Mark Ingram responds to crucial play where he may have lost Saints the game

Messing up the crucial moment is painful. Mark Ingram took responsibility for his role in the Saints implosion on Monday night against the Buccaneers.

For three full quarters, the New Orleans Saints held the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to just a field goal. It looked as if the Saints would cruise in the fourth quarter, continuing to be a thorn in the side of Tom Brady’s time in Tampa Bay.

Tampa scored a touchdown, closing the gap from 16-3 to 16-10. No problem, New Orleans just needed one good drive, and ideally a score, to secure the win.

Instead, they gave Brady 149 seconds, far too much time for comfort. Of course, Brady did what Brady does and put together a nearly flawless drive to get the Bucs another TD, putting them up by one with mere seconds left for New Orleans to work with.

There were many moments to point to about things that went wrong, but plenty honed in on one specific play that looked like low effort from running back Mark Ingram. Here’s the play:

To his credit, Ingram puts together a good, 7-yard run to set the Saints up for 3rd and 1. The issue is he had an easy path to muscle out a first down and took the easy route, walking out of bounds. Whether he didn’t know where the first-down marker was or knew and just made a business decision, it wasn’t a winning play.

What makes it sting more is this followed a solid 17-yard punt return from rookie Rashid Shaheed.

Mark Ingram takes responsibility for the play

Mark Ingram II showed what veteran responsibility is and Tweeted this after the game in response to the scrutinized play:

Whatever you think of the play, this is what you expect of your veterans. You can’t get 100 percent of the plays right, but you do need to take responsibility and learn from the ones that you miss on. Ingram missed in a big way here and took it as best he could.

Look, in Ingram’s defense, the Saints were up by 13 points at the time the play occurred with just over six minutes left. The team was getting ready to move into eating up the clock and playing conservative. So it’s not a complete surprise that Ingram wasn’t looking to put his body on the line to stay in-bounds and get the first down. A business decision tracks with the score and timeline of the game, even if it wasn’t a pure-winning play.

For what it’s worth, the coaching staff has not proven they’ve implemented a winning culture that implies the importance of those winning plays.

That said, staying in bounds would have played well with a strategy of eating as much of the clock as possible, so either way you look at it, this is a head-scratcher from Ingram. Especially with all his proven repping the black and gold throughout his career.

Following that play, a lot went wrong. On third-and-one, the Saints looked to pass. Running the ball would have been wiser with just a yard to gain.

Then, the Saints gave up two touchdowns and put up a three-and-out before their final miracle play with three seconds left in the game. Ingram’s play was crucial, but it was far from the definitively losing play of the game.

Respect to Ingram for owning it. That’s what veteran players do.