SAINTS SQUAD SHOW: Spencer Rattler Impresses With Best Game of NFL Career Despite New Orleans’ Loss

SAINTS SQUAD SHOW: Spencer Rattler Impresses With Best Game of NFL Career Despite New Orleans’ Loss

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Saints Squad Show. I’m your host Dylan Sanders of Roundtable Sports and even though the Saints lost and I predicted that, I’m ready to eat some crow about a different Saint, the quarterback. I’m Darien Gray of Who That Dish and I have a little bit of a rant and maybe even two of them. [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 squad up. It’s the Saint Squad Show starting now. Howdy, Hud Nation. Welcome back to the Saint Squad Show, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Thank you for making us your first listen. Every Sunday and Wednesday, uh we have a unique group of two experts here ready to bring you a fun and informative show on everything New Orleans Saints. Today we’re today we’re going to be diving into the loss that the Saints just had to the San San Francisco 49ers. And even though it is a uh you know, it wasn’t the perfect day, it was it was a a day where you can still find some positives throughout. Uh, but there is also plenty to discuss about what went wrong in this game. Uh, but before we do that, I want you all to drop in, it’s it’s a it’s a live show. It’s a fun show. I want you all to draw drop in some chats if you’re leaving uh if you’re listening live with the hashtag Ross was right again because he is two and 0. Uh, two and0 in his predictions, but hashtag Ross was right again. And we’ll get to some questions throughout the show. Uh, and if you’re not listening live, thank you. we love you just as much. And uh before let’s just run let’s just jump into our instant reaction to this game. I’m joined by Darien today. Uh and yeah, Darien, go give us your thoughts. We’ve talked about this before. We talked about where the Saints are in their rebuild and their reload. They aren’t at the point where they can make the mistakes that they made today early in the game. And I hate sounding like a broken record, but I also hate watching broken records because that’s exactly what I saw. So yes, I’m going to come back in here and I’m going to say the same thing again because for the second week in a row, the Saints were close close with no cigar. And obviously moral victories kind of exist in the world of a rebuild, but when you’re in the middle of it, you don’t want to hear about a moral victory. So I don’t either. So I made a list as the game was going on and I actually got tired of typing. So if I forgot something that you maybe felt was there, feel free to chime in. But there was so many mistakes in the first quarter alone that kept costing the Saints. Rattler gets a first down to Olive, an eligible player downfield by Fanka. Great route by Olive in the red zone. And they had really struggled in that that area of the field in week one behind him from Rattlin. You look at right after that, an easy field goal by Blake Groupy who is quickly dissipated any preseason hype that he had going into the year. He misses that. That’s three points off the board. Let’s pause for a second. Coming into this game, I think we all agree points were at a premium. You weren’t going to be able to go in and shoot yourself in the foot, not have seven points on the board, and then when you missed that seven, you missed a three as well. Completely unacceptable, inexcusable, and honestly, it was difficult to come back from. And in a game as close as this was, it wasn’t a three-point game, but these things do change the momentum of a matchup. Let’s continue. Multiple first quarter drops by Jawan Johnson who did eventually get going but these were bad drops in critical situations. You look at third down, you’re able to get the 49ers off the field. You get a defensive pass interference by Yatam. You have a hands to the face by Kool-Aid. Didn’t love it, but it still existed. You have penalties that are taking away your first downs and giving first downs to the 49ers. And to cap it all off, you have a Rattler scramble for a first down that ends up getting called back by a holding call from McCoy. And I think that was all within the first 20 minutes. I could have gone the next 40 and wrote down other missed opportunities that you had. I could have, but I chose not to because at this point I would have been listing for the entire hour. But to me, this game comes down to multiple multiple aspects. And I’ll let you talk about them, Dylan. But for me, I lay out the problems in the miscues in the beginning of the game where I don’t think there’s anybody that’s a Saints fan. I don’t think there’s anybody that’s a football fan. I don’t think there’s anybody on this camera right now who thinks that the Saints are built to dig themselves out of a hole. And if you’re not built to do that, you can’t be the one digging yourself in a hole. Unfortunately, for two weeks in a row, that’s what we’ve seen from the Saints. Penalties and miscues. This can’t continue to happen, especially when you have opportunities to win games. Yeah, you you hit the nail on the head. I think it it really comes down to that first quarter because it felt like it felt like the first quarter we were going to come in here like I was going to come in here scorched earth. Uh that’s not what that’s not what ended up happening because I really do think the the offense overall and Spencer Rattler especially took major strides for the next three quarters. But again, it it just wasn’t enough. The Saints uh you know they weren’t I think the play calling was a little bit better. Uh, and I think stuff like there there were plenty of improvements, but it really was, it seemed like the preparation and communication, uh, you know, also cover LSU. I feel like I’ve been saying this a bunch over the past couple days. The preparation and the communication feels off uh especially at the beginning of games uh and I think there was a lot of it was either Spencer Rowler making a a bad throw. It is what it is. Uh early on or a perfect throw and then it was dropped and it was momentum killers, momentum killer after momentum killer. Uh Blake Groupy is a name that I don’t know if we’re going to talk about a lot today just because we don’t want to, but we might have to because he has to be better. uh like flat out two field goals, two extremely makeable field goals uh missed early on this season have uh cost the Saints dearly. And I agree with you say it wasn’t a three-point game that that didn’t decide it, but I think that momentum, that early push would have completely changed the outlook of this game. Uh and I think it could have been better. I I think as the Saints go, they are getting better week to week. Uh, I think they were a better team this week than they were last week, but still just not good enough. Uh, because my whole thing going into this game was you’re playing against M. Jones, you’re playing without George KD, Brandon Iayuk. I think the offenses match up pretty evenly and then their defense was a little bit better. I think that actually ended up being the case, but it wasn’t how I expected. I didn’t expect Jones to go out and throw for almost 300 yards and three tutties. Uh, I didn’t expect Spencer Rattler to throw three ties. It was It was interesting uh that the defenses and I think I’ll say for the Saints defense, the Saints defense was set up for uh failure by the early inconsistencies of the offense with the defense constantly being on the field. Like at that two-minute warning, a gas defense is not going to be able to stop a Shanahan two-minute drive. And I think that’s what we saw. They were not able to do anything on that two-minute drive. it was efficiently moved. They were not, you know, ready. Yeah, I I think me and me and you agree pretty much, Darien. But, uh, yeah, just kind of both frustrating and Yes. promising. And and I’ll say this, I’ll say this. When you’re talking about the trae the trajectory of the team, a lot of times we focus heavily on the quarterback. Deservedly so. It was the biggest story line coming into the season. It’ll be the biggest story line going throughout the season. And I teased in the beginning that I have a rant or two. I see Rattler on the the game plan, so I’m not going to dive into it right now, but I do have a Rattler rant directed at people and how they speak about Spencer Rattler. So, I’ll save that