The Saints refused to go down without a fight, but were narrowly defeated by the commanders

NEW ORLEANS – For the Saints, it came down to one play that they just couldn’t finish. Interim coach Darren Rizzi had no regrets and would not have changed a thing. Neither do the players. New Orleans falls to 5-9 on the year and is almost certainly out of the NFC South race after a 20-19 loss to the Commanders.

“I’m incredibly proud of the football team,” Rizzi said. He mentioned that in his 32 years as a coach he had never felt this way and that he had never seen a group of players fight harder. Defensively, they did a pretty stellar job against Jayden Daniels. Even if you take away the two negligible sacks, there are still six left. The defense, together with the commanders, did a good job. Unfortunately it led to the same result.

It was another familiar storyline for New Orleans as it was a story of two halves. The first half was horrible to say the least. With Jake Haener at the helm, the Saints played just 14 plays and failed to gain more than 30 yards on offense. There was a big drop from Marquez Valdes-Scantling and a big hookup from Cedrick Wilson Jr. that was called back on a hold call, but they were just out of sync. Of course, Haener was disappointed that he didn’t get a shot in the second half.

With 30 seconds left in the first half, Spencer Rattler was told he was going in by quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko. Rattler gave the Saints’ offense the impetus and they seemed to get things going. They went from just a first down to 16 in the second half. Rattler finished the game on 10/21. for 135 yards and a touchdown. He wasn’t sacked and it was just a complete turnaround for the offense.

Of course, in hindsight you wonder what would have happened if Rattler had started the game, but that’s this season in microcosm. For New Orleans, it’s always the “what if.”

The decision to go with two people at the end was the right decision and something we expected. They wanted to do the same against the Rams. The Saints handled the clock the way they wanted on their final possession. A major error by the referees sent New Orleans to overtime at the end of the game, and there was no way to fix it. Nevertheless, Rattler threw an outstanding throw to Foster Moreau and ensured that there was only one more play.

Rattler suspected that Juwan Johnson may have been held on the play. Kevin Austin Jr. might have been open at the end. Nothing can be changed and the saints are what they are. What we’ve learned about New Orleans is that Rattler learned a lot the last time he was a starter, and that’s the most important takeaway here. There won’t be a decision yet on who the quarterback will be when the Saints play in Green Bay, mostly because the team has an extra day and needs to see where Derek Carr stands. However, what we saw from Rattler was very encouraging.

The loss will help the Saints with their draft position in the long run as New Orleans is currently trying to stay in the top-10. Ultimately, this will be the fourth straight year the Saints fail to make the postseason. It’s officially another losing season for the Black and Gold, who should look to the future unless something bad happens. There are some really good building blocks and positives to take away from their Week 15 performance, and with only three games left on the schedule, we’ll just see where the outcome ends up.