Blown out in Bayou: Arizona Cardinals fall to Saints

The New Orleans Saints pull away from Arizona Cardinals in second half in a game of missed opportunity

The scoreboard doesn’t reflect how close this game was for the first 3 quarters.  That said, on the stat sheet, it was really never close.

The Saints allowed the Cardinals to stay in the game with a couple of poor play calls and poor time management at the end of the first half.  They also had the game’s only turnover with a Patrick Peterson interception of Saints quarterback Drew Brees.

The first quarter was a very close game despite the Cardinals only possessing the ball for a little more than 3 minutes.  The Saints missed a field goal on their opening drive and the Cardinals hit theirs on the opening offensive drive.

After that, it appeared to be a mismatch with the Saints allowing the Cardinals to hang around.  There were some definite missed opportunities though.

The Cardinals kicked that first field goal after 3 poor play calls following a long pass from Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray to tight end Charles Clay.  They went for the home run then go conservative.

Then in the second half, the Cardinals decided to go for it on their own half of the field on 4th and 1.  They ran up the middle with running back Chase Edmonds.  He was stuffed for no gain.

The Saints had not allowed anything on the ground to that point, something we suggested would happen prior to this game.  The play calling was pretty atrocious after the first bomb to Clay.

Speaking of that failed conversion, Edmonds was hurt on the play.  He hurt his hamstring and never returned.  Now they have some issues at running back heading into a short week with the Thursday night game coming up.

It was nice to see receiver Christian Kirk on the field again and producing.  That was one of the lone offensive bright spots of the day.  Hopefully they can work more on the play calling ahead of the San Francisco 49ers coming to town on Halloween.