{"id":1020021,"date":"2026-10-06T09:09:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T09:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1020021\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T09:09:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T09:09:18","slug":"saints-lopsided-loss-sours-celebrations-on-20th-anniversary-of-domecoming-nfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1020021\/","title":{"rendered":"Saints\u2019 lopsided loss sours celebrations on 20th anniversary of \u2018Domecoming\u2019 | NFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Orleans Saints quarterback Tyler Shough was \u201cembarrassed\u201d. Second-year coach Kellen Moore was \u201cdisappointed\u201d and \u201cfrustrated\u201d. And a day of festivities commemorating one of the most triumphant moments in the New Orleans Saints\u2019 history ended with boos and early exits.<\/p>\n

Three plays into Monday night\u2019s game against Atlanta, Falcons running back Bijan Robinson silenced an electric Superdome crowd with a 59-yard touchdown run. The Saints\u2019 performance in a 45-24 loss to the Falcons bore no resemblance to their landmark 23-3 victory against the same team 20 years ago<\/a>, when the venue finally reopened after being damaged by Hurricane Katrina. On that made-for-TV night, Steve Gleason blocked a punt on the Falcons\u2019 opening possession and Curtis Deloatch recovered it for a touchdown, sending the Saints on their way.<\/p>\n

This time, New Orleans<\/a> held pre-game ceremonies commemorating those magic moments two decades ago, with retired players Drew Brees, Scott Fujita, Scott Shanle, Deuce McAllister, Devery Henderson and Deloatch joining Gleason \u2013 now in a wheelchair because of ALS \u2013 on the field before kick-off to lead fans in the team\u2019s familiar \u2018Who dat!\u2019 chant.<\/p>\n

Irma Thomas, a New Orleans local who sang the national anthem when the dome reopened, reprised her role. NFL<\/a> Commissioner Roger Goodell even traveled to New Orleans to commemorate the \u2018Domecoming\u2019 game he also attended in 2006. Earlier in the day, New Orleans mayor Helena Moreno gave Gleason a key to the city. Gleason later shared a moment with former Falcons punter Michael Koenen at the \u2018Rebirth\u2019 statue outside the dome which memorializes the famous punt block.<\/p>\n

Then came the game itself \u2013 the first nationally-televised, night-time home game for the Saints in nearly two years. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely disappointing,\u201d Shough said. \u201cIt\u2019s embarrassing. I can\u2019t say enough good things about fans showing up, the entire process, what this game meant and we fell short as a team \u2026 we\u2019ve got to do better on all fronts.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Gleason\u2019s mottos is \u201cnever punt\u201d. The Falcons seemed to take that to heart, scoring their most points since a 48-33 victory against Carolina in 2016, never punting after the first quarter and getting touchdowns on five of their last six full possessions.<\/p>\n

Steve Gleason before the game. Photograph: Gerald Herbert\/AP<\/p>\n

The Saints (1-3), who secured a breakthrough victory at Baltimore two weeks ago, followed that up with two straight losses at home. \u201cWe\u2019re all frustrated, all disappointed with where we\u2019re at,\u201d Moore said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to learn from this one and move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shough threw for 286 yards and wide receiver Chris Olave had eight catches for 116 yards, but the Saints scored on only one of their five first-half series, falling behind 24-7. After they settled for a 27-yard field goal on their opening drive of the second half, Atlanta responded with a nine-play, 74-yard touchdown drive to go ahead 31-10.<\/p>\n

The dome started to empty out at that point, and it turned into a red-clan Falcons\u2019 fans celebration after Atlanta scored another touchdown to go ahead 38-17 with 9:50 left in the fourth quarter. \u201cI love New Orleans. I love this place,\u201d Shough said. \u201cAnd you see the energy, the passion of everybody, the culture behind this place and it sucks whenever you don\u2019t come through on the field in that way, especially against our division rivals. It hurts me. I don\u2019t want to feel like that ever again.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Falcons\u2019 Brian Robinson Jr runs in for a touchdown. Photograph: Gerald Herbert\/AP<\/p>\n

Playing without injured defensive end Carl Granderson, linebacker Kaden Elliss and running back Travis Etienne, among others, New Orleans struggled. Atalanta\u2019s Robinson ran for 145 yards and two touchdowns, and Brian Robinson Jr added three scoring runs.<\/p>\n

After falling behind, New Orleans pretty much abandoned their running game, finishing with 50 yards on 19 carries. The Saints fell a game behind NFC South co-leaders Atlanta and Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe squandered an opportunity but we\u2019ve got more opportunities,\u201d Shough said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to kind of take it on the chin and we\u2019ll see them again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Orleans Saints quarterback Tyler Shough was \u201cembarrassed\u201d. Second-year coach Kellen Moore was \u201cdisappointed\u201d and \u201cfrustrated\u201d. And a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1020022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[7,896,55,2572,2571,6,397],"class_list":["post-1020021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-orleans-saints","tag-football","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-neworleans","tag-neworleanssaints","tag-nfl","tag-saints"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117393186453937862","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1020021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1020022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1020021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1020021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1020021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}