Green Bay, Wis. – No detective skills were necessary Monday night to decipher which team at Lambeau Field was charging toward the playoffs and which officially was eliminated from playoff contention Sunday.
The New Orleans Saints weren't much of a match for the Packers in a 34-0 loss on national television that dropped New Orleans to 5-10 overall, and 3-3 under interim head coach Darren Rizzi. With two remaining regular-season games, the Saints turn their attention to the Raiders game that'll be played Sunday in the Caesars Superdome, then to the ending game on the road against Tampa Bay.
Monday night didn't offer many superlatives to carry into the coming weekend.
OFFENSE: New Orleans was limited to 14 plays in the first half against Washington last Sunday; it totaled 23 plays and 81 yards in the first half against Green Bay, with a long gain of 21 yards (a completion from Spencer Rattler to Foster Moreau). A couple of false start penalties in the first two quarters helped spike drives that exhibited a bit of pep but for the most part, New Orleans couldn't mount a sustained rushing attack and had difficulty protecting Rattler, who was making his fourth NFL start. Too much discombobulation – time outs being used because of substitution issues – to be this late in the season. Rattler lost a fumble on a sack, took another sack that pushed New Orleans out of field-goal range and threw an interception in the second half.
DEFENSE: The unit did absolutely nothing to help itself in the first two quarters. Green Bay converted four of seven third-down attempts in the first half, and both of its fourth-down tries. It scored on its first three possessions and two drives greatly were aided by Saints neutral zone infractions, which shortened third-down attempts of seven and six yards. The Packers regularly, and successfully, worked the edges on sweeps in the run game and when they didn't take advantage there, running back Josh Jacobs often bullied his way through tackle attempts. Due to the inability to stop the run, there wasn't much resistance in the pass defense but quarterback Jordan Love wasn't required to do anything spectacular as a passer. New Orleans' tackling issues remained intact.
SPECIAL TEAMS: "Solid but not spectacular" isn't necessarily a bad thing, unless you need something spectacular in the kicking game to shift momentum. New Orleans averaged around 30 yards per return on kickoffs in the first half, and Matthew Hayball had a couple of punts downed inside the 20-yard line. But New Orleans couldn't pop a field-position changing return, or cause a fumble. Those aren't routine occurrences, true, but sometimes they're desperately needed when a team is scratching for something to generate juice.