into the second segment. But what I’ll say is Rattler performs well. It looks good. He has good moments, but then the defense to me did really struggle throughout the day. And M. Jones didn’t look like M. Jones to me. There was a point where where Jones literally he jukes Pete Warner. Now, I’m not saying that Warner is the most athletic person I’ve ever seen in my in my life. I’m not trying to say he’s an elite athlete, but I didn’t expect M. Jones to to juke anybody. I didn’t I didn’t expect it. They threw some pads on me for Jones to go Mccoral Mccoral. He earned Mccoral Jones for that for that move. It was it was crazy. This is first name status once you start juking people. But it was one of those plays where I was like, “Wow.” And I think it was another play where he ran. But honestly, one athletic play from M. Jones in a game is unexpected. So maybe I just started seeing double. But the point is that Jones had a good game. I thought that Jones was efficient. They started off heating him up. I thought that the San Francisco offensive line did perform a little bit better as the game went on. So, it seemed like he had more time at moments. You had Christian McCaffrey who, let’s see what his final stats ended up being. You know, we can talk about the eye test a lot, but McAffrey ended up with 13 for 55. And it did feel like he kind of stopped getting the ball towards the game. But that’s a 4.2 clip. Not terrible, but not great either. And I just think that the defense allowed too much. You know, it Lance had a phenomenal point last week and it’s kind of the inverse of it this week. He says, “Hey, you give up 17, supposed to win that game.” Well, I would argue that with M. Jones at quarterback, no George KD, I would think that scoring 21 would been would have been enough. I thought that maybe if you got to the 17 to 20 range in this game, you’d win. I’m not calling this a shootout, but who thought that M. Jones versus Spencer Rattler incorrectly called the worst quarterback matchup we’ve ever seen. I recency biased, but who would have thought that that would have been even a 26-21 game. So, I thought the defense needed to step up. I thought that the defense allowed a little bit too much under the circumstances. and the Robert Salah defense looked like the 49er defense, the Jet defense that we had come to love from him. So, I thought Rattler did a decent job. I know we’re going to talk about Rattler in a second, so I’m trying to I’m trying to not go too deep into it, but you know, Alvin, Here we go. Instant uh reactions. Alvin had a solid game. He had 21 carries for 100 yards, nearly five a pop. He actually had a uh a zero yard run on his last carry of the day. So it would have been five even if he hadn’t had that. But this was a a better game and it looked like they came in with the plan to focus on getting Chimera the ball. And I think that that was absolutely the right call. And you saw when it started working, that’s when the offense started working. I think Rattler had his moments throughout the 60 minutes, but once Chimera started running the ball better, that’s when you started to see the offense truly start flowing. And that offensive line, I’m going to give a lot of crap throughout the day. And you know, but one thing they did is they did begin to block a little bit better until the end. They did begin to run block a little bit better in the later parts of that game and it allowed the offense to at least attempt to come back until, you know, late game. Your stars make plays. Your stars make plays. Bosa made a play. Huff made a play. Fanga got beat on that and um that was that was the end of it. I I want to touch a little bit on the defensive side in terms of immediate reactions. immediate reaction. Pete Warner got to be better in coverage. I I mean, I think that he he had a couple nice plays in run defense, but I think he got exposed in coverage a couple of times. Uh, and I think that overall the pass rush was lacking a Chase Young. Uh, Carl Grmanston came out, he had two sacks. Chris Rumpy even had a sack. But still, in terms of consistent pressure, I think that it’s very clear that they’re missing someone they just paid $30 million or whatever, however much they just paid Chase Young, more than that. Uh, They’re missing some They’re missing an elite pass rusher and that could be Chase Young. Uh but whenever he comes back, but I think it’s very clear that Pete Wernern uh and the pass rush were the two biggest concerns I had on the defensive side of the ball and it was kind of disappointing because the pass rush did start well. It started off really good and then it just kind of disappeared. And you know, I excuse Warner for his um Christian McCaffrey one that he was just set up to fail there. you’re gonna he’s going to lose that eight out of 10 times if you ask me. Probably nine out of 10 times. Um that was a well schemed up play and I’m not going to excuse him completely. I just know what his deficiencies are as a player and I knew that that wasn’t going to be something for him. But the mental error on that touchdown was the one that was more concerning to me. It was the one that was more disappointing because it wasn’t like you’re just going against this player who is better. You actually looked lost. You looked like you took a false step. It looked like you took yourself out of position more so than Jones did something to you or I think it was Jennings that caught that pass or Jennings just had a a nice reception while you were close in coverage. It looked like at least maybe you could have had an opportunity to try to get a hand on it, but he didn’t because I I don’t know what he saw. I would like to hear, but it didn’t seem like there was anything in front of him that would have distracted him. But he did kind of jump towards his right while Jennings was running towards his left. So, I don’t know what that was about, but yeah, the pass rush and Pete Warner and coverage were two of the things that really did stand out. And I thought that if you want to go back to being positive, you know, um we didn’t really see much of Kool-Aid. Yeah, something to be said. Much less of Kool-Aid than last week. Yeah, much less of Kool-Aid, more of Isaac. So, it was kind of a trade-off. But I think that if I had to pick one guy to be picked on throughout the season and me not to be as frustrated, it’ probably be Isaacam because a I’m gonna give him the Spencer Rattler treatment that everybody else gives. Right. Well, you got a young guy on the bench. So maybe Quincy Riley eventually gets in and you see what you have there as a he played a little bit today. I I know Riley played a little bit. I can’t say much on how he performed off the top, but I do know he played a little bit today. Yeah. So maybe you see that moving forward. And then also Kool-Aid has the potential to be a guy for you long term. I don’t think that Yatam does. I don’t think that that’s how I’m looking at him. So if it is a situation in which he’s getting picked on, he’s not playing up to par thinking large, right? Thinking beyond 2025, I think that it’s much easier to look at him not being a part of the team than Kool-Aid not being your top guy or not being one of your top quarterbacks. So that’s the way that I look at it. Early immediate reaction, but yeah, let’s let’s get to Spencer Rley. I’m ready to chastise the people. All right, guys. Get ready because Darien’s about to go in right when we come back. This episode is brought to you by Prize Pix, the daily fantasy app where making the right call can actually pay off. You and I make decisions every day. I decide to put on my pants one leg at a time. You decide to come in and listen to the Saint Squad show. But together, we can both choose to put on prize picks. Being right means cashing in. With Football Back, prize picks is the simplest and fastest way to get on the action. Just pick more or less on two to six player projections, and you can turn your takes into real prizes, all in less than 60 seconds. And honestly, it’s just fun for me to go in and use and see what the projections are from week to week. 