No place for the Saints to go but up

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Dennis Allen’s second act as head coach went about as well as the first time. Allen was fired from his second gig following a seven-straight loss by the New Orleans Saints. And you have to be a pretty bad team to lose to the Carolina Panthers, which the Saints did in Week 9.

Including his stint with the Las Vegas Raiders, Allen’s record as head coach in the NFL is 26-53.

A precursor to that embarrassing defeat was another bumbled outing. The team looked inept as they inhaled their sixth consecutive defeat to the Los Angeles Chargers in a road game. The Saints did not look like a team that even belonged on the same field as the Chargers after absorbing a 26-8 loss.  

“Offensively, we just really couldn’t get anything going offensively and when we did, we had too many penalties which put us in long distance situations that we just couldn’t overcome,” Allen said during his postgame press conference. “We’ll go back, get to work, hopefully get a couple more guys back and hopefully start playing some better football.”

This was not just a loss. It was how the Saints got handled by the home team. For starters, some numbers you can just throw out the window because they don’t mean anything if you were watching this football game. 

Let’s take a look at the total number of yards the Saints put up against the Chargers. 

The number says that the Saints accumulated 366 yards in total offense against the Chargers. Empty statistics mean nothing. That’s all that it is. In the first half, New Orleans put up five points and had five first downs. 

For the game, the Saints managed just two goals to go on the scoreboard. That’s not the worst of things. The Saints are simply unwatchable. Or maybe it was the Chargers defense that made New Orleans inept? 

That’s reasonable considering Los Angeles has one of the top scoring defenses in the NFL.   

“They try to take away that deep part of the field and that’s their go-to,” New Orleans quarterback Spencer Rattler said. “They make you play dink and dunk ball and drive it down the field, and we did a few times, but we’ve just got to protect the ball. We had no turnovers, but we’ve just got to just make more plays, convert and not shoot ourselves in the foot.”

But then again, there are certain statistics like third-down conversions that are hard to ignore. New Orleans managed to convert just 2 of 16 attempts on third down against the Chargers. In a nutshell that sums up the offensive output of the Saints for the entire game. 

When a team cannot convert third-down opportunities, they cannot sustain drives. And if you fail to make good on those conversions, the chances of winning a football game diminish. It’s as simple as that.    

So now let’s spin the wheel and look at what the Saints have done under Allen since he took over the reins as head coach in 2022. Allen guided New Orleans to a 7-10 record in his first season. In 2023, New Orleans improved to a 9-8 mark.  

After losing to the Chargers, the Saints are stuck in the mud with a 2-6 record. This is not Allen’s first rodeo trying to lead a team. Allen oversaw the Las Vegas Raiders for a couple of seasons that went nowhere during his tenure as head coach. 

“Yeah, the message is – it’s the people in the room in there that are going to have to change it,” Allen said. “Nobody’s coming from outside the building. It’s going to have to be the guys that are in that locker room, coaches to fix it. That’s what it is.” 

In two and a quarter seasons with the Raiders, Allen compiled an unimpressive 8-28 record before he was let go. And now the Saints have become the Aints again. Or at least they’re on their way.

After opening the 2024 NFL season with two wins, New Orleans has lost their last six contests and currently occupies the basement of the NFC South Division. 

Their latest debacle is a 26-8 defeat to the Los Angeles Chargers. The Saints didn’t just lose; their play on the SoFi Stadium turf field was weak. From an offensive perspective, New Orleans (2-6) was only able to generate two field goals for the entire game. Those other two points came by way of a defensive safety. 

With starting quarterback Derek Carr riding shotgun on the sideline for the game because of an injury, the Saints opted to go with Spencer Rattler as their leader on the field. In the first half against the Chargers, Rattler led the Saints to five first downs and five points. 

He was pulled in the second half in favor of Jake Haener.  

“I just felt like we needed to do something, to try to get something going offensively. We weren’t able to move the football and I felt like we needed to do something to try to create some sort of spark,” Allen said.