Saints unravel in final minutes of a devastating loss to the Buccaneers It was right there in front of them, a huge win that would have put them within a half-game of the NFC South lead with four games to go. And, somehow, unfathomably, the New Orleans Saints let it slip right through their fingers in a 17-16 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a defeat that was as ugly as any the team has endured in years considering the stakes. The Saints held a 16-3 lead with 5:34 remaining. They'd spent the entire night harassing and frustrating the Tampa Bay offense and making just enough plays on offense. And then it all unraveled. After going the entire rest of the game without allowing Tampa to score a touchdown, the Saints allowed a pair of Buccaneers touchdown drives in the final five minutes, the second of which gave the Buccaneers the lead with three seconds remaining. The Saints had an opportunity of their own to put the game away offensively, and they moved backward while taking 31 seconds off the clock. "It's frustrating as hell to not come out with a win when you're up 16-3 in the fourth and you lose whatever the score ended up being," said defensive end Cameron Jordan. "That's sort of been the story of the year. That sh-t's not winning football." The collapse started when the Saints had the ball, when they started to feel the crushing weight of their missed opportunities. On a second and 8, running back Mark Ingram caught a ball in the flat with room to run, but he ducked out of bounds a yard short of the marker, apparently suffering a knee injury on the play. On the ensuing third-and-1, while protecting a 13-point lead with 5:34 to go, the Saints tried a quick slant for Marquez Callaway. The ball fell incomplete, the clock stopped and the game hinged. "We had a pass play that was initially designed for the fullback in the flat on the other side," coach Dennis Allen said. "(Quarterback Andy Dalton) thought he had a shot with a bullet to (Callaway). Look, hindsight is 20-20. I wish we would've run it." Tom Brady and Tampa Bay - which had not put together a drive longer than 40 yards since its first series of the game - found a groove. Starting at its own 9-yard line, the Bucs went the length of the field, aided by a 36-yard defensive pass interference penalty on Saints defensive back Paulson Adebo in the end zone. On the next play after the pass interference, Brady found tight end Cade Otton for a 1-yard score to cut the lead to six. The Saints could have wrenched control of the game back into their hands at that point. Instead, they went three-and-out. The last play of that drive featured quarterback Andy Dalton delivering a perfect pass to Taysom Hill that would have converted a third and 18 - except Hill dropped the ball, one of three crucial drops by Saints receivers Monday. The Saints punted the ball, trusting their defense, but Brady went right back to work. The veteran quarterback completed 6 of 8 pass attempts on the final drive, the last one finding running back Rachaad White for a 6-yard touchdown with three seconds remaining. Ryan Succop made the extra point to provide the final advantage. With the loss, the Saints dropped to 4-9, guaranteeing Allen will finish his first year as head coach with a losing record. Technically the Saints still have an extremely unlikely chance at winning the division, but the Saints would have to win out and Tampa would need to lose at least four for that to happen. It was a complete system failure for the Saints, a team that was thoroughly in control but coughed it up in just about every facet of the game. "At critical points of the game, we had opportunities and we didn't make the plays," receiver Jarvis Landry said. "When you give a guy like Tom time, he tends to figure it out as the game goes." The Saints looked like they had finally turned around some of their fortunes. Coming into Monday's game, the Saints had gone an entire month without forcing a turnover - a streak that was frustrating a team that had grown used to making game-changing plays. They forced two of them against Tampa Bay - a Demario Davis interception and a Carl Granderson fumble recovery. The offense looked like it was playing complementary football. Little of what the Saints did offensively Monday was exciting, but the team reeled off several long drives and it didn't turn the ball over itself. The thing that came back to bite the Saints later was its inability to turn those drives into touchdowns. In a game the Saints lost by one point, they settled for three red zone field goals. "We didn't capitalize on the opportunities and they did," left tackle James Hurst said. "That's what it came down to." The Saints managed to turn their two turnovers into six points. Another drive that started at the Tampa 40-yard line after a brilliant punt return from rookie Rashid Shaheed resulted in no points after New Orleans went three-and-out. They had so many chances to take a commanding lead, and they either could not finish the plays or let them blow up before they started. In the second quarter, Dalton squeezed a perfect second-level throw between defenders to sure-handed rookie Chris Olave on the sideline. The rookie let it bounce off his hands and fall incomplete. Rather than attempting a 56-yard field goal, New Orleans took a delay of game and punted it away. On their ensuing drive, right before the end of the first half, Dalton made another precision strike to Landry on a third and 2 from the 19-yard line. Landry attempted to spear the ball with his left hand - he said after the game his only options were a one-handed grab or a diving attempt. The ball glanced off his hand and fell to the dirt incomplete. "I make those (catches)," Landry said. I" have to make it in that situation. At the moment, it was one of the biggest plays in the game. We still had opportunities later in the game, we still got points on the drive, but seven is more than three." New Orleans still had one more chance to take a commanding lead. It had an 11-play drive going that ate up more than half the third quarter, and it faced a third and 2 from the Buccaneers' 3-yard line. But it was penalized for having 12 men in the huddle, pushing it back five yards before it ever ran a play. "That's a communication responsibility amongst the offense," Allen said. "That's got to be something that's got to be improved." Dalton's ensuing third-and-7 pass to Hill gained five yards, setting up a short field goal. It was a game the Saints controlled for much of the first 55 minutes - they just didn't control it in a manner that would make the closing minutes irrelevant. Even as it was building its lead, getting strong play from its defense and generally competent play from its offense, New Orleans was leaving cracks in its foundation. And, with four games left to play, it's not going to take much of a push for the whole thing to come tumbling down. Luke Johnson, NOLA.com, published 6 December 2022