Saints DE Cameron Jordan on late-game collapse to Buccaneers: ‘This (expletive) hurts’
With 5:34 remaining Monday night, the New Orleans Saints had a 99.3% win probability, according to Next Gen Stats. 99.3.
Ninety-nine. Point. Three.
The squiggle on the graph was so close to the win line they were nearly overlapping.
Yet, up 16-3 with the season on the line, Dennis Allen’s club collapsed down the stretch, falling 17-16 to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“This s— hurts,” Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan said, via The Times-Picayune. “You don’t process anything. I’ve got to go into a bye week knowing we should’ve beat this team the first time. We should’ve beat this team this time. We should’ve beat Carolina. We should’ve beat a lot of other teams. We didn’t. Right now, these are the facts of what we’re facing. Beyond an uphill battle. We’ve got to swing our way out of these last four games.”
The errors down the stretch were pervasive in the loss.
With 6:11 to play, the Saints faced a second-and-8 from their own 49-yard line. Andy Dalton dumped the ball to Mark Ingram, who inexplicably ran out of bounds one yard shy of the first down. Ingram was clearly hurting, having been injured on an earlier play. But if he’s not capable of fighting for one yard, that could make a big difference, the coaching staff should have never had him on the field.
The play turned out to be a massive swing. On third-and-1, Dalton threw a quick slant against a stacked box that fell incomplete, forcing a punt with 5:31 remaining.
The Bucs’ comeback was on.
“We gave ourselves every opportunity, we just didn’t get it done,” Allen said. “It sucks, it stings, it hurts.”
A Saints defense that played well all game wilted in a big spot. The unit allowed Brady to move 91 yards on 10 plays in 2:21 for a touchdown to pull within one point. The drive included a massive 44-yard pass interference call on Paulson Adebo. Why the Saints were in a defense that could put its corner in a spot to take that penalty seems inexplicable.
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