The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Saints vs. Buccaneers

The good: The 2nd quarter

At least the 2nd quarter of this game was fun, as the New Orleans Saints scored a total of 27 points and had three interceptions in the 15-minute period. Rashid Shaheed returned a punt for a touchdown and Spencer Rattler threw his first NFL touchdown of his career. Unfortunately, the Saints were unable to maintain that momentum as they were outscored 44-0 in the other three quarters. Rattler played pretty well for a rookie selected in the 5th round of the NFL Draft who was missing three offensive linemen (four if you count Ryan Ramczyk) and his top receiver.

Photo by Derick E. Hingle/Getty Images

The Bad: Defense

The Saints defense was terrible on Sunday as they gave up more than 50 points for the first time since 2012, the year the Saints allowed the most yards in NFL history. It was only the fifth time in franchise history that they gave up 50+ points. The one thing head coach Dennis Allen could always count on was that his defense was consistently above average. But now the defense seems to be getting worse with each passing week. This cannot continue or changes will be made. Sean Payton comes to town on Thursday and it will be interesting to see how Allen's defense performs against his former bosses' offense in the Superdome.

The Ugly: More injuries

The Saints once again lost more starters on both offense and defense, this time losing Chris Olave and Tyrann Mathieu. The Saints are currently down 7 of their 11 starters on offense as Rashid Shaheed also suffered an injury that may also cause him to miss some time. Mathieu should be fine, but Olave is still up in the air. It's obviously concerning for Rattler to be back out there on a short week without three offensive linemen, his top two receivers and Taysom Hill (and also with an ailing Alvin Kamara), but we just don't have any other options right now and must hope the boys get well again as quickly as possible if there is any hope of salvaging this season.

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