Saints’ improvement sets up interesting finish to the regular season

NEW ORLEANS – Derek Carr played his best game since arriving in New Orleans.

The Saints’ dramatic improvement in red-zone efficiency continued.

And the defense had its second consecutive dominant performance.

In the end the Saints defeated the New York Giants 24-6 on Sunday afternoon in the Caesars Superdome, their second straight victory by more than two touchdowns.

New Orleans (7-7) remained tied with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the best record in the NFC South while the Atlanta Falcons slipped a game behind after losing to the Carolina Panthers, the team the Saints beat 28-6 a week earlier.

Of course, no one is ordering playoff tickets or designing an NFC South championship banner just yet. After all, the Saints have to fly to Los Angeles and play a Rams team that is getting healthier and playing well on a short week Thursday.

And the Saints have some catching up to do with the Bucs on the tie-breaker front (having lost to them once), though they’ll get another crack at them on New Year’s Eve in Tampa.

And they lost the first meeting against the very-much-still-in-contention Falcons, though they get another crack at them in the regular-season finale in the Superdome on the first weekend of 2024.

Much work remains, but the Saints are trending upward albeit at a modest trajectory.

“Some things we said we need to get better at and improve on,” head coach Dennis Allen said, “we’ve done that.”

They have.

All season, New Orleans has been one of the worst teams in the NFL in terms of how frequently it scores touchdowns once it reaches the opponents’ 20-yard line and it was an abysmal zero for five in a 24-15 loss at Atlanta three weeks ago that could prove to be the most damaging loss of the season if the Saints don’t win the division.

But since then the Saints have scored four touchdowns in four red-zone trips against Detroit, three touchdowns in four red-zone trips against Carolina and they were two for two on Sunday.

“The last three weeks in the red zone, we have been so much better,” Carr said.

And on Sunday, Carr was at his best: 23 of 28 (with completions to 10 different receivers), 218 yards and three touchdowns to three different receivers (Keith Kirkwood, Juwan Johnson and Jimmy Graham).

“No one’s jumping off the table with 218 yards,” Allen said, “but three touchdowns, no interceptions.”

Allen clearly was pleased (and understandably so) with the performance of his hand-picked quarterback, who has gone lickety-split from quasi-savior to target of full-throated boo birds in a mere dozen games.

“I thought the quarterback played really well,” Allen said. “Make sure we get that on record. When someone plays really well, we need to recognize that he played well.”

Duly – and appropriately – noted.

And while we’re at it, let’s recognize Demario Davis, who has been the team’s defensive leader since arriving as a free agent in 2018 but has been slowed by a problematic knee this season before setting the tone Sunday with five tackles, two for loss and one sack in the first quarter alone; Alvin Kamara (66 rushing yards, 44 receiving yards); Tanoh Kpassagnon (career-high three of the team’s season-high seven sacks); seldom-used second-year tackle Landon Young, who filled in ably for injured Ryan Ramczyk; and NFL-ready rookie draft picks Bryan Bresee and Jordan Howden.

For much of the season the pass rush has been inadequate and often when pressure did reach the backfield the Saints have been burned by scrambling quarterbacks. But that didn’t happen Sunday against rookie Tommy DeVito, who rushed for a season-high 71 yards as New York (5-9) won its third consecutive game by beating Green Bay six days earlier.

“I thought our guys did a good job of understanding rush-lane integrity and how we had to rush this quarterback,” Allen said. “When we did get him off the spot, guys were able to finish. This was probably our best day in terms of being able to get after the quarterback and being able to finish on the quarterback.”

Getting back to Graham he was targeted twice in the first seven games, then was inactive for four games before his recent resurgence.

It’s fair to wonder why the rush-lane integrity and pass rush weren’t better earlier just as it’s fair to wonder why the red-zone offense was poor – as was Graham’s involvement – until the last three weeks.

But it’s equally fair to acknowledge that the improved pass rush, the improved red-zone productivity and Graham’s emergence are indicative of the coaches and players continuing to “chop wood,” as Allen likes to say, and seeing positive results from such even as outsiders are pondering changes for 2024.

The recent narrative about the Saints – at least as gauged by social media commentary – has focused on the push for leadership changes and the perceived futility of a potential NFC South championship and playoff berth.

But if those attracted to such premature speculation would recognize that Allen’s second team has matched the win total of his first team with three games still to play – and step back from the abyss – they might notice that something kind of interesting is going on.