The playoffs just weren’t in the cards this season for the New Orleans Saints. In the final week of the NFL regular season, New Orleans won their game against the Atlanta Falcons 30-20. However, the San Francisco 49ers wound up upsetting the Los Angeles Rams in overtime by intercepting Matthew Stafford. The win knocked the Saints out of contention this season but it isn’t all bad news considering their many injuries.
Taysom Hill started the game and had 107 passing yards and a touchdown without an interception. He added on five rushes for 18 yards but left the game with a foot injury that would later need surgery as it was recently announced. Trevor Siemian stepped back into the quarterback role and threw for 71 yards and two touchdowns without an interception, another solid performance. Alvin Kamara went nuts by taking 30 carries for 146 yards on the ground. With so much focus on the run game, the pass game never really stood out. Although Tre’Quan Smith looked solid believe it or not. He had five receptions for 76 yards and a touchdown which is a positive sign for the future. Defensively they were all over Matt Ryan. They had sacked him three times and forced two fumbles and an interception. Cameron Jordan got yet another sack, making it 8.5 in the final four weeks of the season. Paulson Adebo ended his rookie season with a ridiculous one-handed interception and Marcus Davenport and Malcolm Jenkins forced the two fumbles on excellent plays.
The Falcons were about as limited as the Saints were this game offensively with so many guys out. Ryan had 216 yards, a touchdown and that interception. However, Russell Gage was pretty much all of those yards. He had nine receptions for 126 yards. What was surprising was that Jenkins shut out Kyle Pitts. I mean shut out. He only had two catches for eight yards. Cordarrelle Patterson had five total touches for 12 yards himself. New Orleans literally left no room for the Falcons to work for the majority of this game. The score would have been a lot more lopsided had Atlanta not have scored with a few minutes left in the fourth quarter. Excellent day for this Saints defense and a great job taking care of business to end this season even though it’s a little disappointing. A higher draft pick is probably for the best anyways!
They now get the opportunity to sit back and watch the playoffs from home, with the only team from their division getting into the postseason being the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Tampa Bay escaped the Carolina Panthers for the second time in three weeks despite having a banged-up roster themselves. Tampa Bay now looks onwards to the Wild Card as they jumped up to the number two seed with the Rams surprising loss. They get the Philadelphia Eagles first, a team that may end up shocking people if they come ready to play. Though ultimately, everybody is expecting the Buccaneers to rout them pretty easily at home here.