Canal Street Chronicles
The New Orleans Saints kicker had a bounce back game on Sunday, making all four of his field goals against the New England Patriots a week after missing two of six field goals against the Giants. Grupe hit from 34, 48, 38, and 54 yards, each of them important too as they either gave the Saints a lead or brought them to within one score of New England. Grupe has been criticized a lot this year, as going into Sunday he had made just 10 of 15 field goal attempts on the year. But following his worst game of the season, he came back and was perfect in a close game on Sunday, and deserve props for his performance in Week 6.
The Saints pass defense in the first half allowed Drake Maye to throw three touchdown passes, all of them over 25 yards. Each score for the Patriots followed a score for the Saints, as they only managed to stop the Patriots once in the first half and were unable to pull ahead by more than two points. Wide receiver Demario Douglas found a soft spot in the zone and avoided two defenders to score a 53-yard touchdown, and LSU product Kayshon Boutte caught a pair of touchdowns from Maye against his hometown team. Adjustments at halftime combined with the Patriots going run heavy to protect the lead meant the Saints gave up just three points in the second half, but the ease of which the Patriots were able to march down the field and score through the air in the first half was the Saints undoing on Sunday.
Despite the inability to slow down the Patriots in the first half, the Saints had many opportunities to steal this game on Sunday but simply were unable to capitalize. Chris Olave (who played a good game otherwise) dropped a touchdown pass that hit his hands on a drive the Saints had to settle for a field goal. Juwan Johnson fumbled at midfield in the fourth quarter with the Saints down six, and they were forced to settle for two field goals from inside the red zone. The Saints forced the Patriots to punt on three of their five drives in the second half, and had two drives in the fourth quarter on which they could have taken the lead with a touchdown and PAT. The offense has looked better than expected, but it still struggles to finish drives. Taysom Hill returned from injury and scored their only touchdown by punching it in from the redzone, so hopefully his return will help mitigate these issues as he is further incorporated into the offense, but lately the Saints have simply been unable to capitalize in certain situations where they could have taken control of a game, and so far it has cost them greatly.