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The whole conversation around Rattler, every time people talk to me, did Rattler play well enough to keep Shuck off the field? Did Rattler play well enough to not talk about the 2026 quarterbacks? How about the 2026 quarterbacks play well enough for us to have a conversation about Rattler? H how about that? Let’s flip the conversation because I have questions about a lot of those guys coming out of college. But I digress. This is not the College Football Squad show. This is the Saints squad show. So, let’s talk about Rattler. When I look at Rattler, I see a guy who is playing well. I see a guy who is improving. I see a guy who has moments. And I’m tired of us breaking down his whole performance based off of when is he going to leave the field? Why are we itching so bad to see him off of the field, right? And it’s it’s a if you want to have a conversation about the value placed on Tyler Shuck, we can have those. But please, let’s talk about what Rattler did on the field and not all of the storylines. That’s cool. cool in the preseason. That’s cool in training camp, but we’re in week two now. I’m two weeks tired of talking about things that aren’t what’s that aren’t what’s going on on the field. I’m two weeks tired of it because not only is it a conversation that I don’t think needs to happen immediately because he got named the starting quarterback. After one week, we shouldn’t be talking about is the backup coming in, right? At least give us some time. That’s number one. Secondly, I want to talk about football. Like, I want to talk about real football. I don’t want to talk about the fact that Tyler Chuck is waiting in the wings and Nusmeir and all these Spencer Rattler is playing well enough to us for us to talk about football itself and not replacements and that is to me extremely unfair because the performances at least of his first week and I wouldn’t be surprised if it continues the second week. They have been overshadowed by things that quite frankly right now do not matter. They are not important. They are not important. At least the 20 26 conversation Mhm. At least that conversation. If you want to talk about Shuck, okay, but I’m not worried about Shuck. Right now, I don’t think that Shuck gets in the into the uh game. If Spencer Rattler continues to play this way, I don’t know if I see Shuck unless it’s just a terrible season and we keep losing close and now you want to see what you have in the young quarterback. But as far as Rattler getting benched because he played so poorly that now we have to see what the rookie has, I do not see that happening because Rattler has played well enough. I’ll, you know, volley it over to you for you to talk about his week 2 performance, but that just was something that been getting under my skin a little bit and I hadn’t had the real platform to say it because I but I needed to. It’s just getting let’s talk about his performance as it is and not everything else that is so far away from our attention span or should be so far away from our attention span. You’re gonna throw it to me and I’m going to be like, uh, put in Tyler Sh. I’m tired of losing games. No way. Kick him off. Kick him off, you know. Yeah. No. Okay. I as someone who was mo I was on the side of playing Tyler Shuck this season. I think that the coaches have clearly made the right decision. That’s why I don’t get paid that kind of money. I get paid a little bit of money to come and talk about it. But uh it’s not I’m not a decision maker and for a good reason. I think that Rers clearly has the team on his side. You know, I look to a play like whenever he does get pushed out of bounds and everybody comes and defends him and you know get a little late hit. Everybody comes, they get in the face. Uh, you know, it it’s like a a thing that teammates should do, but it is still a sign that the teammates have his back. They want him to win. They want to win. And I don’t think that there’s anyone on the field that wants to win more than Spencer Rattler. You see it in the way he runs, the way he the way he emotes. I think that there’s no one can say that Rattler doesn’t want to be the the starting quarterback for the New Orleans Saints. I think I I think he has, you know, earned that right and I think that he’ll, you know, still be the next couple of weeks at least. Um, so, you know, let’s get into to what he did. I think he started off poorly. Uh, he was, you know, and to be fair, the receivers also started out really poorly. Chris Olive has to be a lot better. Uh, Jawan Johnson has to be a lot better. Rasheed Shahed uh had his moments. Uh, but he needs to be, I guess, a little bit more consistently open for someone as fast as he is. Um, so he didn’t have the greatest help, but there were times where he simply missed the throw. He made the wrong decision. He put the ball behind. He put the ball too low. is it was not a perfect day for him, but I think he responded well because the last three, you know, if you see if you watch him play and you have your team’s quarterback play like he did for the last three quarters of the game, you kind of feel like you’re probably going to win the game because he did not make really any big mistakes. He ran the ball when he needed to. He ran the ball hard and I think that it was a uh a very impressive day for Rattler overall, though he did not have as much help as you would like to see. and the Saints did not win at the end. Yeah. And I think that that’s important to say because a lot of times, you know, this is extremely polarizing to be honest and everybody wants to pick a side and typically those sides are extreme. So if you feel good about Shucks or excuse me, if you feel good, all this talk about Shuck now who’s trying to put him in, but um I try to put him in the podcast. No, but all this conversation around Rattler, if you feel like he did well, those who are against Rattler say, “Well, you know, he should have hit Olive.” Yes, Spencer Rattler did not have a perfect day, but he had a solid day. Very few quarterbacks in the NFL have a perfect day. Yes. Rare. Could you have Could you improve? Yes. Right. Like, it’s one of those things where Rattler Shook, how do you feel? Oh, Rattler shouldn’t be in. You should have went with your young guy. So, now we’re going to talk about every single mistake that he made. But let’s look at these final these final numbers, right? The final numbers have him going 25 or 34. I can count at least two Joan Jawan Johnson drops. I count at least two at least two Chris Olive drops, too. That’s four passes right there. So, you’re talking about maybe 29 of 34 if you’re doing adjusted completion percentage. Three touchdowns, 207 yards. He was pretty efficient. I thought that he was mobile. He showed good utilization of his legs. It was not a perfect day, but who’s expecting it to be? Like, at the end of the day, who is expecting Spencer Rattler to come in and be a perfect quarterback? If you are, I’m sorry. You’re going to get your hopes up and you’re going to be disappointed pretty much every week because that’s not going to happen. I think that he can be a solid quarterback. I think that he has been a solid quarterback. I’m not asking for him to be upper echelon because I’m realistic. If one day he develops into it, whoopde-doo. But right now, I’m not looking at a situation. I’m not looking at a situation where we’re going to have Spencer Rattler be the starting quart be a star quarterback. I just want to see if he can be a starting quarterback. And through two weeks, he has shown me that. So, I am happy with what it is that Spencer Rattler has done. I am excited with what he’s done throughout just forget the week one. This week, I liked what he did. There were moments where I wanted things to be better, but if I had to grade him, it would definitely be passing. It would probably be in in the B range. It’ probably be in the B range if I had to grade him. It wouldn’t be an A because he did miss a big time throw that took points off the board. Um, I thought he was overall safe with the ball. He had that last fumble. You know, that was a turnover by Bryce. Well, did they recover? I don’t know if they recovered. Who cares if they recovered, but Ry’s recovered? Ru recovered. Okay. So, he technically he doesn’t have any turnovers, right? So he he protected the ball and honestly that huff rush and that was a really good rush. That was a really good hand eye coordination to get to the ball too. Wait, let’s talk real quick. Sorry to to break you off. I do want but while we’re still on the offense, one thing I don’t know if we’ve talked about it. We might have talked about it a little bit. Let’s talk about the the Alvin Chimera fumble. That was a a huge momentum killer. That