KANSAS CITY, Missouri — While celebrating a long touchdown to Rashid Shaheed, New Orleans Saints quarterback Derek Carr said, “I told you so!” repeatedly to quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko. And at that point, Carr shouted the remark at least three times.
I told you! I told you! I told you!
Carr bragged after the score, but Monday’s 26-13 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs provided a different kind of statement. The Saints have some serious issues to address, issues that may have been masked during their electric start to the season.
Coach Dennis Allen’s defense? Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs gashed the unit for a game-high 460 yards.
The racing game? Alvin Kamara and Jamaal Williams only had 35 yards on 13 carries.
Are explosive games allowed? Yes, it was still a mess.
And a bad night for the Saints ended even worse: Carr returned to the locker room with just over six minutes left. The quarterback suffered an oblique injury on an incomplete fourth down with 9:32 remaining. He didn’t come back.
“Not good,” Carr responded when asked how he felt. “We’ll have an MRI and all kinds of things (Tuesday) and we’ll figure it out.”
Carr’s injury is of course concerning. The quarterback said he didn’t know if he would be available for next week’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, adding that the injury was more than just a pain tolerance issue.
But the Saints shouldn’t let that overshadow what happened against the Chiefs. New Orleans has now lost three in a row and fallen below .500. His 2-3 record is somehow worse than a year ago, despite a hot start.
“For the first time this year, we didn’t play like we were capable of playing,” Allen said. “So I was disappointed with that.”
Unlike the Saints’ last two losses, Monday’s game was not decided by the final drive. In fact, with an ill-timed throw on New Orleans’ first drive, it became clear what type of night awaited the Saints.
Three minutes later, after leading the Saints to the Chiefs’ 39-yard line, Carr collapsed under pressure. The quarterback launched a desperation throw off his back foot that sailed over Shaheed’s head and into the arms of Chiefs safety Bryan Cook. The interception was a horrible mistake, the kind Carr has made too often in this stadium.
Carr fell to 1-9 in his career at Arrowhead Stadium. No team had troubled the quarterback more than the Chiefs, whom Carr had faced several times while a member of the Raiders. Carr knew what kind of atmosphere awaited him and the Saints on Monday, and the precision it would take to overcome it.
But the Saints were not precise against the Chiefs. Not on offense, with a depleted offensive line that allowed pressure after pressure on the interior. And certainly not on defense, with the defensive line failing to bring Mahomes down.
On Monday, the Chiefs offense finally looked like the Chiefs offense of old. Through the first four weeks, Mahomes and Co. have had a slow start to the season. Their four wins were decided by a single score, and Kansas City suffered injuries to key playmakers such as Isiah Pacheco and Rashee Rice.
The Chiefs found ways to overcome those injuries in ways the Saints couldn’t with theirs. From the jump, Mahomes exploited New Orleans’ inability to defend tight ends by involving Travis Kelce (nine catches, 70 yards). But the Chiefs were able to do more than that. JuJu Smith-Schuster, who joined the Chiefs only a month ago, had seven catches for 130 yards. Kareem Hunt had 102 yards on 27 carries.
The Chiefs took a 10-0 lead, with the second drive being particularly atrocious for the defense. While the unit held Kansas City to a 34-yard field goal, the Chiefs still managed to get within field goal range despite distances of second, 34 and third and 22. On the latter, the Chiefs gained 21 yards when Kelce struck. back Samaje Perine on an open field lateral that ended just short of the first down.
Yet the saints remained there. In the second quarter, Carr hit Shaheed for a 43-yard touchdown to make the score 10-7 – eventually connecting on a deep throw that the quarterback looked for repeatedly throughout the evening.
Then, in the fourth quarter, the Saints pulled off a one-score game again when Carr found tight end Foster Moreau for a 6-yard touchdown with 14:16 left. Moreau’s score was set up in part by an incredible sequence: Defensive tackle Khalen Saunders pushed Mahomes back into the end zone after a ball bounced off Smith-Schuster’s hands.
Saunders, a former Chiefs player, sprinted to the 35-yard line on a run that reached a top speed of 15.8 miles per hour, according to Next Gen Stats.
Fittingly, the Saints’ promising plays would be overshadowed by further mistakes.
After Moreau’s touchdown, kicker Blake Grupe missed the extra point to keep the score at 16-13. Then, on the ensuing drive, the Chiefs didn’t need much time to drive down the field. Xavier Worthy’s 3-yard touchdown run capped a five-play, 68-yard drive that brought the score back to a double-digit deficit.
“The first two weeks of the season have gone so well, I just hope everyone knows their process can always be adjusted for the better,” Moreau said. “Never take something for granted. … I know that if we follow the right process, the results will be there.”