Young will obviously be the focus after how things fell apart – the first play of the Dave Canales era was an interception he called a “throw” to new wide receiver Diontae Johnson – but the mishaps were systematic.

“I mean, we just didn’t give him a lot of chances,” Thielen said. “A lot of times it was a guy who was able to get free to sack, or maybe he didn’t get any space or whatever. Again, football is the greatest team game there is for a reason. Quarterbacks still get paid a lot of money and are scrutinized because of that. But on defense, on special teams and on offense, we didn’t play well enough to give ourselves chances to win.

“So this is what happens if you don’t.”

The guys running loose was a protection issue that several players said could be fixed based on footage, the kind of communication issues that come with so much newness. And not being able to run the ball to force the Saints off the line when they scored immediately and on their first nine possessions wasn’t pragmatic. It may be just the first game of a 17-game season, but that was little consolation at the time.

“When you come into the game 10-0, you’re in a bad position, right?” center Austin Corbett said. “You just have to keep fighting, keep your head down and keep working, and you know you have a lot of work to do. That’s just part of it. In life, you get punched in the face over and over again. I mean, you have to be able to accept that and accept that adversity and keep going.”

“That’s the double-edged sword of it. You think, oh yeah, it’s Week 1, but as a competitor, that doesn’t feel good at all. We got our butts kicked in all three phases tonight.”