was a big one. Let’s talk about that a little bit. Uh while I thought that was a bad pass. I did. I thought that that was a poor pass that led to a very unfortunate play. Um because if it wasn’t put kind of behind him, it doesn’t get up on the top of his head and then Fred Warner doesn’t punch it out. So it was kind of like a domino effect. Yeah. I was trying to watch the feet and football move thing. I don’t know about you. Every time there’s a fumble and I was just like, well, he bobbled it. Was that a Did he have possession? Did he make a move? And it feels like they flip a coin every time. That’s okay. Okay. I’m glad I’m not alone. Glad I’m not alone. But I’m glad you did that because I would have never gotten to that. That’s another missed opportunity. I should have included that in my first rant where you get close. Red zone inefficiencies and being close to the red zone inefficiencies are just they’re too prevalent. They’re too prevalent. The penalties are too prevalent. These are issues. These are issues. So yeah, that was that was the real momentum killer where it felt like the Saints were finally getting things going and then you fumbled and now was that did that drive result in a in points for 49ers or did they just take points away from the Saints on that fumble the touchdown drive after the fumble? So I’m I’m looking at it now too when you fumble that ball it’s 19 to 14 and you’re driving. There’s a chance it’s 2119 after that. that those are these are the mistakes that we’re talking about where it’s very difficult to come back from. You can’t make these mistakes. Yeah. Again, like the Saints are simply not good enough to make big crucial mistakes, multiple crucial mistakes and, you know, come out on top of a team like the 49ers because that is a defense that’s not going to allow you to make mistakes. And whenever M. Jones is playing like Tom Brady, uh, you’re not going to be able to do anything else. I say Tom Brady. Tom Brady can’t move like that. Whenever he’s playing like prime Mike Vic uh man Dylan, you know what? M. Jones deserves this after after a juke. M. Jones hasn’t jked anybody since Pop Warner. So, we can crown the next Vanilla Vic. And it’s and it’s it’s Mccoral Jones. Who was the first one? Daniel Jones. Daniel Jones. There something about those Jones. You know what I’m saying? Something about those Jones. It’s something about them. there’s something about him. But yeah, no, that’s a that’s a that’s a great point. It’s it’s a it’s a and I really love that defense. I think that that style of defense. You see it in San Francisco, obviously. You saw it in New York with the Jets. Um you saw it you see it today with Houston. I really do love that athletic, rangy linebacker defense. I think that Fred Warner is obviously, you know, one of the guys, not just at his position, but on the defensive side of the ball, period. but he had a solid running mate too who made some athletic plays. Those athletic um linebackers are the way to go against a player like Chimera and San Francisco had it. So that that was a Saints could have had one waiting with Pete Warner, but we’ll talk about the defense a little bit more. We’ll talk about the defense a little bit more later. Oh wow. I didn’t even I didn’t realize I missed that. I was out here slaming the defense. Oh, prematurely. Yeah. Yeah. Um let’s see. Uh yeah. Is there anything else? Uh let’s talk to Lisa Fonga real quick. Um he you know I I’m still of the of the camp that I think that we should be sitting him until he is fully healthy because I think the last thing that the Saints need as a rebuilding team is another Ryan Ramch situation where the knee never really heals and it gets worse and worse and he’s certainly not playing good enough football right now to be like okay we can play him through an injury. No. 100%. 100%. If this is going to be his quality of play due to injury, he should be sat, you know, and it’s kind of a built-in excuse, too. It’s always a need. And I believe it because I came in and I praised him going into the season. I praised him going out of the season. I praised him all through his rookie year. I think that he’s fantastic. This is not the Talier Fuanga that I knew. It’s not the Fuanga that I saw at Oregon State. This guy has really been struggling and I would rather sit him. I don’t have a high outlook for the Saints anyway. So, if you have to put Richards in the game and you have to put somebody who hasn’t really played right tackle in in order to save the health of your player, that’s what you do. That’s what it’s it’s not even a conversation. His health is way more important than trying to beat the San Francisco 49ers. If he is limited, you need to sit him and get him healthy because it is hampering him and it is shaping his play. And he talked about his confidence throughout the off season. These type of performances are the things that can hamper your confidence. I don’t want a limited health and limited mentally talong at right tackle. I don’t. Yeah. I uh I’m looking at the numbers right now just to see because I feel like you know Richards did struggle whenever he was put in last week but he you know the Kiss Fonga has not been much better. He is uh you know PFF has already updated for this game and they have him as eight pressures through eight pressures allowed through two games. Unacceptable. Unacceptable for any level of football, not just, you know, a first round pick that you’re expecting to be a franchise guy. I think that especially after this week, there’s no reason to not just let him heal up because of Sim Richards two pressures last week in 26 steps. Also bad, but it’s not it’s not worse than what you’re getting from an injured flank. Also, to flip it, I wish that Banks hadn’t given up that late sack because he had a really good game and that is the type of play that shapes how we talk about a player, right? He gave up this sack or Yeah, he gave up this sack to Bosa at the end of the game. Yes, it was critical. It was disappointing, but he was really good throughout. I didn’t see much. I thought he was strong and solid in pass blocking when I saw him, right? But mostly there was no reason to pay attention to what Kelvin Banks was doing on the left side. So, one side of the the offensive tackle is doing well. The other side has been struggling. So, it’s kind of a it’s kind of a crapshoot, man. It’s it’s really disappointing what you’re seeing. I think that the offensive line as a whole needs to get better in run blocking specifically. I’m tired of seeing all of this contact. I would love to know what the run after contact numbers are, yards after contact numbers are because it feels like whether it’s Miller, whether it’s Chimera, you’re going to get contacted pretty early with this offensive line. It it just they got better as time went on, but all in all, I don’t think that this was a solid performance for them. No, not at all. All right. Well, let’s jump over to the defensive side of the ball. Talk a little bit about that. Remember to drop in any questions you have in the chat with hashtag Ross was right again uh for the last segment, but we’re gonna get into some questions and defense uh and our players of the game coming up next. Oh, and Ross. Oh, and Ross. Hello. He’s like He’s like Joe Hendry. Say his name and he appears. Hey Ross. Hey Ross. Guess what we’re doing right now? What’s that? Going to an ad. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. We all turn to some funny places for advice. Your barista, your barber, maybe even in the comment section of a YouTube uh YouTube YouTube chat for a Saint base podcast with an unqualified host. But not everyone is the right one when it comes to real support. That’s why BetterHelp is here. With over 30,000 licensed therapists and more than 10 years of experience, BetterHelp find helps you find your right match. someone clinically trained and credentialed to guide you through life’s challenges. I like that you start with a simple questionnaire and BetterHel does the matching work for you. And if it’s not the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time with no extra cost. