFL on prize picks for $50 in lineups after your first $5 play. Prize picks. Feels good to be right. All right, let’s jump into these coaching uh let’s talk about this coaching decisions. Let’s start with Kell Moore. I think where a lot of people are going to start and where I kind of want to start is with the timeouts the first half into the first half. Really poor usage of timeouts. Really poor game management. At least from my perspective, it feels like you could have a minute and a half to go down there and get a field goal back. If you don’t trust your offense to do that and you want to just get to the half, I feel like there’s a bigger problem here. Uh but yeah, let’s start with the timeout usage. And that also plays into the needing to be more aggressive. Uh, Lance, what do you think of, you know, his first impressions of Kell Moore? Well, I mean, they talked about it on the broadcast and and they were saying like, why would the Saints not use their timeouts here? Because then you give yourself a minute plus to be able to put a drive together to hopefully put some points on the board. I I I didn’t really understand what was going on there. Like, it it it I’m still scratching my head because I don’t understand why you wouldn’t give your offense another opportunity. like it it there’s no to me there’s no positive reason why you wouldn’t do why you would do what he did. Um the lack of confidence in the quarterback, lack of confidence in your offense, like none of it is good. So yeah, that that to me was was poor as far as decision- making goes. Um I I I to me the pre-nap penalties are concerning like and that that is a direct reflection of coaching. I I I’ve said it for years. Mike Tomlin always said, “You’re either coaching it or you’re allowing it.” Like, so what’s going on with that? There’s obviously no officials at practices anymore, but like there has to be repercussions for pre- snap penalties. Now, I’m not going and and saying that he he needs to bench guys for having pre-nap infractions, but I do think there has to be a little bit more emphasis on them not shooting themselves in the foot because like we’ve already stated in this this little short period after the game, this team can’t afford to do that to themselves, right? Like, we’ve got to do everything that we can to stay on schedule and those types of infractions are going to be catastrophic potentially for this team. Um, I I would like for the offensive play calling to be more aggressive, like I said earlier, like as far as downfield shots, maybe a screen or two. Like I don’t know that he’s called one screen to a running back in this game. Um, yeah, I I I I would love for him to maybe stick with the run game a little bit more, but it’s hard when you’re playing from behind and you’re constantly penalized. So, um, the jury is still out. I don’t think Kell Moore called a great game. I don’t think he called a terrible game. Um, but I I think he he left a lot to the imagination with that game today. And I and I hope, you know, he will learn from the fact that he didn’t use timeouts and he potentially stole or or robbed his team of having an extra possession. And it sucks when you think about this game coming down to it being a single possession at the end. Yeah. Yeah. I think that rookie rookie move, you know, I I think that failing to call those timeouts definitely felt like an inexperienced head coach and I’ll chalk it up to that. One thing I try to do as little as possible is have these huge reactions to things that are still fluid. And I think that who he is as a coach is still fluid. I think it was a terrible mistake. I’m not going to not I’m not going to downplay it, but Lance has already talked about it. There’s no need for me to get in and say like we’re the Dudley boys or something and get a tag team. All right, it’s my turn. Like that’s not what I’m here to do. I thought Lance did it great. But what I will do is I’ll flip this question to Lance and it’s the last time I’ll talk about it to us sitting here on our couches or sitting here watching on TV. We say, “Oh, he doesn’t trust the offense.” You were a part of an offense. If you were on that side, obviously you’re not going to get super down, but what message does it send to you as a player when there was a clear opportunity, they’re in a goal situation. It’s not as if they’re driving and you didn’t choose it. They had three downs left, so you know you’re going to get the ball. It’s just about how much time to get the ball with. So, if you were on that sideline, what’s going through your head as a player? It pissed me off. What are we doing? Why are we not using our timeouts? And then I would go over and ask the receiver coach, “Why are we not calling timeouts?” Like, get in his ear and tell him to call a timeout. Like, I