The New Orleans Saints are 1-2, and they are the most entertaining bad-luck story in football. No team has been closer to 3-0 while sitting at 1-2: an overtime heartbreaker in Detroit, a comeback win in Baltimore, and a home collapse against Las Vegas in which they led 27-16 in the third quarter and then turned it over on four straight fourth-quarter possessions. Four possessions, four turnovers, 19 unanswered points, 35-27. It was the kind of loss that makes you stare at the wall. Monday night brings the Falcons to the Caesars Superdome — both teams 1-2, the winner back at .500 in a wide-open NFC South. The Saints don't need a pep talk. They need to hold onto the football.
At the center of it all is Tyler Shough, the second-year quarterback who has been both brilliant and maddening, sometimes on the same drive. The numbers say franchise quarterback: 91 of 132 (68.9 percent) for 917 yards — second in the NFL — with eight touchdown passes against three interceptions. He threw for 410 yards in the overtime loss at Detroit. He engineered the game-winning drive in Baltimore, finishing 27 of 34 for 252 yards without a pick. Against the Raiders, he threw four touchdown passes and looked like an MVP candidate for three quarters. Then the fourth quarter happened: a strip-sack by Malcolm Koonce, an underthrown interception to Hezekiah Masses, another strip by Jeremy Chinn on a fourth-down blitz — and, for good measure, a Juwan Johnson fumble on the final drive. Three giveaways in each of the two losses. Five fumbles in three games after three in 11 appearances last season. "Each one of those things are correctable," Shough said this week. He's right. But "correctable" doesn't show up in the standings.
The irony is that everything else about this offense is working. New Orleans ranks 8th in total yards (382.7 per game), 3rd in passing yards, 2nd in first downs, 4th on third down, 4th in the red zone. Chris Olave is playing like one of the league's elite receivers. The offensive line is giving Shough time — 132 attempts lead the league, and he's completing them. Head coach Kellen Moore, the former star coordinator in his second year running the show, has built a top-half offense (13th in EPA per play) around a 25-year-old quarterback. The problem is entirely about ball security: seven turnovers as a team, 29th in the league. You cannot outscore your own mistakes, and the Saints keep trying.
Monday night is a fascinating test. The Falcons come in off a 35-14 demolition of Green Bay with Michael Penix Jr. back at quarterback and playing the best football of his young career. The real problem is Bijan Robinson, who gashed the Packers for 194 yards and has a history of tormenting New Orleans — over 300 rushing yards and five touchdowns in six of his last ten games against the Saints. The Saints' run defense has been generous (128.7 yards per game to backs), though it did bottle up Ashton Jeanty (56 yards on 19 carries) before one back-breaking touchdown. Early Defensive Player of the Year candidate Chase Young and the ageless Cameron Jordan will need the games of their lives. And Atlanta's pass defense is vulnerable (29th against quarterbacks) — if Shough protects the ball, the Saints can score on anyone. That's been the story all season: the "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Zoom out, and this franchise is still writing its post-Brees identity. The Saints were born in 1967 and spent their first two decades as the NFL's lovable losers — the "Aints," the paper bags over fans' heads in the Superdome. Then came the Jim Mora years and the Dome Patrol, the first playoff wins, and finally the Sean Payton-Drew Brees era that changed everything: the emotional return to the Superdome in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina — Steve Gleason's blocked punt on the first night back, the most cathartic moment in New Orleans sports history — and the Super Bowl XLIV championship after the 2009 season, the onside kick to open the second half, Tracy Porter's pick-six sealing it against Peyton Manning's Colts. For fifteen years, the Saints were appointment television, perennial contenders, the pride of the Gulf Coast.
Since Brees retired after the 2020 season, it's been a search. The Jameis Winston experiment, the Andy Dalton interlude, the Derek Carr years — competitive, professional, and never quite enough. Four straight seasons without a playoff berth coming into this year. The NFC South, once the Saints' personal property (four straight division titles from 2017-2020), has belonged to Tampa Bay. That's the drought Shough and Moore were hired to end: the Saints haven't won the division since 2020, haven't won a playoff game since the Brees era, and the fan base — the Who Dat Nation that turned the Superdome into the loudest building in sports — is hungry for something real.
The pieces are tantalizingly close. An ascending young quarterback who leads the league in attempts and sits second in yards. A legitimate WR1. A creative young head coach. A defense with game-wreckers up front. What's missing is the boring stuff: ball security, situational discipline, the ability to close. The Saints led in the fourth quarter in all three games. They won one of them. Championship teams don't do that — but young, ascending teams often do, right before they figure it out. Monday night against Atlanta, under the lights, in the Dome, with first place in the division essentially on the line: this is the exact stage where the Saints used to announce themselves. Shough gets his next chance to show the fourth quarter belongs to him. The whole season might hinge on it.