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a di a diverse variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/locked. That’s betterhelp.hp.com. Ross is back. Hey, Ross. What’s up? What’s up? We are going into uh we’re going to talk a little bit of the defense, but you’re here. Give us your first initial reactions of the game overall. Yeah, I mean, look, I I think the Saints were in it again late, but it’s the it’s the slow start. It’s the third down inefficiencies on offense and in the third down penalties on defense that ultimately kind of killed him in this one as well as some early drops in this game, right? I mean, you make that connection with Chris Olive in the end zone and that’s not dropped or thrown behind. Yes, both things could be true at the same time. And uh all of a sudden like you’re in a much better position and you’re not relying on, you know, a potential missed field goal there. And so I think that the Saints did some things that kept them out of winning this game, but also did things that kept them in competing with this in this game, if that makes sense. And so for me, like that’s kind of the tale of this game. It’s not a tale of two halves. It’s not too little too late or anything like that. The Saints at the same time kept themselves out of it while keeping themselves in on their own. And that that’s kind of my biggest takeaway in this one. This is a young team that’s still growing and still trying to figure things out. So not super surprised by this um you know, this result, but I was pretty surprised about the final score. That’s for sure. I didn’t think it would be that high scoring a game. Yeah, I I did not either at all. And I want I wanted to throw I wanted to throw something at y’all a stat at y’all just see what y’all think and what it says about a couple of younger players that we might need to see a little bit quicker than you know we’d want. Uh PFF has already updated the stats for this game and I wanted to shout outs or not shout out but look to Ike Yadam and Pete Warner. They were uh they were targeted a combined 14 times allowed 11 completions for 160 yards. Not good. No, those those two guys were the weakest links on the football field for me on either side of the football. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Darren, what do you what do you think of of those two and what the Saints could do moving forward? I like Danny Stsman a lot. I I’ll be honest with you. I’ll I know that that’s typically Lance’s job, but here tonight, so I’ll do the Danny Stsman hype. Okay, anybody who’s going to roll out there in the neck pad, you got a fan in me. But when it comes to Stzman, I just think he has a lot of untapped potential. I can’t sit here and tell you exactly what he is because he hasn’t been on the NFL field in a regular season to really make that analysis, but I’ll say that I am extremely excited. I do think that he has a higher ceiling, you know, and you can still say that because he’s a rookie. I don’t really like saying ceiling too often because who are you? How many people really hit their ceiling? Like, right. So, but he has the higher ceiling right now and you know maybe that’s because he hasn’t been seen as much. But if Stzman ends up getting on the field, I think he’s a really good run and hit player. I think that he’s a good energy player. I think that he’s somebody who can make contributions. He’s going to have his mistakes too. So like it’s not like you’re going to switch from Warner to Stzman and all of a sudden you’re perfect. That’s not going to happen. But if Warner does continue to turn down because he had a good week one. I thought he had a solid week one, but in week two, he was like Ross said, one of the weakest links on the team. If that continues, I do think that you have a readymade solution in Danny Stsman, who I like Quincy Riley, but if I had to coming into the season bet who got on the field first, I probably would have put my money on Stzman. So, I I’ll take the Stman side of this and let Ross and Dylan, you guys talk about Riley if you want to. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll jump in on that. I I think Riley, first of all, I I agree with with a lot of what you said, right? There’s there’s a lot of potential in these young guys. We don’t really know to Darien’s point what the floor and ceilings are just yet, but at some point you start looking to what your young players have and what your foundation is, what’s the bedrock that you have to build your foundation upon. And so I think that becomes another part of the equation, too, that it’s not just about, hey, who’s going to help you go out there and win games right now? Who’s going to go out there and help you win games tomorrow? Who’s going to go out there and help you win games next year? And so I think there’s something about getting a look at as many of these young guys as possible when the doors open for them to do it. I thought Quincy Riley was going to come in and immediately start. I really really did. I thought that he was going to be a guy that was going to come in and win that job. He never really got the opportunity. He didn’t see a lot of first team reps during training camp or anything like that. Didn’t deal with injury or anything outside of like mandatory minis and stuff like that, but then once training camp rolled around, he was good. He was out there. Uh and so the way that they got him up against the ones was that they started playing first team offense versus second team defense. And so that’s how he got his reps against the ones, but he didn’t get his reps across from Kool-Aid, across from Alante, like all those other things. And the thing that that that stood out to me was I got targeted that much in this game. Oh, well, you gave combined stats. How how many how how many catches and targets did did Yatam have? Uh, six six catches and seven targets for 80 yards. Yeah. And this is a game to where he wasn’t like they took him out on base snaps. It was the lante and Kool-Aid on the outside and he played 38 snaps and gave up six catches for 80 yards, right? So the game plan was throw at 27 by San Francisco and it worked what they did. And so I think that that’s something that you have to take a look at. I don’t think that the Saints are going to be in a hurry to bench him. He’s the veteran guy. He’s a guy that has a connection with Brandon Staley, all that kind of stuff. But if things continue to go the way that they have over the course of those first two games, it would not surprise me if by mid-season you’re at least getting a look at Quincy Riley, who has more of a takeaway, has more takeaway potential, has more ballhawk potential, and is a very physical player that’s very accustomed to playing in sort of this match zone coverage scheme. And so I think that he would be a good fit for them. I don’t know if he’s going to be an improvement, but you will have time to find out at some point this season for sure if things are going the way they are. Yeah. And I want to fix something I said because I agreed so heavily when you talked about thinking Riley was going to be the starter. I know people may be like, “Well, you just said Stsman would get in first.” Yes, but I changed my opinion around uh July. He said he said yes. That did happen. You’re right. You’re right. Oh, did I contradict myself? Maybe I did. But let me say this. However, after the draft, I thought Quincy Riley was going to end up being your starting quarterback. Right. After the draft, I felt like that once you got into training camp and I realized that there was no real competition. Shout out to you because your coverage what me made me realize, oh, it’s not really Riley versus Yata. Like, it wasn’t that. It was one guy clearly had the starting role. Once I seen how certain it was and I realized that Stzman and Riley were in the same position of not really competing for a starting job, that’s when I began to believe that uh Danny Stzman would get in first either through um question marks. I thought that Ike had a a potential to be a little bit more solid, but then also injury and things of that case. You knock on wood, you never want that, but history has history. Allow me to real quick turn. We’re talking about two rookies who may get on the field, but one thing I wasn’t able to see because broadcast copy is how did Sanker look? So, I wanted to ask Ross from an eye in the sky point of view of what you saw from the rookie. Yeah, I thought he had a pretty strong game. I He didn’t have any big impact plays or anything like that, but he did a good job, you know, making and forcing um M. Jones to to look off some of those opportunities deep. And he’s just a really physical player coming down and being able to