Texans edge Saints, 31-27

• By SHELDON MICKLES
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Aug 17, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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NEW ORLEANS — The preseason version of the 2008 New Orleans Saints looked a lot — an awful lot in some cases — like the Saints of a year ago in their home opener Saturday night.

The Saints first-team offense, which finished fourth in the NFL in total yards last season, looked sharp in posting four scores in its five first-half possessions of a 31-27 loss to the Houston Texans in the Superdome.

That, along with the return of running back Deuce McAllister from a torn ACL in his left knee and microfracture surgery on his right knee, was the good news.

Now for the bad news.

The Saints defense, which ranked 26th in total yards allowed in 2007, struggled mightily against the Texans’ starting offense in the first half. That unit gave up scores on successive drives of 80, 74 and 50 yards before the Texans intentionally ran out the clock to end the first half.

The Saints were especially poor against the pass as Texans quarterback Matt Schaub hit on 14 of 16 attempts for 187 yards and two touchdowns — a 26-yarder to Kevin Walter and a 1-yard flip to fullback Vonta Leach.

They also gave up 220 total yards in the first two quarters and the Texans were able to convert 4 of 5 third-down opportunities, much to the chagrin of coach Sean Payton.

“We can say it’s going to be OK, but I thought defensively we were poor,” Payton said in opening his postgame news conference. “I thought on third down we were poor. We have to do a better job. We, starting with the coaches and myself and our people on that side of the ball, need improvement.”

Schaub played the first three possessions and left with a passer rating of 154.9, which was just shy of the maximum 158.3. His favorite target in the Saints secondary was cornerback Jason David, who gave up numerous big plays last season.

“We made a lot of mistakes,” Payton said. “We had no pressure on the quarterback, we gave up some big plays in the passing game and we had a lot of missed assignments. We really didn’t play very well in any phase defensively.”

But there was little wrong with the Saints offense.

McAllister, who was playing in a game for the first time since Week 3 of last season, rushed for 16 yards on four carries as fans welcomed him back with chants of “D-e-u-u-u-c-e!” when he ran onto the field before the game and each time he touched the ball.

The Saints started slowly with a pair of Martin Gramatica field goals after failing to capitalize on two early trips into the red zone. But they broke through with a couple of highlight-reel plays in the second quarter.