The New Orleans Saints were the best offense in football through the first two weeks. It’s no coincidence they were also undefeated in that time span. Since then, the Saints offense has sputtered.
Injuries to critical players such as Erik McCoy and Taysom Hill certainly had their impact, but Klint Kubiak’s play calling has been questionable as well. His tendency to run to the right side of the offensive line with little success has left some wondering, and the creativity seemed to run out of supply once Hill went out.
The most notable injury is quarterback Derek Carr. He was at the helm for three of the five games the Saints have lost in a row. It wouldn’t be sensible to point at his injury as a cause for the struggles. In Carr’s last 3 games, the Saints offense averaged 16.3 points with a high of 24 points against the Atlanta Falcons.
This pales in comparison to what happened at the beginning of the season. New Orleans put up back to back 40 point performances. That logically couldn’t last.
The Saints were out of this world, but they quickly came crashing down back to earth. Since scoring 91 points in the first two weeks, New Orleans has put 86 points on the board in the subsequent five weeks.
There’s a lot of places you can point the finger. At the end of the day, it just isn’t good enough. The Saints offense is a shell of who they were at the beginning of the year in multiple ways.