NFL Week 6: There's No Magic Bullet In Sight to Cure This New Orleans Saints Travesty

The Saints are back to being a familiar mess, and there needs to be some thorough evaluation in New Orleans.

Oct 7, 2024; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen talks an official during the second half against the Kansas City Chiefs at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images / Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images

NEW ORLEANS -- I said that the Saints were in free fall mode last week following the loss to the Chiefs, and they’ve now officially crashed to the ground. Losing four straight games will do that to you, as their latest loss to the Bucs on Sunday proved to be yet another example of how New Orleans just wasn’t ready to play football.

New Orleans dug themselves into a 17-0 hole early and was able to rally back to even take the lead, but the fiery team that rallied in that quarter went missing in action in the second half. It was just a blip on the radar. Whatever Tampa wanted to do they did, and it's evident that there's some bigger problems here.

There’s no hiding behind injuries for New Orleans. They’re just who we thought they weren’t going to be this season. We were all fooled by the 2-0 start. It was a fluke, Fool's Gold or whatever you want to throw in there. It's right. Perhaps the most disappointing part of all of this fallout is the fact that a defensive coached team continues to have defensive problems that aren’t improving. Sure, you can find small moral victories that look good on the stat sheet, but this Saints defense is not getting the job done. 

How are you supposed to support a rookie quarterback when you can't make the necessary plays? You can understand a missed tackle here and there, but it’s excessive at this point. New Orleans isn’t going up against the league’s elite running backs here like Derrick Henry either. Communication breakdowns, running into each other and a laundry list of other problems are evident with each passing game, and someone needs to be held accountable.

Losing four games in a row typically gets a coach on the hot seat, and sure there's a lot of time left in the season to turn things around. However, these aren't new issues for Dennis Allen and company. You lost another divisional game, mind you at home, and that's now the third NFC game that this team has lost that could come back to haunt them when they figure out things and suddenly will put it all together late to come up short.

Where's the disconnect? What message isn't being received if the coaches need to do a better job and get outplayed and out coached? How does this keep happening? It seems to be one common denominator for New Orleans, and it's killing the Saints' chances of doing anything with the talent and capabilities they have.

We don't expect drastic changes for the team, but something has to give. This cycle just cannot continue. There's a lot of things that have been exposed for the Saints over the past several weeks, and this one might be the one that can't be ignored.