The New Orleans Saints had a golden opportunity Sunday.
Even more golden than the jerseys they wore that matched the Caesars Superdome end zones that they could only get into once.
The Arizona Cardinals were just the type of opponent the Saints needed to give us a gauge on what the first season of the Kellen Moore era could look like.
The Cardinals were also just the right kind of opponent to steal a win against, unlike some of the more daunting foes the Saints will see in the next few weeks.
But this is a golden opportunity that slipped away, just like the football slipped away from the hands of tight end Juwan Johnson on what could have been a game-tying touchdown in the final seconds.
Instead, the Saints fell 20-13 to the Cardinals.
Yeah, the Saints showed some fight, which is what you want to see in a team with so many new faces, including a 37-year-old head coach hired in February.
If the Saints are going to be any good in Kellen Moore’s first season, though, they will need a lot of things to go right.
They can’t commit just as many penalties (13) as points, which was the case Sunday.
Blake Grupe can’t miss 38-yard field goals.
They can’t let every tight end they face this season have his way like Arizona’s Trey McBride (six catches, 61 yards) did.
And finally, Moore can’t make the rookie mistake of mismanaging the clock like he did late in the first half.
Throw all of that together, and it’s easy to see why the Saints lost a season opener for the first time since 2018. The Saints entered Sunday with the longest active winning streak in season openers in the NFL.
But that streak ended, while another one continued: This was the Saints' fifth consecutive loss. Their last win was Dec. 8 against the New York Giants, a game sealed nine months ago by a Bryan Bresee blocked field goal. Bresee blocked another field Sunday that gave the Saints a chance late. The Saints responded by driving to the Cardinals’ 18-yard line, but Spencer Rattler’s pass on the game’s final play fell incomplete.
“I felt like we gave ourselves a chance,” Moore said. “Ultimately, it’s not good enough. Ultimately, we are here to win football games. We’ve got to compete and clean things up. I love the effort. I love the energy. I love how the guys in the locker room played. We’ve just got to play better and clean it up.”
The Saints’ opportunity at the end of the game will be remembered the most. But the opportunity they did NOT get in the first half shouldn’t be overlooked. Late in the first half, the Cardinals drove deep into Saints’ territory with two minutes left. It was pretty clear they would score (which they did). Moore decided not to use his timeouts (he had three of them) to give the Saints a chance to score before the half. It was a questionable decision, especially considering the Saints had won the coin toss to start the game and deferred.
One of the main reasons teams defer is to try to get an extra possession at the end of the first half, knowing they also will get the ball to start the second half. Instead, the Saints took over with just 23 seconds left (as opposed to having a minute-plus if they had used their timeouts) and ran the clock to go to halftime trailing 17-10.
"We were just trying to save our timeouts as much as we could,” Moore told CBS at halftime. “They did a good job of bleeding the clock out and putting (themselves) in a favorable position. We didn't get enough yards there to play it out right there at the end of the half."
None of us know what the Saints would have done with an extra minute or so to close out the half. Maybe they go down and at least get a field goal. Maybe they score a touchdown. Or maybe the drive would have just fizzled out. But you would have liked to have seen the Saints get a chance there, especially after seeing how well Rattler ran the 2-minute drill late in the game.
Rattler showed promise after winning the starting job in training camp. He’s still seeking his first win as a starter, though, after going 0-6 as a starter last season. But you can’t put this loss on him.
“We shot ourselves in the foot too much today,” Rattler said. “We cut those penalties in half, I think we win this game.”
The road gets tougher for the Saints. After the 49ers come to town next Sunday, New Orleans travels to play the Seattle Seahawks and the Buffalo Bills.
The Saints won’t be favored in any of those three games. They weren’t favored Sunday either. But they almost stole one.
“We have to figure out a way to win,” said defensive end Cam Jordan. “There are no excuses in this game. It’s a game of inches. Each and every finite detail means that much more. ... I feel terrible that we lost, because we had a chance. That’s all we want is a chance, an opportunity.”
They had one Sunday. A golden one.
It's too bad they couldn’t make the most of it.