Canal Street Chronicles
Rookie QB Tyler Shough had a decent first start for the New Orleans Saints on Sunday. He completed 15 of 24 passes for 176 yards and one touchdown with one interception. Not much went right for the Saints in LA, but this is pretty good game for a rookie QB making his first start on the road against one of the best defenses in the NFL.
The Saints surrendered 281 yards and 4 touchdowns through the air on Sunday. Matthew Stafford completed 24 of 32 passes, Puka Nacua had 95 yards and a touchdown, and Davante Adams found the end zone twice. Kyren Williams added 114 yards and a touchdown on the ground, and second year running back Blake Corum set a new career high in yards with 58. The Saints only stopped the Rams from scoring on three drives, one of which being a missed field goal and the other being a three-time run up the middle drive late in the 4th quarter when the game was far out of reach. The Saints gave up 30 first downs and lost the time of possession battle 43:53 to 16:07. This was a very bad performance from a defense coming off arguably their best performance of the year in Week 8 against the Buccaneers. The Rams are a great team, so hopefully this game was more about just how good they are as opposed to a sign of things to come for this defense, because if it is the latter we are in for an even longer season than we all thought before.
The Saints ran for just 57 yards on 14 attempts in Los Angeles. Alvin Kamara, a week after gaining just 45 total yards, gained just 17 against the Rams. Kamara has not scored since Week 1 and is beginning to show his age a bit in his 30-year-old season. The game got away from them early, meaning they really didn’t have an opportunity to establish the run, but this has been a multi-week issue for the Saints as Kamara has shown his age, Kendre Miller has been lost for the year, and Taysom Hill and Devin Neal have yet to get it going.
