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The Saints had a chance to improve their record to 3-3 in Kansas City on Sunday, which would have left them right in the thick of an NFC South race that’s tightened up over the last two weeks thanks to a pair of Falcons losses.

A series of errors, both physical and mental, undermined that effort, however. Drew Brees had an interception returned for a touchdown, running back Mark Ingram lost a fumble inside the Chiefs’ 10-yard-line in the fourth quarter and the Saints committed 10 penalties in a 27-21 loss that saw them gain 137 more yards than Kansas City.

Among those penalties was an unnecessary roughness call on defensive tackle Nick Fairley that gave the Chiefs a first down and allowed them to run two more minutes off the clock before hitting a field goal that extended their lead to six points. It was the kind of sloppy play that left Brees saying the Saints “got what we deserved” and coach Sean Payton didn’t dispute that notion.

“We’re not a good enough team to overcome some of those type of mistakes,” Payton said, via ESPN.com. “We didn’t do enough smart things in the end to give ourselves a chance.”

Regardless of the environment, there aren’t many teams that can overcome the types of errors that the Saints made on Sunday and the loss increases the need for the team to go on a winning run if the second half is going to offer the hope for more than playing out the string.