 Photo By: Michael Bacigalupi Da Boot Sports 11/23/2025 Article Courtesy of Crescent City Sports By: Ken Trahan The question was clear. Could the Saints build momentum from a good performance in a rare win two weeks ago?The Saints were 2-8 while the Falcons had lost five straight games. Clearly, these are not good teams. Still, the heated rivalry dating back to 1967 continues as the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons renewed acquaintances Sunday at Caesars Superdome. The series could not be more even. Each team had won 56 times in 112 meetings. The Falcons had outscored the Saints 2,471 to 2,409. Atlanta was averaging 22 points per game to 21.5 for New Orleans in those matchups. The tie is gone, and Atlanta has the lead in the series. Despite having a bye week, the Saints looked like a team that took a vacation completely from football. They stunk. It was a good feeling with Drew Brees calling the game for Fox Sports and Jimmy Graham in the house as the Legend of the Game for the Saints. The good guys looked sharp in all black. That positivity ended quickly. The good guys were bad. Make that very bad. The fans from Atlanta were looking for a daily double after the Hawks beat the Pelicans at Smoothie King Center on Saturday. They got it as the embarrassment of opposing team’s fans making as much noise as Saints fans continues in this miserable season, just as the Atlanta fans did at Smoothie King Center Saturday. Reality bites! Here are my Quick Takes from the 24-10 Atlanta win over New Orleans: **Inactives for the Saints included Ugo Amadi, Khristian Boyd, Audric Estime’, Taliese Fuaga, John Ridgeway III and Rezjohn Wright. **The Saints won the toss and deferred. **The Saints forced a 3-and-out as Terrell Burgess broke up a pass on third down by Kirk Cousins, forcing a punt. **Tyler Shough and Alvin Kamara missed a simple handoff exchange and Dee Alford recovered the fumble at the New Orleans 39-yard-line with 12:52 to play in the opening quarter. It was the third lost fumble for Kamara this season. **Chase Young sacked Cousins on third down, forcing a 56-yard field goal by Zane Gonzalez to give the Falcons a 3-0 lead with 10:41 to play in the first quarter. It was the fourth sack of the season for Young, who missed **Mason Tipton returned the ensuing kickoff 75 yards to the Atlanta 16-yard-line. **Cesar Ruiz gave up a sack after Taysom Hill lost a yard. **Blake Grupe then missed a 38-yard field goal wide right, continuing his poor season, in stark contrast to Wil Lutz, whom the Saints mistakenly cut in favor of Grupe. Lutz just got a 3-year contract extension. Grupe is very fortunate to have a job. He is now 17 of 24 in field goal attempts on the season. **The Saints gained five yards and committed a turnover in their first two possessions. **Cam Jordan came up with a sack to stall the next Atlanta possession after a pair of false starts on the Falcons. It was the 127th of his career. It was his 25th sack in 29 career games against Atlanta. **Jordan Howden committed a holding penalty on the ensuing punt, pinning the Saints back to the 8-yard-line with 5:02 to play in the first quarter. **DeVaughn Vele then hurt the Saints with an obvious holding penalty. **Kamara, who entered the game nursing an ankle injury, limped off after going down awkwardly on a tackle by former Saint Kaden Elliss. It was a knee injury and he did not return. **Atlanta had 43 yards in the first quarter to 37 for New Orleans. **The Falcons expanded the lead to 10-0 when Davis Sills burned Alontae Taylor a double-post route for a touchdown pass from Cousins with 11:31 to play in the half. It was the first NFL touchdown for Sills. It was an easy throw and catch. Taylor had outside leverage and Sills went to the post and was simply open for Cousins. **It was the 289th career touchdown pass for Cousins. **The New Orleans defense came up with a game-changing play. Justin Reid picked off a tipped pass in intended for Kyle Pitts which Kool Aid McKinstry knocked in the air. Reid returned it 49 yards for a touchdown to cut the deficit to 10-7 with 6:41 to play in the half. **It was the first interception for Reid with the Saints and the second pick-six of his career. **It was the first interception return for a touchdown by a Saints player since Oct. 8, 2023 by Tyrann Mathieu, who returned a pick 27 yards for a score in a 34-0 win over New England. **Isaiah Stalbird came up with a sack to stop a good Atlanta drive. Gonzalez nailed a 41-yard field