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Katherine Terrell, ESPN Staff Writer
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The New Orleans Saints no longer control their own destiny after their 30-22 loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
The Saints (7-8) significantly hurt their postseason chances with the loss and now have only a 24% chance to make the playoffs with two games left to play, according to ESPN Analytics.
“We are who we are,” said Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan. “There’s two games left. There’s no sugarcoating this s—. It’s frustrating to be in this position. I’m not sure the probabilities of whatever it is now, we just have to win out. At the end of the day there’s no excuses, we just have to win out.”
Jordan said the Saints were aware of the importance of this game this week and went into the short week with that mindset.
“We wanted to start off strong, we wanted to be aggressive. I liked what [Saints] coach [Dennis Allen] had on his mind. He wanted to score touchdowns. We were in striking range early on and didn’t get it. The game plan was to be aggressive,” Jordan said. “We were going to treat like we wanted to be in the playoffs.”
The Saints deployed some aggressive tactics, going for it on fourth down three times but finishing 0-3 in those situations. One of those fourth-down calls, a 4th-and-5 on the Rams 42-yard line with 1:00 left in the first half, led to a Rams’ touchdown four plays later. Jordan called that a “huge momentum swing” in the game.
“We went for it twice on fourth down in the first half. We came into this game wanting to be aggressive and knowing the type of team we were playing, the offense we were playing, we knew field goals weren’t the way to try to win this game,” Allen said. “We didn’t want to be reckless but we felt like, in both those situations, we felt like we had plays that we liked. And unfortunately it didn’t work out. There was a mindset going into it to be aggressive.”
The Saints also attempted an onside kick down eight points in the fourth quarter with 3:53 left in the game. The Rams, who recovered the kick at the New Orleans 44-yard line, were able to run the clock out.
Allen said he felt like taking a chance with the onside kick gave the Saints the best opportunity to win instead of giving the ball back to their defense.
“Honestly we hadn’t done a great job of stopping them up to that point … so I felt like the onside kick was the right play. We didn’t get it. We were going to have to stop them either way,” Allen said. “We went for the onside kick to try to get it and see if we couldn’t go down and tie the game.”
The Saints have two games remaining in the season and will travel to face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers next Sunday to try to keep their playoff hopes alive.
“We certainly would have liked to have started the game better, played better, finished better. But we didn’t. So. I’m not into the percentages. I’m really not,” Allen said. “I’m just focused on, look, we let an opportunity go by and so now we have to get ready for the things we can control, which is getting ready to go play Tampa. … We’ll regroup. We’re still in this thing.”
Jordan said that it was frustrating that the team no longer controls its own playoff hopes, especially because he still feels like the team is capable of playing with anyone when they don’t make mistakes. But they have no other option but to try to win the next two games, he said.
“There’s two games left. I think that’s how that goes. We win out, and then I’m not sure, I don’t know the playoff ramifications. We have two opportunities left,” Jordan said. “I said last week, each one of these games are ever more important. We have to win out, and I said that going into this game, so the message hasn’t changed. Put your best foot forward, nobody has time for excuses, like this guy is banged up. We’re all banged up. … At the end of the day, it’s a 17-week NFL season. Nobody is going to be healthy.”