I I don’t I for the life of me, I can’t understand why he wouldn’t do that. If you if you They said on the broadcast, well, maybe they think that, you know, if they go three and out, then they give Arizona the ball back with timeouts, then so be it. So be it. Like, give give yourself a chance. Yeah. That that to me is pretty it’s pretty incredible once you I mean have you ever seen that? I’m sure it’s happened a time or two, but it definitely isn’t something that’s happen happening regularly. It felt like a lot of times the game was being called not to lose while they were actively losing instead of going and trying to win a game. It was a little conservative and maybe, you know, may it was his first time being the head coach. Maybe there were some jingers. It’s just the fact that that can’t really happen in the NFL. Like you don’t really Yeah, you can’t you can’t do that. It’s Well, it’s not it’s not an excuse. Yeah, that might be the reason, right? That that might be, hey, he it he it’s his first go at it, but that’s still not an excuse that doesn’t like dismiss the blame from him or remove the blame from him. Still his fault. Yeah. And and you look at it in that third quarter, you have two drives. You never know how a game is going to play out. You had two drives in the third, four drives in the fourth. You can’t. And I I point out that these two, not to compare how many in totality, but two in one, four in the other. And you look at the second quarter, you had two drives in the second quarter. You look in the first quarter, you had one drive, right? So, you’re looking at these these drives and or this is not right. This is not right on ESPN. Scrap that. But you had a limited drive. The point is, I’m trying to go through real quick and play it. But the point is, you never know how many drives that you’re gonna get. So, you can’t waste any of them. You can’t take them away from yourself. Lance brings up a great point. So be it. If you don’t get it, so be it. But you’re not going to score, right? Like there there’s a saying, you miss every shot that you don’t take. He didn’t take that shot. He did not take that shot. Who knows what they would have been able to do. Would you been able to drive down? The lack of confidence that early in the game as well would be concerning to me. It’d be one thing if all right, the everything’s going terribly. You don’t feel like you’ve been putting anything together over the last three games and we’ve been in this scenario before. This is your first two-minute drill of the regular season and you chose to not take it. That’s concerning, right? So, that’s the way I look at it. I I really do focus on not running the football. And that ties into the lack of drives because by the time you get to the fourth quarter, you’re down 10. You don’t have time to be methodically running down the field. You’re trying to get it, get it, get it. And you’re trying to move a little bit more rapidly, get points a little quicker. It just all comes back to it. You never know how much you have. And you just think about how different that that game could have been if you were down seven instead of 10. I liked what I saw from Kendra Miller. I know that Deon Neil only got two carries, but I liked what I saw from Deon Neil the same way I did in the last preseason game. Alvin Chimera had an 18 yard run. Everything wasn’t great. He had some negative runs in there as well, but I thought that the the running backs showed the ability to be the engine of this offense if it is a close game, right? And they got more carries because now you have more opportunities for things to pop. But once you down 10 in the fourth quarter, you start running. So it all comes back to me. Same thing. How much time do you have? Or excuse me, not knowing how much time you have. And you took that off the board for yourself. So I’ll leave it at that. Yeah. Four 4.8 8 point yards per rush is uh is enough to win a game. It’s just the fact that you know didn’t happen enough. Uh one one more thing on the timeouts just because we are alive while Kell was doing the press conference after the game he said uh it’s something we were certainly talked about. We almost called the timeout and that was that was the the further to me that just screams they know they made a mistake and they can’t really defend it and now it’s just invest again. Yeah. How I mean there is no way to defend it. My thing is it’s third, it’s a cold situation. You know, you’re getting the ball back. I’ve seen coaches say, “I don’t know if I want to take a a timeout when they’re driving. You don’t want to give them more opportunities.” Unless you have a defensive penalty. There are three downs that they’re going to run at max. Three downs that they are going to run. To me, it’s inexcusable. To