Division power shifts in Week 4 prime time

It was special, for so many reasons. But then the ball was kicked off, and the 2026 Saints were tasked with stopping the two-headed monster of Bijan Robinson and Drake London, and that’s something nostalgia can’t do. The Saints fell 24-45 and dropped their first divisional game of the season.

Longtime edge rusher Cam Jordan spoke for much of the club, pointing to every disappointing part of the game.

“It’s really upsetting when you think about the talent that we have on the team,” Jordan said. “I hate that we had a slow start and got punched in the mouth early, and we were looking to respond. It’s one of those games where we weren’t good enough on offense, defense, and special teams. And you look in the second half, like, ‘fight back.’

“When you have a division rival, it’s damn near worth two games. They had an early score with Bijan and at that point, (had) 60 yards on the ground. We’ve got to be able to figure something out. And you end up letting them – what, 200 yards rushing? That’s on the defensive line. You can’t look anywhere else. When you have a ground game like that, you have to look at your defensive line and say, hey, we’ve got to tighten up.”

The Saints and Shough have developed a gritty approach in the fourth quarter of games this season, able to come back and either push teams to overtime, as they did with the Lions in Week 1, or mount a comeback win like against the Ravens in Week 2. And while they had two fourth-quarter touchdown drives on Monday night, both came after they were already down multiple possessions.