After the Saints came back from 15 points down in the final six minutes to force overtime, the focus in the New Orleans locker room was on the 11 straight passes Drew Brees hit on the way to tying the game.
The Saints would go on to win 34-31 with a field goal in overtime and that result led to a very different take on things from Redskins players. Safety D.J. Swearinger credited the Saints with coming back to beat them “fair and square,” but also said his team “beat ourselves” by taking their lead for granted.
“I feel like guys didn’t understand the NFL,” Swearinger said, via the Washington Post. “The game’s never over in the NFL. It’s never over until it’s zero-zero [on the clock], and I think our guys didn’t trust that and believe that. The game is 60 minutes for a reason. Quarterbacks get paid a lot for a reason -- to win games. It’s a Super Bowl-winning quarterback. You’ve got to be on your ‘A’ game in two-minute situations, and we wasn’t.”
It wasn’t just the defense that fell short in the final minutes as Kirk Cousins picked up an intentional grounding penalty in the final seconds of regulation that kept them from trying a game-winning field goal. That helped ensure that 31 points wouldn’t be enough on a day when the defense couldn’t slam the door on Brees and the Saints.