make some of those plays. I thought that some of the best stuff that he did was when he was crashing down on either a shallow pass or a run play and then getting in on the tackle or getting in on an opportunity to make a play there. That’s something that this Saints team has a lot of trouble with. Like Alante Taylor in particular is somebody that has a lot of really good things that he does, but he’s not the strongest tackler. And that’s where a guy like Yoda Sanker coming down and helping out has a big impact. you saw more than a few missed tackles by the Saints secondary today, but I didn’t see a lot of it from um from uh Sanker. So, I’ll need to go back and really watch like everything to get a look at it, but he was not a guy that stood out to me for the wrong reasons at all on Sunday. I I want to clear something. I saw a couple of uh people in the chat, you know, we had some questions about whether or not Sanker played. Shout out to Pammy Whammy, but uh he people say briefly a little bit fourth quarter. I think that goes to show that he really did not have a bad day because he played 71 snaps. He played the whole he played the whole game. So he played the whole game. So he was he was out there. Uh and he was only he was targeted once in coverage. Uh gave up one catch for four yards. So nothing bad. He had he had a missed tackle. Uh but pretty much everyone did. Alante Taylor credited with five missed tackles on the defense. That was he had he had 24.8 uh tackling grade. He was really with himself during the game. like you could see him at certain points where he would miss a tackle and he would get up and he would kind of you know you know like punch at his hand or something like that like he was he was pretty upset. I mean he knew he knew that his tackling performance was not the strongest throughout the game. Yeah. And and with Sanker that one catch I think was the pretty good play that he made on Christian McCaffrey on that out route. I think that was the one catch that he he allowed and I thought that was a solid play. That was one that stood out to me. You know, obviously, like I said, broadcast, you only get to see a certain section of the field, right? But that part was a good play. And I also thought there was a I don’t remember the exact situation, so I won’t try to describe it, but it was a run play towards the offensive right where you saw Sanker fit that hole. And honestly, I thought that the Saints had a lot of difficulty throughout the game fitting in the run game. I thought they had a difficult or they had they did a bad job. I was going to say had a difficult time, but they did a bad job filling in the run game. And that was one of the players that stood out because it’s funny. I watched the game with my friend. I was saying like sometimes when you try to watch things and not see where the ball’s going, it’s always fun to watch the player who ends up making the play and see how it happens. So with Sanker, it was interesting to see him read, read, and then shoot the gap and not just get there and all we’re going to muck up the play. He made the tackle. So I if Lance has Danny Stzman, I have Yonas Sanker, right? Like I think we all end up developing our guys. I am a Jonas Sanker fan club member if that’s a thing. If it’s not, then I’m the founder. Like that’s how I look at it. It is. It’s certainly a fan club on this podcast. We’ve been seeing his praises for a long time. I want to be the founder, but okay. I’ll be a member. I’ll be a member. We can make you the president. President Dario Gray. I you know, we we give you that title. Um let’s do something a little bit different. I’m going to jump to uh our our next break a little bit early to give us a little bit more time for our last because we have uh some I want to get to our players of the game and we also have a couple of interesting chat questions I wanted to get to. If you want to ask another one, use hashtag Ross was right again because he’s two and0 in our prediction and and I got the hundred yard rushing game for for Oh, that is true. And you almost lo you almost lost it at the end there. But uh but you didn’t. 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I have to drive a lot from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, and you better believe I’m going to get at least some of that back. Uh, so don’t let this offer drive on by and download the free upside app now using my limited time promo code touchdown for a limited time 25 cent per gallon bonus on your first fill up. That’s promo code touchdown. Disclaimer: Offer offers vary by user and location. Go to upside.com for terms and conditions. All right. Hey, Dylan. Dylan, let me before we go because I’m going to lose this comment. My favorite well, my second favorite comment, the other one was explicit, but my second favorite comment is San Antonio Saint Ross, turn down the Rico Suave. You shining too bright. I can’t I can’t. I was born this way, baby. I was born this way, baby. All I have to say, Darren, is I don’t believe you that there was an explicit comment in this chat section. Oh, no. No way. No way. No way. No way. Uh, I should say I did actually Alvin finished with 99 rushing yards. Did it? No. They adjusted. They took They took one away. Yep. He finished with 99. I was close. All right. Ross was wrong again. All right, let’s get to our players of the game and let’s start with Darien. Oh man, this was a tough one. Uh, I spent half the game being pretty frustrated. I spent probably the second and third quarter hoping that Carl Granderson made another play so I can say it was Granderson. I thought his two sacks early were impressive. So, I I guess I’ll I’ll go with with Rattler. I liked what I saw. So, I thought it was another step up and it may not have been the greatest performance, but I thought that I saw another level of his development in using his legs that we saw a little bit in week one, but we saw it be a little bit more decisive in week two and we saw it be more gutsy in week two. that that run where it looked like he should have been stopped short like a maybe a yard short and he ended up squirting by and getting about a couple three on fourth and two where he ended up shaking that 49ers slot corner who had a pretty good game by the way I know this is a 49er podcast but he had a pretty good game but he ends up shaking him and playing that in between do I throw it to Chimera do I run and holding enough time to cut up I thought that we saw another level of that this was a solid performance best game like we have in the title so I’ll go with that. I’ll go with Spencer Rattler. I’m glad you went with me first. I could do the easy go with the developing QB route. So, I’m gonna go with him. Don’t Yeah. Easy route. No, no, no, no. Yeah. As in Yeah. As in I’m glad you went to you, too, because he was the good pick. I mean, uh, careerhigh in completion percentage, careerhigh in touchdowns, his first ever multi-touchdown game, and careerhigh in passer rating as well. I mean, eight games, you know, seven games, nine games, whatever. But, you know, still, they needed a really good performance from him in order to even be in this game. and they got it. Um, I think I would go with Justin Reed because uh, you know, I think he, you know, didn’t have a terrible game week one, but, you know, you wanted to see a little bit more. You have Julian Blackman, uh, going down. So, you’re going to need him to step up even more in the safety room. And I think that he had a pretty good day. He had seven tackles, no missed tackles, which is a rarity for the Saints defense, especially today. And he gave up two catches, but only seven yards. Uh, and you know, I think it was just an overall solid day. I think what with the secondary looking poor just because I think Yatam was so inefficient in coverage, I think the safeties actually played pretty well today. And I think so I’ll give a shout out to Justin Reed. Uh, a little small shout out to to Yonas because I think that they both had a pretty good day despite uh, Mccoral Jones slicing them up, slicing up the defense as a whole. Mccoral Ross. Oh, yes. Ross, we uh we crowned Mccoral Jones the new V vanilla Vic for that juke that he has earlier in the show. I love it. Okay, Ross, who’s your player of the game? Um, I’ll go with somebody that Darien mentions and I I’ll go with Carl Granderson. You guys got the right answers. You guys got the right answers. I’m I’m just