me, it is a rookie mistake. Like I said, I’m not going to come in and and say anything further because there’s only so much you can say. Like, there’s only so much you can It was a bad decision not to do. But yeah, it’s one that I think I hope they learn from and next time they get into this situation, they’ll try to preserve their opportunities more than they try to preserve their timeouts. the the 2011 Saints offense can afford to take a possession off this one can’t this they they ain’t got they ain’t got these guys out here that but that’s my point like what what are we doing and like the more that I think about it the more it gets me frustrated in an NFL game and a just for general sake each offense is going to get six to eight possessions give give or take, right? Plus or minus one or two depending on how the defenses are playing. We can’t afford to give one up. Mhm. We just can’t. Especially when our kick especially when our kicker can’t make a makeable field goal. Yeah. It feel might feel like we’re harping on this decision, the the timeout thing, but I do really feel that it’s like a microcosm of what lost the Saints this game. It was the decision-m. It was the conservativeness. It was it was a lot of like small things that, you know, maybe you can get away with in, you know, it happens once, but it was a lot of poor decision-m adding up throughout the game to put the Saints back behind the the line. And uh it just, you know, again, not a not a great first possession for And I don’t blame you for harping on it because it’s one of those things where you question why did you do it? It’s I still can’t find the explanation other than fear. Other than not wanting to put your team on the on the field again. Oh, we might go three and out. They might get the ball right back. The only explanation is fear. And that’s never what you want the only explanation to be. So, I don’t think you’re harping on it too much. I I genuinely don’t because I struggle to find the reason that is rooted in anything other than to me the worst explanation in game one. Yeah. Well, look, I I’ll boil it down to two two things. Talk to you already spoken enough, which we I’m sure we’ll continue to do. We’ve got 30 more minutes, but poor decision- making, one for sure, and number two, not enough playmaking. That’s it. Not enough playmaking. Can’t make a kick. Can’t make a critical tackle on third down. Can’t make a a game-tying touchdown catch. Now, those are only three specific plays. There was plenty more throughout the entirety of this game. But to me, those are the two reasons why we lost this game. Poor decision-m and not enough playmaking. That’s what it is. That’s what it boils down to. The Arizona made great decisions most of the game and they made more plays than we did on both sides of the ball. Even though we have more sacks, and we’ll get into that in the next segment, like they their defense made more plays. That’s just just what it is. and and unfortunately for us we’re the ones that ended up on the short end of the stick here. Yeah. Yeah. It’s Yeah, I think it it was the offensive side of the ball that there’s a lot of talk a lot of people early on really kind of, you know, dogging dogging the defense at times, you know, some early troubles and third down. It was not at all the it was the offense and it was, you know, I think if we were to pin this loss on one person, it’s Kell Moore. And it’s just it it was a, you know, poor execution and poor preparation with all the pre- snap penalties. I I just overall not not a great first uh first impression, but you know, it wasn’t the worst. It wasn’t the wor It’s just that, you know, there were a lot of frustrating things that happened in this loss. Yeah. Yeah. Can’t make and and when you have that, you you point to things on the defense and say, “All right, man. man, if you would make that tackle and like it’s you point to any little moment because I keep flashing my mind back to that. I think it was Justin Reed and maybe Trey McBride. It was one of their tight ends. But you I think it was it was Which one was it? I think I think you’re talking about the third down late. Yeah. Look, it was a Saints defender and a and an Arizona uh receiver that right that let’s let’s put it there. You make that tackle, they don’t go down and they don’t score. Like, oh, that was that was right. And you look at these moments and it’s like, ah, they’re gonna point to a couple of plays in this game and say, if that were different. If that were different. And honestly, part of me wants to feel like, okay, well, I mean, if it’s a handful of moments, you can clean them up. I can feel good. But the moments are so frustrating and it’s so recent. I I don’t have the optimism yet. Maybe I’ll have the optimism when you talk to me in a couple