Canal Street Chronicles
After a narrow defeat in the season opener a week ago, the New Orleans Saints were looking to bounce back in Week 2 as they hosted the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday afternoon. Catch up on everything that went down in the Caesars Superdome.
The Saints received the ball first in this one, and Alvin Kamara got things underway with a run up the middle before Spencer Rattler made a huge splash on his first throw, finding Rashid Shaheed for 39 yards to fast-track the black and gold into field goal range.
From there, another short run from Kamara preceded a pair of incompletions intended for Chris Olave and set up a 40-yard field goal attempt for Blake Grupe. Grupe missed wide right, and the game remained scoreless.
With Mac Jones in at quarterback for the injured Brock Purdy, the 49ers offense entered the game. But their first drive was over before it started. Three incompletions from Jones marked a three-and-out, and former Saint Thomas Morstead was out to punt for the visitors.
Though the Saints quickly returned the favor, with Kamara finding success on the ground before Rattler had three incompletions of his own, and the ball was punted once again.
The visitors found their feet on the ensuing drive. Jones connected with a variety of receivers, also making good yards on the ground through both his own scrambles and runs from Christian McCaffrey.
The Niners drove 80 yards, capped off by a touchdown pass to Luke Farrell for the game’s first score. The extra point was no good, so the score stayed 6-0.
A holding against Erik McCoy limited the Saints as they looked to respond, with Kendre Miller responsible for the only 4 yards gained on the drive before another punt.
McCaffrey then ran twice for a total of 17 yards before the quarter’s end.
Jones picked up where he left off, finding Jake Tonges and Ricky Pearsall for first downs as the Niners marched into Saints territory. He did have to recover his own fumble, which slowed progress and eventually forced a field goal attempt.
The 44-yarder was good from Eddy Pineiro to extend the lead to 9-0.
Rattler was sacked on the first play of the next drive, and a pair of short completions to Kamara and Olave weren’t enough to find a first down. New Orleans punted again.
Carl Granderson forced a sack of his own as San Francisco got the ball back, which helped matters for the Saints defense as Morstead was also soon out to punt.
Rattler returned, and the Saints offense finally found some rhythm. A 20-yard pass to Brandin Cooks, an 11-yard link-up with Juwan Johnson, and a 15-yard run from Kamara were the highlights of a drive that went 84 yards in under 6 minutes, capped by an 18-yard touchdown pass caught again by Johnson.
Grupe nailed the point after, leaving the score 9-7.
Despite having less than 80 seconds to work with,...
