Saints Fall to Ravens in Crushing Defeat on Monday Night

On Monday, the Saints took on the Ravens in a key primetime matchup. Both teams would come in to the game looking to make the most of the opportunity despite struggling with injuries.

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The Ravens got on the board first with a rollout strike from Lamar Jackson to rookie tight end Isaiah Likely near the end of the first quarter. On that scoring drive, the Ravens converted on 3rd down three times.

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Andy Dalton's primetime struggles continued. In the entire first quarter, the Saints only accrued 34 passing yards, and Dalton had already been sacked and had a pass batted.

The Saints escaped an ugly 1st quarter only down one score.

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The Saints offense continued to struggle, and while the defense managed to put heavy pressure on Lamar Jackson, the shifty quarterback was his usual untouchable self, almost always managing to at least get the ball out of his hands.

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The Ravens continued to succeed on 3rd downs, building long sustained drives. It wouldn't be long before the Ravens extended their lead as Kenyan Drake strolled into the endzone from 2 yards out.

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The Saints offense finally managed to put something together late in the first half, as Dalton led the squad down the field to give the Saints a chance to get on the board. But with three straight misses in the end zone, it was left up to Wil Lutz to kick a half-ending field goal for the Black and Gold's first points.

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Coming out of the break, the Ravens rushing attack started to power up. The Ravens took half of the 3rd quarter and got right to the edge of the redzone before the Saints defense tightened up and forced a Justin Tucker field goal. The Ravens lead was brought back up to 14.

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Behind the efforts of Alvin Kamara and Taysom Hill, the Saints finally started to move the ball a bit. They made it deep into Baltimore territory before a huge blitz on a 3rd down forced another Wil Lutz field goal.

Points are points, but settling for three at that point felt really bad.

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The Saints managed to slow down Lamar on the first two plays of the ensuing Ravens drive, but then time would run out on the 3rd quarter. The Saints would have 15 more minutes of game time to turn it around.

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The first play of the 4th quarter would lead to 4th down. The Saints would need 6 on this drive. They went three-and-out.

On the next Ravens drive, the Saints once again let the Ravens run all over them, but stopped them short of 6, forcing another field goal from Justin Tucker.

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The Saints next drive was a "gotta have it" for them to maintain a chance in the game. Andy Dalton threw a pick instead. The Ravens capitalized almost immediately and made the score 27-6.

From there, the game was basically over. The Saints offense did put one decent drive together resulting in a touchdown to Juwan Johnson, but it was far too late.

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The Ravens ticked away the final seconds on the clock, beating the Saints handily, 27-13.

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The Saints will travel to Pennsylvania to take on the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, November 13th at noon.