adding a third one here. But Carl Grerson, like like Darian said, two sacks in this game. Also had three tackles for a loss as well. went into the tent for a little while and had to get checked up on and then immediately found his way back out onto the football field. Uh tied with Isaac Adam uh with third most combined tackles in this game with seven. Demario Davis, I don’t know how this dude keeps doing what he does, but he 11 tackles led the team and had that fumble recovery that was almost a turning point for the team. But so he gets a little bit of an honorable mention from me, but I’m going to go with Carl Grerson. Saints are in a situation where like they would like to be able to average three sacks per game. And when you’re getting two of them in two straight games by one guy, I mean, he had one and a half last week, but he was in on two last week, he was in on two again this week, that’s going to help you out quite a bit. And so him having three and a half sacks through just the first two games. and having just five and a half last year before Chase Young is even a part of this defense. I think this this Saints pass rush has been a little bit of um their ability to finish at the quarterback has been a little bit of of a bright spot for where they start the season so far, but just the lack of consistent pressure I think has been the thing that’s been most concerning, but Grerson seems to be the one that has been consistently going out there and and kind of getting to the quarterback. Yeah. Let’s get into some questions. Of course, you can still ask him more questions. # Ross was right again even though he was wrong. Uh, about something else. A long hashtag. Yeah. No, but # Ross Ross was right again. Uh, but let’s get let’s get with some questions. First question from Htown Creole. How did the offensive line play poorly? Moving on. No. Um, I think we talked a little bit about it earlier. Tis Fuanga something needs to be done probably sit until he can get fully healthy. He gave up four pressures again today. um at Florida for last week. That’s eight through two games. Uh he did play the entire game today, but you know, I don’t know if that was necessarily a great thing. Um Caesar Ruiz, Dylan Raidens, they were all uh you know, they all struggled. Kelvin Banks looked good for most of the game, did give up a late sack, and then Eric McCoy is awesome, and I think he has always been, always will be. Uh what do you all think about the offensive line today? I think that the offensive line for me was overall disappointing. I we talked about it before so I’m going to be brief and and let Ross give his new perspective because I don’t really have anything new to add other than what well actually it’s an hour show so some people didn’t see it in the beginning so I will say it again actually um I think that in the run game I wanted more early I wanted more out of them early and I wanted to see them get more push I don’t know if they have it in them but I would like to see it and I’m going to continue to desire it but we’ll see if they can ever get to that point in the past game I thought that they let some things loose specifically Fang on the side. I thought that Ruiz had his moments where he let something let some things slip as well. So, it was difficult to be excited about them. And I think that with all of the investment that they put into this unit, it may feel like why are you guys being so harsh just the beginning of the year? But when you have that many first rounders, when you put that much investment into the unit, this comes with that, right? Like at the end of the day, fair is not treating the first round pick like the seventh round pick. That is that’s not what fair is. It’s it’s an equality system where we have to be honest. There’s higher expectations. We should hold them to a higher standard because I seen somebody mentioned putting Simpkins in the game, right? If Simpkins and Ruiz have the same game, the conversation is not the same. One has a longer history, one has a higher draft pick, right? one is not fan favorite and probably never has been a fan favorite while Simpkins preseason performance was I think it was very endearing to fans almost surprisingly so as an offensive lineman but one’s UDFA one’s a firstrounder like it’s not the same so yes we’re going to hold a higher standard for this offensive line because the Saints have invested so much in it I’ll say the only thing I’ll add is that they got a really good player in Calvin Kelvin Banks Jr. They got really really good player in Kelvin Banks Jr. One pressure allowed in this game. Spent a lot of time. I’ll have to go through and and double check it, but spent a lot of time uh opposite Nick Bosa who plays both sides of the line for San Francisco. Uh and he was the first person in there when Spencer Rather took that late hit on that rush out of bounds and everything like that. And so from a mentality standpoint, from an attitude standpoint, and from a production standpoint on the field, the Saints got a really really good player so far uh in Calvin Banks Jr. just a couple couple games into his career. You know what I thought was funny about the checking um the late hit is you see Banks goes over and you also see McCoy goes over and if you watch it, you see the difference in approach. You see the OG run over and I’m just going to kind of run and bump you uh whatever. And then you see Banks come over as the young guy. I’m going to push you like ready. He was ready. And that is not his demeanor. That is not his demeanor in locker rooms and all that other stuff at all. that there’s a switch that must flip for him when he hits the field because that’s not Kelvin Banks Jr.’s like everyday demeanor. And so I like seeing that because I think it’s a good thing to have players have that switch, have that gauge, have that other level. So all right, this is one I wanted to get to uh because, you know, I think it’s early too early to be talking about it, but there is something that I feel like we could address since it’s early in the year of college uh college football season 2. But, uh, do you think that Rattler has shown that he could develop enough that we will start talking about getting a defensive end in the first round of the 2026 draft or maybe trade down for some draft capital? Um, I I would say more than it’s way too early to be talking about that, but more than anything, I think that the 2026 quarterback class has not done enough to be like, hey, we really need to go all out to be to be be in the position to draft a quarterback in that group. There’s not a single player right now through a couple through three weeks of the college football season that I’m ready to lay it all out for be like we need you know tank for this guy or anything like that and you know to his point you mentioned defensive end there are a couple of defensive ends Ruben Bane TJ Parker there are a couple of really good dudes that I think that this team can build around I wanted to ph I want I’ll phrase it a little bit more as if you know I don’t think that it is a set thing that the Saints are going to draft a quarterback next year. Uh, and I think that it would be foolish through two weeks to say that, yeah, the Saints really need to draft someone else over Rattler or Shuck because we really don’t know who what either of those two are going to be four or five weeks from now. Yeah, I went on this earlier, so it’s all you, Ross. Oh, yeah. I’ll say if if it’s not a quarterback, defensive end, or edge rusher is a very logical place to go next. The Saints do not have and and we haven’t seen Chase Young yet, but the Saints right now do not have a defensive end or an edge rusher that has the presence that forces offenses to be afraid that goes out there and is a game wrecker or is a game breaker. Cam Jordan playing his heart out in his 15th year and has had a couple of good games here. Carl Granison’s off to a really good start. Maybe he can grow into that. Maybe Chase Young is that. But as of right now, I can’t confidently say that the Saints have that defensive end. That is a game record that will show up in the fourth quarter for you. Uh 22.5% pressure rate so far in this game. Or not so far, the game’s over, but in this in this week’s game. U I I think you can do a lot to help yourself out there. So it feels like wide receiver, it feels like edge rusher. Like those are two spots that would make a lot of sense if