days, but right now I don’t have it yet. Yeah. Well, I think we’ll have a little bit of optimism coming up next when we talk about the defense because there was a lot more to be happy about even if it wasn’t maybe a perfect game. NFL season is back and honestly there’s nothing better than being in the stadium surrounded by fans cheering on your team. But let’s be honest, if there’s one thing I hate more than watching the Saints lose, it is having to buy a ticket to a sporting event. There’s hidden fees. It takes forever. It’s kind of confusing about if I’m getting a good deal or not. But you can put all that to an end with game time. That’s what I use. It’s the app that gives the advantage back to the fans. Game time is fast, easy, and is backed by the game time guarantee. You’ll always get 100% authentic tickets delivered on time and at the best price possible. Plus, all fees are included, so the price you see is the price you pay. I pulled up game time and in just a couple of taps, you’ll see amazing deals. You can get to your favorite NFL games as low as $100, even more if you’re a Saints fan. Even even less if you’re a Saints fan. Download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code lock on NFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, that’s promo code LOL O C O D NFL for $20 off. Swipe, tap, ticket, go. Download Game Time today. Jumping back into it, let’s start on the defensive side of the ball. Let’s let’s get to Brandon Staley because I think if there was a Saints coach to be happy with today, it was Brandon Staley. The defense came out aggressive. It looked good. There were some, you know, some tackling issues and misplays, but overall they had a chance to win at the end of the game, and that was thanks to the defense. Uh, Lance, start with you. Yeah. Um, five sacks. I’m just I’m looking at the numbers here. Five sacks, positive, right? Like I mean, we they had one, we had five. I’ll take that every every single day of the week. Um, what do they have? 276 total yards. I’ll take that every single day of the week. My problem, 146 yards rushing, 5.4 per carry, and I think it was it was, you know, one long run that really hurt us, which goes back to poor tackling because there’s guys there in position. Um, one guy in particular, I don’t want to keep, you know, you know, beating a dead horse here, Koul’s got to make that tackle. Um, but I think this defense has to do more just based on what we saw offensively. They’ve got to make more plays. They’ve got to find a way to turn the ball over. They’ve got to find a way to turn the ball over and give our offense a short field. But then again, if our offense gets a short field, we’re one for four in the red zone. So, I don’t even know if that’s going to help. Um, so there’s things to be encouraged about. Um, I do feel like late in the game in those kind of critical situations, I need my my DBs to be up and challenging their receivers. I can’t have my number one corner, right? Kool-Aid, he’s going to be our number one corner. I can’t have him getting beat by a tight end in a critical third down. That shouldn’t happen ever. If you want to be a locked down elite corner in the National Football League, you can’t get beat in those situations by a tight end. Even though I will say Trey McBride is probably top five tight end in the National Football League, but your corner has to be able to lock that up. Um, yeah, there’s things to be encouraged about, but there’s definitely like I’m not going to be one of those guys glass half full in a loss. Like I I I’m I’m I want to talk about the negative. So then now we have to address the negative, right? Sure, we can be positive about what we saw, but we also need to address the negative. It wasn’t perfect on the defensive side of the ball either. So, poor tackling, not enough playmaking as far as getting the ball out of there, whether it’s a interception or a fumble, we got to find a way. Like, this defense played well, but I think in order to help our offense out, which obviously is not where it needs to be yet, our defense has to turn the football over um and and do extra as far as, you know, being able to help our offense to to to create some extra opportunities, especially when our head coach is taking one away from our offense. Marvin Harrison Jr. deep shot. Trey Benson 50ard run. Yep. Two plays. The explosive plays have to stop. You go through and you look at the rest of the game. They had their moments. They had their moments for Arizona, but all in all, those two plays changed so much on the defensive side. It did feel like they began to run the football a little bit better as time went on. Um, it did feel like they began to do that, but at the beginning of the game, there was a lot of reason to feel good. Now, I’m sitting