Saints must question everything after embarrassing loss to Falcons

Ouch. The New Orleans Saints have lost games by 44-13 (to the Seattle Seahawks), 23-3 (to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers), and 34-10 (to the Los Angeles Rams) this year, but getting thumped by a bad Atlanta Falcons team might be the most deflating loss of all. It's certainly the most embarrassing of the bunch. Unlike those teams with a future in the playoffs, the Falcons were exactly the kind of competition the Saints need to beat up on to show us they're better than their record says they are.

Instead, the Saints look like they belong in the basement. It's time to recalibrate our expectations. If they can't beat a three-win Falcons team, why should we expect them to beat a four-win Miami Dolphins team or a two-win New York Jets team? Or this same Falcons team in the regular season finale, this time in Atlanta?

When the Saints hired Kellen Moore, he was lauded as a Super Bowl-winning play caller and an offensive mastermind who could install a fresh scheme to maximize the talent Pete Carmichael and Klint Kubiak hadn't harnessed. His unit has averaged 13.7 points per game through eleven weeks. We're entering the final stretch of the season and there isn't anything Moore does well. He hasn't shown a knack for calling the right play at the right time, or even navigating critical downs well in the red zone or on third-and-long (or, as far as that goes, fourth-and-short). He isn't a disciplinarian. He doesn't have a fiery presence on the sideline. You can't even say he's developing young quarterbacks when Taysom Hill is taking the ball out of their hands to average 1.7 yards per carry.

This team is in dire straits. Between Moore's lack of success in Year and Mickey Loomis lacking success in every year Sean Payton didn't coach his team (he's got a 51-75 record from 2002 to 2005 and 2022 to 2025), it's really tough to feel like the right people are at the wheel. They've got six more games to prove us wrong.

This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: From coach to kicker, Saints must recalibrate after Falcons loss