you’re in prime position to draft in the first round. Yeah. And if you don’t go quarterback. If you don’t go quarterback. Yeah. Shout out to Brian Burs for being the best pass rusher on this team from the interior. Uh even he didn’t have a great like fully consistent game, but I still think I think that again he has continued to look pretty pretty stellar as a pass rusher on the interior. Um another one uh so what’s the next step? Who needs to step up? Hash Russell was right again. What is the next step for this team? They’re 0 and2. They’re going, you know, they still have a couple of really tough games and before they get to that Giants game that we’ve circled as a win, I don’t I don’t know if that’s so certain anymore. Um especially after today’s performance with them, that offense looks scary. Uh whatever they’re working, right? And Malik Neighbors is is working. So what what’s the next step from here? Ross, let’s start with you. Got to get the defense together. Defense has got to get it together. Like this is, you know, look, they they allowed less than 100 rushing yards in this game. Only 77 rushing yards. So, a good step forward there, but I don’t think that they did enough to neutralize the rushing game. I think the passing game was just working. And so, I think that that is the biggest thing. It was a combination of Russian coverage, which very much needs to improve as they continue to move forward. So, that’s kind of the next step for this team is to see them do that. Everything that we talked about going into this game was how there was no George KD, how there was no Brandon Aayuk, how there was no Brock Pery, how and then during the game they lost Kyle Yuschek, they had M. Jones starting at at quarterback. They never even really put uh Marcos Valdez scantling out on the field like all this other stuff. And yet this Saints team still gave up 26 points to that offense. Not to the defense, not on some punt and return touchdown, not on anything like that. Still gave up 26 points uh on the defensive side of the football and had some big time either blown coverages or just things that San Francisco dialed up perfectly, whichever it was. But I think that like those two things that in particular is kind of the next step for me. Everything about this game was can the Saints offense topple a healthy San Francisco 49ers defense. I thought that the offense performed pretty well, drop passes, inaccurate throws, all that other stuff, pressure allowed, still a part of the conversation. No doubt about it. But I thought that the offense outperformed the defense in a game where the defense was supposed to have the easier job. And so I think that that’s got to be the next thing for this Saints team. Yeah, I I would say coming in I thought that maybe some of the chances at victory were overblown due to the injuries, but that was largely based upon thinking that the offense was going to struggle more than they did. So, I thought that was a a great point that you made. Who needs to step up? Who needs to what’s the next step? It’s time to clean up the penalties. It’s time to clean up the unforced errors, right? like, yeah, you went from 13 penalties to seven penalties in this game, but I’m thinking about I think when at the beginning when we did our our conversation, Dilly, I think that was four penalties that I mentioned. Mhm. You had the ineligible downfield, you had the holding on offense. Those two took away first downs. You had the hands to the face and the defensive pass interference. Those gave first downs. And I’m of the seven, that’s four. So at least half and that I just don’t remember the other three, right? At least half of your penalties gave a first down or took away a first down. That is unacceptable. So what’s the next step? Clean those things up. Unfortunately, I think that you squandered some opportunities early in the season by having these penalties. So the record is going to look how the record looks. But moving forward, if it’s actually about just not looking at the score and evaluating what this team looks like, that’s the number one thing that I’m looking for. Rattler, he’ll progress how he progresses. the defense, they’ll tackle how they tackle. They’ll um the the back end will be the back end. We’ll see all of these things, but I don’t know if any of it is going to matter if they can’t protect themselves from themselves. Yeah, I’d agree with that. I agree with both of those things. I think the the what’s next for the Saints win a game and then we can uh you know, I actually don’t think that’s next. I think there are a couple more losses coming before there’s a a win. But I I do think that overall um you know just at this point the way the team has looked so far this this season what I want to see next is the young guys continue to improve because it’s it’s very clear and I think like the Jaylen Pulk move we haven’t gotten to talk about I I think it’s very clear that the team is you know acknowledging without acknowledging that this is a this is a rebuild is a full-on rebuild and I think that we’re in the early early stages so all you can really ask for is the young players to play uh play good. But for the next couple weeks, I’ll still enjoy Demario Davis defying logic by playing incredible football. And he might not be a piece of the the next Super Bowl winning team in the uh in in New Orleans, but I think that uh I’ll enjoy watching him for as long as he suits up in the black and gold. Same goes for Cam Jordan. Yeah. No. Um I guess this sounds kind of like closing remark time, so I I’ll end with a quote. Um, big equalizer fan here. And one of the quotes that Denzel says is that when you pray for the rain, you got to deal with the mud, too. So, in this rebuild process that we’ve wanted for years and years, I feel like we have to understand it’s going to be some sloppiness. It’s going to be some misplays. You’re looking at Kell Moore, who is a firsttime head coach, and he’s going to take his bumps. We saw that last week with the timeout situation. I think we’re seeing it a little bit with some of the discipline. It’s just part of it, right? It’s not all bad. So, it’s not like, oh, dreary, but at the same time, they are in a place where they’re kind of supposed to make these type of mistakes. It doesn’t excuse them. I won’t excuse them, but to me, it’s just an accurate description and depiction of where they are in week two going into week three. Ross, any closing remarks? That was awesome. Yeah, that was great. No, I don’t have any. That was that that that shouldn’t that should be the end. I was looking at different Denzel quotes. Um, I’ve got it. I I would need more time. I think that was great. All right. Well, thank you. Um I I was I was gonna go with one from Training Day, but I’ll save it. Um King Kong. No, not that one. King Kong doesn’t That’s the first one that came to my mind. You want to put Isaac in in 23 hour lockdown. How How are we going with this one? I got another I got another uh I got another equalizer quote. He said, uh there are two kinds of pain in the world. Uh the pain that hurts and the pain that alters. And so we’ll see which one the New Orleans Saints suffered today. I like that that man. Now, now Ross, I want you to know I got a I got a list of sayings. We can go band for band every You’ll win. You win. You win. I’ll tap out. I’m out. [Music] All right. Well, that’s I think that’s the Ross. Ross taps out. Um he he knows when to hold him and knows when to fold him. There’s a there’s a quote from somewhere. Not Denzel, but you know, I’ll end on that. Thank you for listening to this a squad show. Check out me, Ros, and Darien on our socials for the latest. We’ll be right back here on Wednesday night uh to talk uh more a little bit more about what’s happening a little bit more in depth. We’ll have lands and all them. Uh and then we’re going to be previewing the next game. And we’ll be right back here the next Sunday to talk more Saint football, no matter what happens. Uh but until then, be sure to listen to Locked on Saints for your most uptoate and your constant reminders about what’s going on with Saints football. And uh I’ll see y’all on Wednesday.

Despite the loss to the San Francisco 49ers, New Orleans Saints quarterback Spencer Rattler had the best game of his career. Breaking down everything that happened with our instant reactions to Sunday’s matchup.

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