Coming off a bye and having put together their best performance of the year the last time they took the field, the New Orleans Saints hoped to set the stage for a strong finish to what has been a rough 2025 season.
Instead, New Orleans looked like the same struggling team it has been for much of the season, burying itself in its own mistakes in a 24-10 loss to an Atlanta Falcons team that entered Sunday with a five-game losing streak.
The Saints (2-9) drove the ball deep in Falcons territory three times, including two possessions that made it all the way to the 1-yard line. Those possessions resulted in three points.
There was the 75-yard kick return by Mason Tipton in the first quarter that set New Orleans up with the ball at Atlanta’s 16-yard line. The three ensuing plays lost seven yards, and Blake Grupe missed a field goal wide right from 38 yards.
There was the opening drive of the second half, when New Orleans put together what had been its best drive of the day, until things bogged down inside the Falcons’ 10-yard line. Having already missed a pair of scoring opportunities, the Saints opted to go for it on fourth and goal from the 1, and Taysom Hill’s pass was batted down at the line.
Finally, there was what happened late in the third quarter and early in the fourth, when the Saints converted a pair of fourth downs to keep a lengthy drive alive, only to once again stall out at the 1-yard line when a snap sailed over Hill’s head on third and goal. Hill recovered the ball and threw it away, but was penalized for intentional grounding, making the Saints settle for a field goal.
Put another way, the Saints punted only twice in their first seven possessions and had three points to show for it, with two missed field goals, one fumble and a turnover on downs.
Making his first start at home, rookie quarterback Tyler Shough finished 30-for-43 for 243 yards and an interception — which came on his final throw of the game on a fourth-and-7 deep shot.
New Orleans had some nice moments defensively and was responsible for the only touchdown of the game, but they were unable to fully shut down an Atlanta offense that was without its starting quarterback and best receiver.
Falcons backup Kirk Cousins effectively put the game on ice after the Saints’ last failure at the 1-yard line. He converted a second and 23 with a dump off to Bijan Robinson that turned into a 32-yard gain, then found former Tulane wide receiver Darnell Mooney in single coverage on a post route for a 49-yard score on the next play. Robinson capped the drive off with a 2-point conversion to give Atlanta a 24-10 lead with 11:12 remaining in the game.
Safety Justin Reid provided the lone momentum swing in the Saints’ favor in the first half, when he corralled a tipped Cousins pass and returned it 49 yards for a touchdown.
It was the first interception for Reid, a Louisiana native, in a Saints uniform. His return cut the Falcons' lead to 10-7 and ignited a sleepy Superdome crowd that had been subdued by an uneventful first 20 minutes of game time.
But New Orleans was not able to capitalize on the momentum.
Atlanta took possession after the pick-six and responded with a field goal drive. New Orleans took over from its own 35 just inside of the two-minute warning with a chance to tie the game.
The drive started off well. Rookie Tyler Shough connected on his first four passes, going for 6, 8, 16 and 6 yards to push New Orleans inside the Falcons’ 30-yard line. But, after an incompletion, Shough felt backside pressure on third and 4 and made an ineffective flip toward Devin Neal for an incomplete pass.
Grupe trotted onto the field hoping to cut the deficit to 3 points, but he pushed his field goal wide right — his second miss of the first half. Atlanta took over and responded with its third field goal drive of the half to push the lead to nine points at the half.