The Saints won 34-27 and the number that matters isn't 34. It's 144.
Tyler Shough threw for 144 yards. Sixteen completions on 30 attempts, 4.8 yards per attempt, three touchdowns, no interceptions, and he wasn't sacked once. J.J. McCarthy threw for 243 on 21 attempts at 11.6 a throw and lost. Try to guess the final score from those two lines. You can't.
This is a game the scoreboard flatters. New Orleans put up 34 points on an afternoon when its quarterback averaged under five yards a pass and Kendre Miller needed 20 carries to grind out 70. That's not an offense moving the ball. That's an offense getting handed half a field. Barion Brown returned five punts for 68 yards and two kickoffs for 66 more. When the passing game goes nowhere, the return game becomes the passing game.
The touchdowns tell the same story. Chris Olave caught four for 43 and a score, his longest grab 18 yards. Bryce Lance caught two for nine and a score. Alvin Kamara caught two for 35 with a touchdown. Shough threw three scoring passes and his leading receiver on the day finished with 43 yards. You don't get that distribution from a quarterback carving up a secondary. You get it from drives that start past the 40.
Meanwhile McCarthy's 11-of-21 for 243 is the better quarterback line on the sheet by a mile, and Malik Nabers caught 12 of 15 targets for 165 yards and never reached the end zone. The Giants scored 27 anyway. Twelve catches for 165 with a zero in the touchdown column is a receiver doing his job between the twenties while somebody else's job goes undone.
The last two minutes are the season in miniature. With 1:06 left, Ryan Wright punted 38 yards to the NYG 30, Charlie Jones returned it to the 39, and Barnes got flagged for an illegal block above the waist. Ten yards, enforced at the 39. The Giants started at their own 29 needing a touchdown instead of starting at the 39. At 0:12, McCarthy's last pass was a short throw to Isaiah Likely with Chase Young in his lap. Incomplete. Quincy Riley got hurt on the play, which is the only reason anyone will remember it.
Give New Orleans credit for one thing. Pete Werner made 11 tackles with a sack and a tackle for loss, and Martin Emerson Jr. broke up four passes to go with seven solo stops. That defense held a 243-yard passing day to 27 points.
But 144 passing yards and 34 points is not a formula. It's a coincidence, and the Saints are 2-4 because they've landed on the wrong side of that coincidence more often than the right one. I'll take the Giants' problem, at 3-2-1 with a quarterback gaining 11.6 yards an attempt, over the Saints' answer, which does not survive a week where the return game stays home.
