Saints almost complete comeback but fall short, lose to Cardinals 20-13

Is there a such thing as a satisfying loss?

Cam Jordan looked youthful in Brandon Staley's defense adding 1.5 sacks and upping his career total to 123.

Alvin Kamara still has premium gas in the tank, averaging 4.1 ypc and scoring the Saints 1000th TD from scrimmage

Demario Davis tied for the team lead in tackles with 9 and looks well on pace to continue his decade long stretch of 100 + tackle seasons.

The old heads showed up, but so did the youth of the team with 13 penalties for 89 yards on the day. The penalties were so much of an issue that you probably forgot that we ran the tush push and converted, didn't you?

The Saints margin for error is slim, and they can't afford the sloppiness.

Spence Rattler, the biggest question mark during the off-season looked competent vs the Cardinals defense and nearly outdueled his similarly sized counterpart Kyler Murray. Rattler was 27-46 for 208 yards and had a big boy throw up the seam to Juwan Johnson that should have been caught for a TD

That play underscores one of the bigger issues with the offense, Saints don't have a go to guy at receiver.

The receivers as a unit accounted for 17 catches on 39 targets for 126 yards. Seems like a good haul until you realize Michael Thomas once had a game where he had 16 catches on 17 targets for 180 yards.

If you're going to deploy an undersized group of receivers at least lean into their strengths.

Moore refused to call plays that attacked down the field, so the Cardinals sat on routes and delivered multiple big hits. Chris Olave was the recipient of a shot from Will Johnson that gave a flash back of Reggie Bush getting decapitated by Lito Shepherd in 06.

As much as I ranted about the defense giving up some plays post-game, the Saints were 1 of 11 teams to hold their opponent to 20 points or less, and they're the only team who lost.

The offense must be better.

However, the team as a whole showed signs of competitiveness that weren't always visible under Dennis Allen and appear to be headed in the right direction under Kellen Moore.

Starting RT Taliese Fuaga left the game with a knee tweak.