K Major

By Nick Underhill

ATLANTA – Sean Payton hinted at it during the first sentence he spoke Thursday night.

The Saints were fighting more than just the Falcons. He wouldn’t initially elaborate on what those things were, but it's not hard to make a guess.

Let's start with the schedule, playing a Thursday game on the road after being scheduled for the late afternoon the week before. It’s not hard to see how that impacted the game. We could go through the body count and describe each one, but there’s only so much space allotted here.

And then there was the officiating. Any impartial observer knows it looked funny. Check the timelines of a few national reporters on Twitter. You'll see words like "curious," "odd" and "interesting" used to describe moments in this game, if not the overall contest...

Curious calls left Saints feeling they were fighting more than the Falcons in Thursday's loss | Saints | theadvocate.com

"We're a violent team & a tough team. We find ways to put ourselves in position to win. We just have to WIN". Alvin Kamara

AlaskaSaints

I'm curious how, in a league haunted by concussion-caused retirements and Traumatic Brain Injury, one player can utilize his head to cause another player a concussion... without ANY RECOURSE. A fine, imposed days later, is not recourse.

SmashMouth

Lots of BullStein calls... but we should be good enough to overcome them. And we weren't with our injuries and mental mistakes at critical times of the game.