here thinking, is 20 too much? Is 17 too much? You know, I mean, I don’t I don’t know how to how to grade what the offense is going to do if they’re going to continue to have as many penalties as points. Like, I don’t know how to grade that. So, when you’re playing as a defense and you know your offense is struggling, typically say, “All right, we just got to hold them to this. It’s too unpredictable. I know this is about the defense, but it’s kind of hard to discuss the defense without looking at the inefficiencies of the offense because I do feel like they did enough. Even with the flaws, even with those two big plays, even with the poor tackling, it does it does feel like 20 points. I I’ll take I’ll take it. It’s not great. I think that Kyler is a difficult um quarterback to corral with his legs at times. of course, um, does make you wish that Chase Young was in this game so you could add two athletic guys on the edge. But you know what? Maybe I shouldn’t even say something like that when Cam Jordan had a sack and a half today. So maybe I shouldn’t even, right? We we’ve talked about the bad and the bad exist, but to see Cam Jordan get a sack and a half. So, you know, maybe all that talk he had about the change in defensive personnel on the coaching staff really does make a make a difference because for him to have that sack at the very beginning, I thought that showed veteran, you know, a veteran move. We talked about a rookie move with Kell Moore. That was a veteran move, not getting tricked by the play action. I thought that he had a nice rush on that half sack he shared with Granderson. But all in all, the defense is going to have to be much better if the offense is going to continue playing this way. There was some highs on the on the trenches at times, but I think Kool-Aid McKenry, if we’re doing winners and losers, I think Kool-Aid McKenry took a real big hit here. Allowed that that long play to Marvin Harrison Jr. I do want to ask about the touchdown from a receiver standpoint. So, let’s pivot real quick to that touchdown where he tries to run over the top of of the receiver running across the field. To me, that’s exactly what he wants you to do, right? So, I’ll ask you, Lance, I guess I’ll try to phrase it this way. If you’re in that situation, I think it was Michael Wilson running that drag and they’re trying to create the mess. What don’t you want the quarterback to do? Right? Like what what is it like? Oh, man. I like what Oh, going over the top, you got the better of him. But what would Kool-Aid have done better in that situation in your mind? Well, from the offensive perspective, you want to bubble that DB over the top. So, it’s it’s it’s a mesh play. So, the receivers are literally supposed to look like they’re getting ready to run into each other and then the the high guy ends up just slipping over the the low guy and the DB has to make a choice. He really can’t be right. Honestly, if Kool-Aid tries to go underneath, he’s still going to have trouble staying with Marvin Harrison because he already has a step on him. As an offensive play caller, you hope and pray that the defense is in man-to-man coverage. They got schemed up and and it’s unfortunate. Like, there’s really not anything Kool-Aid can do on that play other than hope that he’s running stride for stride right behind Marva Marvin Harrison Jr. and to be able to get a hand on that ball late. But, um, you know, you play man-to-man coverage in the red zone. The offense is going to run crossers and and have you play at a disadvantage based on your coverage. There’s really I mean, they they got schemed up. Sure, he got beat for the touchdown. It was man-to-man coverage. He was trailing in that play and had to bubble over the top. That’s exactly what you want from an offensive perspective. And that’s not to say like, oh, they should have played zone on that particular play because they could have had a zone beater up on that particular play, you know? I mean, and even that play, that mesh play can win against zone. Everything drops off. Your guys instead of continuing to run across the field, they stop in a in an open area. Kyler could hit him. He can literally turn around and fall in the end zone. So, it’s it’s not like, oh, that play is only going to work against the the specific coverage. He got he got schemed up. It just so happened that we were in man coverage and they had crossers called or the specifically the mesh concept called. So I would say sure that’s that’s on Kool-Aid but it’s just as much called on Brandon Staley as it is on him. And I think that’s why we ask these questions because I know a lot of times, you know, and I think that’s the blessing of the show, right? We get to sit here and things that are easy to be upset because the truth is if Kool-Aid