Saints offense reverts to form

Welcome back, New Orleans Saints offense.

A week after the Saints ended an NFL-worst streak of 10 consecutive games scoring 21 or fewer points, they lost to the Texans 20-13 on Sunday afternoon in Houston.

They showed that the 34-0 road victory against the inept New England Patriots was an aberration rather than the beginning of a potential turning point.

They proved it by driving deep into Texans territory three times in the fourth quarter and scoring a grand total of zero points. Zilch. Nada.

The Saints were trailing 20-13 when they drove into the red zone before stalling. Blake Grupe, who had missed a 52-yard field goal on the team’s first possession of the game, was wide left from 29 yards.

On their next possession the Saints entered the red zone again but on fourth and four Derek Carr’s pass to Alvin Kamara gained just two yards.

“Red zone continues to jump up and bite us,” head coach Dennis Allen said.

Other zones weren’t great either.

On their final possession the Saints didn’t quite reach the red zone, but they did reach the Texans 24 in the final minute.

From there Carr threw straight incompletions before being intercepted by Steven Nelson on fourth down with 15 seconds left.

“Way too many missed opportunities in this game,” Allen said.

It wasn’t just the three scoreless trips into scoring range at the end that cost the Saints.

Grupe’s first miss prevented them from playing with an early 3-0 lead and they would go on to never play with a lead.

On the ensuing possession linebacker Zack Baun intercepted rookie C.J. Stroud, ending the No. 2 overall draft choice’s NFL record of 182 interception-free passes to start his career.

But the takeaway lasted only as long as it took Baun to run from the New Orleans 45 to Houston 45, where he was hit and fumbled. The Texans recovered at their 41.

If Baun had held on to the football, the Saints would have been less than a first down away from Grupe being able to try (but not necessarily make) a field goal.

But Baun didn’t.

Houston took advantage of its opportunity by driving to its first touchdown.

The dodged bullets gave a lift to a young Texans team trying to build confidence under a rookie head coach (DeMeco Ryans) as well as the rookie quarterback.

The Saints tied the score on a Carr touchdown pass to Rashid Shaheed before the home team built a 17-7 lead. Grupe’s field goal – he would make two in between the two misses – got the visitors within 17-10 at halftime.

The New Orleans defense played much better in the second half than it had in the first and allowed just three points after halftime.

That presented another opportunity for the offense – but time and again it came up short.

Carr completed 32 of 50 passes for 353 yards, but that didn’t lead to enough points. Alvin Kamara had 104 total yards, but that didn’t lead to enough points.

Chris Olave caught seven passes for 96 yards, Shaheed had his touchdown and 85 yards on two catches, Taysom Hill had a career-high seven catches for 49 yards and Michael Thomas caught five passes for 45 yards.

None of that – nor 18 more plays, five more first downs, 133 more yards – was enough for the Saints to exceed 13 measly points.

The Saints have to come right back Thursday night and face AFC South leader Jacksonville, which is 4-2 after three straight wins, in the Caesars Superdome.

Allen said he told the team, “Swallow it and let’s go. We don’t have a lot of time to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves. It’s a big man’s league that we’re in, so we’ve got to pick ourselves off the mat, regroup.”

Despite the persistent and significant offensive short-comings, New Orleans has one thing going for it. The NFC is filled with mediocre teams and the South division is especially mediocre.

The Eagles and the 49ers (despite losing for the first time Sunday), the Lions and periodically the Cowboys are impressive teams. The Giants, Bears, Cardinals, Panthers are distinctly unimpressive.

Everyone else in the conference (including the Saints) is just trying to figure out if they’re capable of winning one more game than they lose or lose more than they win.

But in order for the Saints to become one of those teams capable of finishing slightly north of .500, they have to play offense at a level that seemingly is above where their ceiling rests.