In a night full of pomp, there was only one failure for the Saints | Saints

Drew Brees was back at the Superdome on Thursday night.

Sean Payton was also there, as were about two dozen players from the Saints' Super Bowl XLIV championship team.

But the magic and mojo of the Payton Brees era are long gone.

In fact, they never seemed further away.

On a night of pomp and pageantry celebrating Brees' Saints Hall of Fame induction and anticipation of Payton's homecoming to the Superdome, there was only frustration and failure.

Frustration in the form of a fifth straight loss, this time to Payton's Denver Broncos, who showed no mercy to the undermanned Saints, handing them their second straight home loss with a 33-10 setback.

The failure stems from head coach Dennis Allen's inability to pull the Saints out of crisis and get revenge on his former mentor, who broke the hearts of the team's loyal fans when he abruptly left the city and the franchise three years ago .

“We’re being challenged right now,” senior linebacker Demario Davis said. “It’s not pleasant for anyone, but we’re going through it. What are we going to do?”

The five-game losing streak ties the Patriots' longest losing streak in the league and matches the longest losing streak the team has suffered in the last 18 years.

It was the team's second straight home loss by 23 points or more, and the fact that the loss was at the hands of Payton, the winningest coach in Saints history, only made it harder to swallow.

Seeing Payton roaming the visitors' sideline in an orange visor and blue hoodie had to be unsettling for Saints fans, who have yet to enjoy much success since his departure from town and are increasingly frustrated with his successor. It didn't help that Payton's longtime adviser, Pete Carmichael, who was unceremoniously fired as the Saints' offensive coordinator in January, was at Payton's side most of the night.

With so much excitement and excitement surrounding Brees and Payton's performances, the game largely felt like an afterthought, especially with so many stars from both teams sidelined by injury. And it largely stuck to the bill. The Broncos and Saints battled through a defensive field goal fest where the defense dominated and the offense engaged in a pillow fight between sporadic rookie quarterbacks Bo Nix and Spencer Rattler.

It was the kind of game where a 7-yard gain felt like a big play and a first down felt like a win. Otherwise, there wasn't much to celebrate for the Saints, who only scored a touchdown in the final minutes. By this point, the vast majority of Saints fans had long since headed for the exits and the lower bowl of the stadium was a sea of ​​orange-clad Broncos fans.

“I've been here eight years and I've never seen the Dome so empty,” Saints running back Alvin Kamara said. “…I can't blame them. If I were a fan, I would go too. To be honest. It’s just that people are fed up.”

It certainly put a damper on Brees' Hall of Fame celebration and cast a dark specter over the rest of the season.

The ailing Allen desperately needed this game. The more injuries and losses there are, the worse the performances become and the winning streak at the beginning of the year seems more and more like a mirage.

To be fair, Allen was competing with a team that was missing several offensive starters, including Taysom Hill, their top receivers (Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed) and three-fifths of their line. But the defense, which is relatively healthy and should be Allen's calling card, once again played with a glaring lack of urgency and aggressiveness, so much so that Amazon Prime analyst Richard Sherman accused the Saints on the broadcast of essentially being up their coach leaves at halftime.

“No one is going to come here to be the savior,” Allen said. “We have to do it ourselves. … I know this team has what it takes. I have two tapes that show me that this team has good football in them. We're not playing like that at the moment.' And of course there are a variety of reasons why we need to figure out how to get back to that type of football, because I've seen it done.

Given the circumstances, this may have been the most important game of Allen's three-year tenure as coach. And it ended in disgrace and another embarrassing, inexplicable loss.

Understandably, Saints fans are frustrated and fed up. This wasn't the season they were promised.

The present is bleak.

The future is bleak.

All they can cheer about is the past.