Saints stumble and fall to hungry Cowboys

The Saints are no longer perfect.

Trailing by as much as 21 points in the second half, the Saints used a fourth quarter rally to trim the Cowboys’ lead to just seven with a little more than eight minutes to play.

But the Saints’ run at perfection ended when Drew Brees fumbled for the second time of the game with less than 10 seconds to play, giving the Cowboys the ball and a hard-fought 24-17 win.

The Cowboys had lost two-straight games coming into the game. That, combined with Dallas’s lack of December success in recent years, made them a huge underdog to everyone except their coach Wade Phillips.

“I said all along this team has a lot of heart, a lot of character and a lot of leaders,” Phillips said. “I didn’t think this team could get beat three times in a row.”

The loss snapped a five-game winning streak the Saints owned against the Cowboys and was the first time in the past 23 games the Saints were unable to surpass 20 points.

“This is going to sting for a while but we’ve got to be able to put this behind us,” Brees said, “It’s all about the next game.”

The Cowboys won nearly every statistical aspect of Saturday’s game and outperformed the Saints in both rushing and passing, also racking up more sacks and forcing three turnovers while committing none themselves.

The Saints also were regularly beaten on third downs and converted just one of their seven third down plays, while allowing the Cowboys to achieve success on eight-of-15 of their third down attempts.

“That was a problem for us,” said Saints head coach Sean Payton.

But another story of the game was the Saints’ slow-starting ways. Including the team’s 14-0 first quarter deficit on Saturday, the Saints have now been outscored 37-6 in the first quarters of their past four games.

All is certainly not lost for the Saints, however. The team still has the inside track to seal homefield advantage throughout the playoffs and can clinch that feat with any combination of a win or a Vikings loss in the final two weeks of the season.

The Saints play the abysmal Buccaneers and inconsistent Panthers in their final two games of the season, while the Vikings will play the Bears and the Giants.

But to achieve postseason success, the Saints will have to return to health. New Orleans has been without both of its starting cornerbacks for the better part of the season.

They were without tight end Jeremy Shockey and defensive tackle Sedrick Ellis on Saturday, also losing Reggie Bush to an apparent hamstring injury in the second quarter.

With all of their goals still in front of them, Brees said he knows the team still has everything to play for.

But Brees said he also will always wonder what could have been had the team been able to be the first team to ever go 19-0 in a season.

“We feel like we deserved it and the whole city deserved it and we wanted to make it happen,” Brees said. “That’s probably the most disappointing thing about it.”