doesn’t give up that deep shot, if he doesn’t get up that shot uh that that pass to McBride, then maybe we just like, oh, just man beat it. But then when you have these other critical plays, it’s easy like, and you know what, and he should have stopped that touchdown pass. That was on him, too. But I like to I like to throw these questions out here from a I played the game, not me, but you know, asking you to answer it from a I played the game standpoint. And I think it it helps educate everybody listening, everybody checking out to get a little bit more understanding of exactly what’s going on because, you know, I’ve always said, I think the Saints fans are very smart, but we’re still fans and we can still get emotional. We still have those questioning logic moments, but that’s why you ask these questions and and get a little bit of explanation. But Stars got to make bigger plays and in and bigger moments. And it’s hard to say that when I feel like they had a solid second half, but it it clearly wasn’t enough with everything that went into it. And it it wasn’t all bad for Kool-Aid at all. I mean, he had a couple PBUs. There was a a to me that pass interference to to early to to Marvin Harrison on the on the deep end route where Kool-Aid kind of pulled his jersey that does not always get called. It it got called, sure, whatever. But to me, I I was pleased with him being in position and then being able to make a play on the ball. You see, a lot of times DBs are in the perfect position. They got their eyes back, but for whatever reason, they can’t they can’t get their hands on the football. So, like, yes, was it pass interference? Absolutely. I played receiver. If somebody does that to me, I’m going to be complaining 100 times out of 100. But he was in good position. To me, the the pulling of the jersey was a late kind of panic move because he was stride for stride. He was a step behind, but still able. I think I think he would have been able to make a play on the ball without the little tug. Um, but you know, I think with a with a I think sometimes we try to anoint somebody before they’re actually at a certain level. and the fact that other guys are now gone is the reason why Kool-Aid now is thrust into that quarterback one position. It’s not because he outplayed guys that were there, right? So, I think it’s there’s going to be some growing pains associated with him becoming that quarterback one for this group. Um, but we’re into the regular season now, so that hopefully that process is sped up with him and and you know, hopefully he learns from his mistakes in this game as well. I wanted to look back and uh at some of these big players that we were talking about they they’ve given up. I wanted to go back look at the situations they happened in and then the consequences that followed the 45 yard pass to uh Marvin Harrison. It was second and four around midfield. That’s you know a situation where you take a deep shot. Uh and that’s exactly what happened that that it paid off. Um and then that led to the touchdown pass to Marvin Harrison. Then in their next drive, uh it was a uh 25 yard pass to Trey McBride on third and 12. Was a real gut punch killer. That one that one was awful. And then it set up the touchdown like shovel to James Connor later on which made it 17 to 10. And then you had the 54 yard run on second and 11. So you get them to start behind the the get them to start lose yards on first down and then immediately give up the the 52 yard run which again uh set up the field goal which you know ended up not mattering in all but it you know still don’t want to give up points there. Um so yeah just bad poor poor situational play for the defense and I’ll give them their credit. They played that last uh that last drive to get the ball back with time perfectly. I loved the the aggressive decision to blitz Alante Taylor there on third down. They went all out for the sack and that’s exactly what they got. Uh it was I think pulled off perfectly. So I’ll give them their credit there. But a lot of times I think a lot of people are going to look at this game and be like, “Man, the defense didn’t do well.” And I think it’s be going to be because of the poor situation, like big moments. They let up a lot of big plays. But all in all, for 90% of the game, I think the defense played well. It was those those moments that make it look worse in the big picture. Yeah. I mean, and and it’s it’s moments that lead to point scoring opportunities. They had more of them than we did, you know? I mean, that’s that’s I feel like that’s Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you you I’m I’m going to say that it’s it’s rare that you don’t give up any big plays, but giving up big plays in big time situations, those are back breakers. Um and that that