Some games you simply can’t lose.
Monday night was one of those for the New Orleans Saints.
After all the buildup, the wall-to-wall media coverage, the mayoral proclamation and celebratory second line parade, this was one the Saints had to have. You simply don’t lose to the Atlanta Falcons on the 20th anniversary of the "Domecoming" game. Not with Steve Gleason, Drew Brees, Trombone Shorty and Irma Thomas in the house. Not with Monday Night Football and Roger Goodell on hand to celebrate the festivities.
The Falcons, though, had other ideas. They turned the Domecoming into a Dome-clubbing, spoiling the party with a shocking 45-24 beatdown and refusing to play sacrificial lambs on a night when everything was seemingly stacked against them.
Instead of reprising their cathartic 23-3 win in the historic reopening of the Superdome in 2006, the Saints were embarrassed by the Falcons in eerily similar fashion to the way they were in a 45-32 loss on the 10th anniversary of the Domecoming.
And it didn’t take long for the celebration to turn into a humiliation, as the Falcons raced to an early two-touchdown lead and never looked back in recording a shocking 38-17 win.
The Saints have lost their share of big home games over the years but rarely have they no-showed the way they did on this night.
In their first Monday night home appearance in nearly four years, the Saints played like a team that might not get another invite for a while. They allowed a 59-yard touchdown run by Bijan Robinson on the third play from scrimmage and finished the ugly first quarter by losing a fumble, missing a field goal and committing four penalties.
Things didn’t get any better from there. After the Saints closed the margin to 14-7 early in the second quarter, the Falcons promptly marched 64 yards for a touchdown and the Saints never got within double digits from there.
The Falcons finished the game by scoring on six consecutive possessions. This wasn’t what Gleason meant when he sarcastically chided the Falcons to #NeverPunt.
This also wasn’t what anyone in New Orleans had in mind when the day started.
Monday was one of those classic big game days in New Orleans, the kind that come along once every decade or so. You could feel the energy on Sunday night as Falcons fans descended on the French Quarter and filled the air with Dirty Bird chants.
By Monday morning, the anticipation was palpable across the city and steadily built throughout the day. It reached a crescendo for the pregame pep rally at Lafayette Square, where mayor Helena Moreno led a raucous Who Dat chant to a black-and-gold throng and presented Gleason with a ceremonial key to the city.
Even by New Orleans’ Carnival standards, the turnout was impressive, with thousands of New Orleanians and costumed Saints fans marching shoulder to shoulder from Lafayette Square to the Superdome. It was New Orleans at its passionate and eclectic best.
But the party ended shortly after kickoff.
By midway through the fourth quarter, Saints fans had headed for the exits and Falcons fans had taken over the lower bowl of the Superdome. Losses don’t get any more embarrassing than that.
Maybe the Saints needed to be reminded of the message Sean Payton delivered to his Saints team before the original Domecoming game in 2006. In one of his most inspirational pep talks, he prodded his players to rise to the occasion, reminding them that the game would only be special if they won it. If they lost, Payton said, it would be just another game.
On Monday night, the Saints didn’t just lose. They were dominated and humiliated. It will take a while to recover from this one. Instead of inspiring, their performance was insulting.