The most bitter pill of all to swallow...

In my 42 years of Saints fandom, I've learned a valuable lesson borne of maturity (ok, stop laughing about my maturity....) The lesson is this : to shake off and forget a Saints loss.
But last night's bone-numbing loss to the hated Falcons is a pill so bitter that I literally could not sleep and will taste for a long, long time.
With the entire season in the balance and hanging by a thin thread of playoff hope, the Saints will rewind the tape of 2012 and this one game will sum up their "what if" frustrations.
It was a night bursting with "what if" missed opportunities that had the over-rated Falcons primed for defeat.(Seriously, has there ever been a worst 11-1 team?)
But as my 14-year-old son Kyle said of the first offensive play of the game, "I think that tells me how this game is going to go.The Falcons are so lucky."
How it went was on the very first offensive play of the game, noodle-arm Matt Ryan threw a simple hook pattern to Saints-killer Tony Gonzalez at the 29-yard line, Malcomb "Almost make a big play every time" Jenkins broke under the pattern perfectly, yet somehow completely missed making the interception and Gonzalez made a 9-yard reception.
What then ensued was what many of us thought was an "uh oh here we go again" matador defensive effort, allowing a  Falcons 6-play,80-yard TD drive.
Then on the Saints' subsequent 4th offensive play, Brees gave us a what we now know was an ominous foreboding of his night:
With great protection, Brees threw a deep post route to Colston, who broke open behind the cornerback at the goal but Brees both waited too late to make the throw and also completely misread the other corner sneaking to the middle of the field.   INT in the endzone.
I'll save us all the pain and not recount the next FIVE INTs, and spare gory details of what might have been Brees' worst game as a professional.
From that first drive until the last unexplainable INT, Brees - completely uncharacteristically - never seemed settled, seemed too amped up and showed little-to-no patience in his throws and reads.
Unlike the previous game vs. the 49ers, Brees had time and was rarely even touched throughout the entire game, yet looked uncomfortable and forced throws all night. As great is Brees has been in his Hall-of-Fame bound career, when he's bad, wow, he's horrifically bad.  Last night, was one of those horrifically bad nights.
Speaking of horrifically bad, Brees time management of the first half's last minute.. yikes.
First, by a split second, Graham commits offensive pass interference that wipes out a beautifully-called screen pass TD to Sproles.
(Oh, the irony: Sproles caught Brees' record breaking yards-in-a-season pass vs. Falcons last year, and Sproles' TD here would have continued Brees' consecutive games with TD streak....)
After a 12-yard pass to Sproles to ATL 5 , Brees inexplicably huddles team and lets 23 seconds run off clock, then - with no timeouts remaining - checks down to Sproles to the 3-yard line.
Freeze.
At this moment, how does Brees or coaches chirping in his helmet, not know to either spike football to kill clock or throw ball to endzone?
Clock expires. No FG, no TD. Momentum lost.
To magnify the gaffes, the Saints also get the ball to start the 2nd half.
The Saints come out in 2nd half, and DOMINATED the Falcons on both sides of ball.
The Saints maligned defense turns in by far it's most complete game, giving up only around 50 yards of offense from end of 1st quarter until almost final 3-4 minutes.
But Brees' Interception-palooza and Saints' dumbfounding play-calling in second half wasted a rare-defensive night of excellence.
Saints first drive of 3rd quarter - 14 plays, 5 runs/9 passes. Pierre Thomas, rarely used in last few games for some unexplained reason, was gashing the Falcons, and on this drive netted 38 yards on 5 carries. Only get FG.
Next Saints' drive, 7 plays, 3 runs/4 passes. Pierre Thomas, 3 carries for 24 yards. Only get FG.
Next drive, 2 plays, 2 passes, Brees' INT.
Three 3rd quarter drives: remember (who can forget...) Brees' is still struggling,  23 plays total, 8 of which are runs for 62 yards, a average of a whopping 7.75 per carry. And this was a true average, not skewed by a long run (longest run was 13 yards.)
So, in 4th we keep running it, right?
Three 4th quarter possessions, game still in reach, ATL D gassed and being gashed... 2 runs out of 16 total plays. Huh?
A dubious call and a bone-headed play doomed the Saints early in 4th: facing 3rd and 5 at ATL 36 - FG range - (and Falcon D remember being gashed by run entire 2nd half....) - Saints go shotgun, Strieff whiffs on block, and Abraham sacks Brees, taking Saints out of FG range.
Morstead then lays down beautiful backspin punt, which bounds straight up at ATL 1.
Johnny Patrick runs under ball, has time to LOOK DOWN WHERE HE IS!!!, bats ball back to teammate at 1-yard line, but Patrick still somehow steps on goal-line!!!
Instead of limited play access at 1, Falcons start at 20, and methodically march down to kick a put-win-out-reach 55-yard FG by "I never miss vs Saints at home" Bryant.
Ultimately, this was a team loss - both coaches' decisions and players performance, as the cliche goes, but for all the bouquets we lay at Brees' feet, this defeat lands squarely on #9's shoulders.
Brees' epic fail last night was the final sour note in a dreadful, dreary and dysfunctional 2012 season.
Somewhere Sean Payton is looking at that pill called the 2012 season, and wishing it was a amnesia prescription.