Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby (98) recovers fumble against the New Orleans Saints in New Orleans on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (Staff photo by Brett Duke, The Times-Picayune)
STAFF PHOTO BY BRETT DUKE
Trying to figure out exactly who the 2026 New Orleans Saints are is a lot like trying to figure out what’s a fumble and what’s an incompletion.
Three games into the season and nobody seems to really know.
The Saints’ Jekyll and Hyde season took yet another turn Sunday with a fourth-quarter collapse that resulted in a humbling 35-27 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders.
One week after going on the road and pulling off a miraculous win against the Baltimore Ravens, the Saints came to Caesars Superdome and failed to seize the moment.
This one will sting for a few days.
The Saints were supposed to be 2-1, riding high heading into next week’s much-anticipated Monday night showdown with their bitter rival Atlanta Falcons. Instead, the Saints were left scratching their heads, wondering how they let this one get away.
They surprisingly dropped a golden opportunity, much like the referees surprisingly dropped that yellow flag in the second quarter on a Danny Stutsman roughing-the-passer call. The Saints would have held the Raiders to a field goal on that possession. But the Raiders scored a touchdown on the next play to take a 13-6 lead. The game was tied 13-13 at halftime. And if the first two games of the season were any indication, that meant the Saints had the Raiders right where they wanted them. After all, the Saints had saved their best for last in their first two games in Detroit and Baltimore.
But there was no fourth-quarter magic this time. Tyler Shough, who put on his Superman cape the past two weeks to help the Saints rally for a near-win against the Lions and that stunner against the Ravens, showed that he is indeed human after all. After a stellar third quarter Sunday, he had a costly interception and a pair of fumbles. Juwan Johnson also had a fumble.
Not many NFL teams can overcome four turnovers.
“We weren’t able to overcome those, and these guys finished better than us,” said Saints head coach Kellen Moore.
There was plenty blame to go around.
The Saints’ defense crumbled, too.
Brandon Staley’s unit that had been so rock solid collapsed, unable to hold onto the 27-16 lead the Saints built with 5:46 left in the third quarter.
The late turnovers, though, were the most glaring. That included the Shough fumble that looked oh-so similar to the fumble by Detroit’s Jared Goff in the season opener. On that play two weeks ago, the refs ruled that Goff’s arm was moving forward and thus the play was an incompletion, nullifying Chase Young’s sack and a Saints touchdown on a scoop-and-score by Jonas Sanker. On Sunday’s play, the refs determined that Shough lost the ball before his arm was moving forward, making it a fumble. The inconsistency on plays that looked so similar obviously annoyed Saints fans, who let their frustration be heard. But the Saints players were quick to dismiss any notion that the refs cost them this game. They put the blame on themselves.
“I’m not blaming the officiating,” said defensive tackle Davon Godchaux. “I’m not blaming Tyler Shough for the fumble. I’m blaming the defense. We are up 27-16. Finish the game. I don’t care who fumbles or who didn’t get a holding call. We blew the game. Point blank. Simple.”
He's right. This loss wasn’t on the guys wearing black and white. Credit to the guys in black and silver, who are actually much better than anyone thought they’d be. Former Saints offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, in his first season as head coach in Vegas, is undefeated. His Raiders came into the Dome and took this win, much like the Saints did seven days earlier in Baltimore.
“It’s frustrating,” said Young. “We beat ourselves. We’ve got to be better. We will be. I’m not worried.”
Young’s thoughts on some of the calls?
“I don’t know,” Young said. “A call is a call. You’ve got to live with it. You win some, you lose some. We’ve got another opportunity.”
This was just the third game in a 17-game season. So, yes, Young is correct. There are plenty more opportunities to come. But this will be a game the Saints will look back on and ask “How did we let this one slip away?”
And it slipped away in the most uncharacteristic way.
“As painful as this loss is, as frustrating as this loss is, we can’t let it linger too long,” Moore said. “We were in a position to finish that game, and we didn’t finish it.”
The team that was so good at rallying ended up being the team that got rallied on. And just like that, all the momentum the Saints had built leading into Sunday vanished as quickly as that 11-point lead.
The final stats will say the Saints had three fumbles.
But that should be four if you include this opportunity that slipped right out of their hands.