ultimately to me is is kind of the difference in this game. They they made big plays in critical situations and we did not unfortunately it it was the you know they give up the big run. They do then come out and then stop them hold them to a field goal and then the offense comes out and you know not to get back to the offense but the offense comes out 14play drive. Five minutes taken off the clock. you kind of feel like okay that you know it’s still in the game and then groupy misses the field goal and then you’re right back at you know being upset and moving on. All right well uh wrapping it up. We’re going to come back and give out uh be mostly positive in the next segment and talk about our uh player of the game players of the game because it’s not all going to be the same one. Although I think a lot of us had one person come to mind pretty often. If there’s one thing that I hate, it’s paying full price for gas. I love, you know, it’s a it’s an it’s a it’s necessary, but it’s an evil. Uh that’s why I use the free upside app. Stop leaving money behind and get real cash back every time you fill up your gas tank with the free upside app. Simply download Upside in the App Store or Google Play right now and start earning cash at the pump today. Use my limited time promo code touchdown and get an extra 25 cents back per gallon on your first fillup. You can make up to $300 a year just from buying gas that you already need. At first, I thought it was too good to be true, but it is totally legit. Real people are getting paid back just to make their daily commutes. And you can, too. Plus, you can cash out anytime to your bank account, PayPal, or an e gift card for Amazon and other brands. Don’t let this offer drive on buy. Download the free upside now and use my limited time promo code touchdown for 25 cents per gallon bonus. That’s promo code touchdown. Offers vary by user and location. Go to upsite.com for terms and conditions. All right, wrapping it up today. Let’s give out some uh some first game awards. Player of the game. Uh I’m going to go ahead and and start us off. I’m going to go with the obvious what I thought. It’s Cam Jordan, man. That that week one energy, that game one energy coming out a sack and a half. Uh immediate energy on the defensive side of the ball. And I think that carried on throughout the game. When you have a guy like Chase Young who you’re you’re excited about, you he suffers an injury right before the game. You miss him. It was the pass which I was already, you know, really worried about and then it was partially worried about because we’re like, man, Cam Jordan, can he really can he still do it at 50 at 15 years because he’s hasn’t been the same level of pass rusher the past couple of times. Uh, but he did it this time stack and a half. Cam Jordan, uh, have your flowers, man. It was a great game and it’s great to see him, you know, hitting that that stack celebration already this year. Oh, man. Hearing you almost called this man 50. um 15 15. It was 50 years old. He He was about to say 50 years old. He said, “Oh, wait. Yeah, the camera’s on. The camera’s on. The camera’s on.” Uh uh. But no, all jokes aside, look, I think that we were probably a catch away from going the player of the game being Dilly’s favorite Johnson. You know, I know that’s that’s that’s your bag. John Lance, who is your favorite, who is your game of Hey, look, I’ll tell you the truth. When we were talking about the offense, I said, “Dang, I didn’t say it.” I was like, “When can I get this in?” And I was like, “Okay.” I started going through the rundown. I’m gonna mention how Jawan was almost my player of the game. But no, seriously, if Jawan catches that pass, he is the leading receiver. He has the game tying touchdown. I do think they go for two. Um, and honestly, there’s nothing to base this too much off of, but I think they get the two. I really do feel like you go up and you win this game if Jawan Johnson catches that pass. He would have been my player of the game. I probably would have went back and forth between him and Rattler. But on critical downs or critical drives like the missed field goal drive, who did Rattler go to? He went to Jawan. When you go to the fourth quarter on that final drive, take out that last catch, he was going to Jawan, right? So, like there was moments where he was going to Jawan and that was his trusted guy, which was good to see in totality and looking forward. But yeah, it’s Cam Jordan. Um, I think that I I really thought he would be out of his depth in this game. And it’s not often you say that about a player as legendary as Cam is, but when I’m thinking about Kyler Murray’s legs, I’m thinking it’s going to kill Cam Jordan. I just don’t think that he’s set up to do it. And there’s one play. But I also say say also