goal to give the Falcons a 13-7 lead with 1:56 to play in the half. **The Saints got a drive near the end of the half which stalled because of terrible pass protection again and once again, Grupe missed a 47-yard field goal attempt wide right yet again to make him 17 of 25 on the season. **The Falcons extended the lead to 16-7 at halftime as Gonzalez nailed a 54-yard field goal on the final play of the half to cap a 26-yard drive in 10 plays. **Atlanta dominated time of possession at 18:59 to just 11:01 for the Saints in the half. **New Orleans ran just 27 plays and gained just 95 yards in the half. **The Saints opened with Taysom Hill in the backfield with Devin Neal to start the second half with a two-tight end set and leaned on the run game effectively. **New Orleans took the second half kickoff and had a nice drive of 74 yards and reached the Atlanta 1-yard-line and went for it on fourth-and-goal. With Hill at quarterback, his pass attempt was batted down by Ronnie Harrison and the Saints came up empty again. **The Saints had the ball for 13:02 in the third quarter and ran 24 plays while Atlanta had the ball for just 1:58 and ran just three plays. **The Saints had another solid drive and once again reached the 1-yard-line. **Shough reached the half-yard line on a second down quarterback sneak. **Then, inexplicably, Kellen Moore decided to put Hill in and put him in shotgun. You were at the half-yard-line. Get under center. Sneak it again. **You had already had high snaps from reserve center Luke Fortner. The snap was high, over the head of Hill. He ran back to field it and intentionally grounded the ball, resulting in a penalty and loss of down. Then again, it was a questionable grounding call as Hill was very close to being outside the tackle box. **That forced Moore to send Grupe on and he made a 33-yard field goal to cut the deficit to 16-10 with 12:13 to play in the game. **Once again, the Saints blew a golden opportunity. **Atlanta did not waste an opportunity. Cousins went deep for Darnell Mooney, who whipped McKinstry for a 49-yard touchdown. Bijan Robinson ran the two-point conversion in to make it 24-10 with 11:04 to play in the game. **Cousins tied Johnny Unitas with his 290th career touchdown pass. **Dante Pettis made his first catch as a Saint late in the fourth quarter but he came up a yard short of a first down on a fourth-and-15 play. **Fittingly, Xavier Watts picked off Shough on the final offensive play for the Saints as Shough simply threw a Hail Mary into double coverage. The euphoria of a good performance in a win at Carolina disappeared very quickly. The Saints are a bad football team. New Orleans had the ball four times inside the Atlanta 30-yard-line and scored a total of three points off those possessions. This game was not an indictment of Shough at all. He was not the problem, just as Spencer Rattler was not the problem when he started. Shough finished 30 of 43 for 243 yards with the interception. There were two drops. Chris Olave had nine catches for 70 yards. The offensive line is not good enough. Cesar Ruiz was awful and Fortner could not execute shotgun snaps. Backup linemen looked the part of backup linemen, including Dillon Radunz and Asim Richards. The team could not even execute a simple handoff, resulting in a turnover. No one could make a yard at the goal line on more than one occasion. New Orleans has few playmakers, nowhere near enough. Other than that, things are fine with this offense, which has not scored all season. The reeling Falcons had lost five straight games and were without their starting quarterback and top receiver. Their defense had played poorly, among the worst in the NFL during the losing streak, giving up over 500 yards each in their last two losses. Somehow, Las Vegas established the Saints as a slight favorite. The Saints were the cure for everything that plagued the Falcons. It had to be tough for Brees watching this, considering the way he dominated the Falcons when with the Saints. Perhaps Drew will be blessed with other assignments the rest of the season, sparing of him of watching the shell of his former organization. The Saints head to Miami next week. It is back to playing the “how high of a draft pick” game for Saints fans. *John 14:6 - "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (Accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior) *John 3;16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 
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