Saints in free fall after being embarrassed by Sean Payton | Saints

During halftime of Thursday's game, Sean Payton was shown on the video board in a clip congratulating Drew Brees on his induction into the New Orleans Saints Hall of Fame.

The former Saints coach, now with the Denver Broncos, was on screen just long enough to elicit a mixed reaction. There were boos. There was cheering. Of course, Payton didn't hear about it.

He was back in the locker room, thinking of more ways to torment his old team.

A night that was supposed to be about Payton and Brees turned out to be a harsh reminder of how much the Saints have fallen since their departure. Thursday's 33-10 loss to Payton and the Broncos was the Saints' fifth straight loss, a new low in the Dennis Allen era.

“No,” Allen said when asked if he was worried about his job status.

Earlier this week, general manager Mickey Loomis said it was too early to evaluate Allen's performance, saying good organizations “look beyond results.” But if executives wanted fans to do the same, they didn't on Thursday.

Saints fans booed more than once. They booed when it looked like New Orleans was going to punt on fourth down. There were boos at halftime and the Saints were down 16-3. And in the fourth quarter, when most of the building was empty, the building was quiet enough to hear faint shouts of “Fire Dennis Allen.”

The Saints have much bigger problems than the absence of Brees and Payton, the duo that won 63% of games in 15 years and delivered the franchise's only Super Bowl.

Allen's defense was once again a mess. The Broncos had 389 yards, 225 of which came on the ground.

The Saints can't stop the run. You can't tackle it. Apparently they can't do anything good during this five-game break.

The defense played so poorly that Amazon Prime analyst Richard Sherman, a former All-Pro cornerback, wondered if Saints defenders were trying to force Allen out of his job.

“I see guys not making the effort to get the ball and make tackles – I don’t understand this team,” Sherman said on the halftime broadcast. “It seems like they want their coach to be fired. That’s the level of effort they play with.”

Allen, safety Tyrann Mathieu and linebacker Demario Davis said they disagreed with Sherman's opinion.

Allen's Saints' record is now 2-5, equaling the record New Orleans set in seven games of its first season. New Orleans finished the 2022 season 7-10; Last year, the Saints broke a three-game midseason losing streak, winning four of their last five games to go 9-8.

Even if the Saints continue to perform like they have in past years – assuming Allen survives – New Orleans would need something special to make it to the postseason. Technically, the Saints are still alive and there is still plenty of football to be played. But the Saints are in a free fall that teams often regret when they inevitably miss the playoffs. The Saints also haven't made the playoffs since the 2020 season – Brees' last year as a professional.

The circumstances of the season didn't help matters. The Saints' decline in play has been accompanied by a spate of injuries – and that situation worsened on Thursday. Hours before the game, the Saints learned that wide receiver Rashid Shaheed would miss the rest of the season while recovering from knee surgery. Then the Saints lost three more players in the game: cornerback Paulson Adebo broke his hamstring in the second quarter, guard Nick Saldiveri suffered a shoulder injury and did not return, and Marshon Lattimore was also out in the third quarter with a hamstring injury.

But Allen said the Saints have enough players who are more than capable of winning. And on paper, the Broncos (4-3) appeared to be a winnable game.

Denver quarterback Bo Nix was anything but outstanding. On the first drive, the rookie clearly missed two open wide receivers, which probably would have amounted to a touchdown if Nix had hit either one. He also gave the Saints defense the opportunity to make plays: Mathieu had a ball intercepted that hit him right in the hands.

But the Saints also started a rookie quarterback. And while Thursday's game was hardly Spencer Rattler's fault, he didn't help matters.

The fifth-rounder who went 25 of 35 for 172 yards and was sacked six times, experienced the kind of growing pains that make it difficult for a team to overcome. In the second quarter, for example, he overlooked pre-snap pressure from linebacker Cody Barton, who unblocked with a strip sack to force a fumble that Denver recovered. Rattler's turnover set up another field goal from Wil Lutz, giving the Broncos a 6-0 lead.

Then, just like last week in his debut against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Rattler's accuracy faded as the Saints were forced to play catch-up. And Rattler fumbled again with just over four minutes to play, and this time it was returned for a touchdown.

New Orleans' only touchdown of the night came at a bad time – and without Rattler. Trailing by 30 with two minutes left, the Saints pulled the rookie quarterback to replace him with Jake Haener, who soon found Cedrick Wilson for a 12-yard score. Allen said Rattler was dealing with a hip injury and they didn't want to risk him injuring himself more.

But the game was already decided when Payton felt blood in the water that night. Cam Jordan used that term to describe his former coach last week when he told reporters that Payton loved to exploit a team's weaknesses. And all night long, Payton's Broncos thrived.

By the 10-minute mark of the fourth quarter, most of the crowd that had remained in their seats during Brees' halftime introduction was gone. They couldn't stand the 2024 New Orleans Saints any longer.

“I've been here eight years and I've never seen the Dome so empty,” running back Alvin Kamara said. “If I were a fan, I would go too. To be honest. It’s just that people are fed up.”