say this. I think that yes, Young and Grerson would have been better equipped to do this, but it wasn’t the necessarily head-to-head and I just jked you. It was more so Cam had committed to the running back and he tried to reverse course and he couldn’t do that quick enough. And I do think that’s a little bit different. I thought we would have seen a lot of I have my eyes on you, you have your eyes on me and I just beat you out of Cam. I mean out of Kyler against Cam. We didn’t see that. Um, I thought that he played a really good game. It was good to see a sack and a half. It was good to see one of your edge rushers go down and you still have two quality edge rushers on the day. That was something that I think that we haven’t spoke about that was a positive because it lets you know, all right, we can at least go three deep in this rotation and then, you know, we’ll get to guys like Rump, um, Diggs if he, you know, sees the field. But you know that when healthy, you have three guys that you feel like you can count on. And that was a positive. So I’ll give Cam Jordan the player of the game because of defying expectations and getting more than we thought we would out of him in week one. But then also for improving how we’re going to look at Cam moving forward. The biggest thing for Cam has been slow starts. Nobody cares about the two sacks you had against Washington. Nobody cares about what you did late in the season because we already spent two months saying Cam’s this, Cam’s that. Well, this is what happens when you have a strong first game. You get to shape the narratives early instead of fighting against the tide. So, I’m going to give Cam Jordan my player of the game. I like it. I think it’s deserved. Yeah, I I I do, too. Um and and obviously I I was thinking Cam Jordan, but I’m going to go with somebody else who is older and aging on this defense. Demario Davis. Oh, another 50year-old. Come on, man. Number 56 about 53 years old. in his 50th year. I mean, it’s it’s I mean, you talk about guys that come out ready to play, right? Like, that’s what you expect. Captains, veterans, guys that that are leaders not only of this defense, but leaders of this team. Dear Davis, first game, nine tackles, couple tackles for loss in and around the ball a lot in this game. Was there a few plays that I’m sure he would like to have back? Of course. every great player is going to watch the film and be critical of themselves and say, “You know what? I can make that play.” Sure. But being the leader of this team and and executing the way that he did today, making plays, being aggressive, that’s what you love to see. And Rose is with us. Rose, what up, Rose? I don’t know why it’s not picking up on my uh my my earbuds, but that’s okay. Can y’all hear me? All right, we can hear. Yeah, we can hear you. Okay. Dope. Awesome. Um, uh, what again? Oh, now he’s cutting out a gritty display. Yeah. Cutting out a little bit now. You’re back. You’re back. You’re back. All right. Um, a gritty display. I was impressed by that. I know that that was a loss, but I was expecting them to lose. And so for me, it was all about the display at the end. And so I I loved what I saw from this team, especially a bunch of young guys today. Yeah. And you know what? We were just talking, Ross, we were just talking about our player of the game, and we we didn’t go with a young guy. We went with a couple of elder statesmen of of the uh of the team. But let me mention one young guy who did play well. A lot of attention for me on the offensive line went to Tala Fuanga because I didn’t like what he did. But I didn’t hear much from Joshu today. I didn’t see I thought that I thought that Kelvin Banks Jr. handled himself well in this initial game. I’ll go back and look at it, but Sweat’s going to line up in front of him a lot and just check the stats. Sweat has one quarterback hit and I didn’t see a lot of Dang Banks. I I didn’t say a lot of Dang Banks. I didn’t I didn’t do that frequently in a first start and that was a matchup that I was looking at heavily. It surprised me how much I stopped thinking about it as the game went on. So, we gave a lot of credit to Cam Jordan. We gave a lot of credit to Deario Davis.

Our immediate reactions to the first New Orleans Saints game of the Kellen Moore Era. What does his offense look like? Did Brandon Staley’s defense live up to the preseason expectations? Who wins our Play of the Game awards for this week?

The New Orleans Saints start the 2025 season on Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals. Can Spencer Rattler get off to a hot start as the starting quarterback? What’s going on with Chase Young? Which Saints debuts are most anticipated?
Predicting the outcome of Saints vs Cardinals.

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