It's no secret what ails the New Orleans Saints defense. They lost just 1,000 yards in a week between a Monday night game against the Kansas City Chiefs and a huge loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the following Sunday, and head coach Dennis Allen didn't hesitate to point out the source of their problems.

“We didn’t tackle,” Allen said matter-of-factly after the Bucs game. “When you don't tackle, you give up explosive plays and you give up plays, and that snowballed on us a little bit. It wasn’t good enough.”

Those missed tackles were Allen's first takeaway from the game. He said the team relied on strong defense, but that wasn't the case on Sunday: “That's on me. I have to do a better job with our guys. I need to make sure we understand what we're doing, we need to do more tackling drills, whatever the case may be. It wasn’t a good defensive performance at all.”

Allen has been the architect of the defense for nearly a decade, drafting, developing and recruiting many players on the field. Seeing the foundations of this unit crumble was a gut punch, especially after he and his staff had made attack drills a focus of training throughout the week. So what's the cause of all these missed tackles from normally confident players like Demario Davis and Paulson Adebo?

“Part of it is the angles, the technique and the finishing. There are many basic things that we don't know how to handle well enough. And I think it starts with leverage and angles. This is where it starts and then it comes down to the basics of actually executing a tackle. I have to finish better. But this is two weeks in a row where we haven’t done a good job and that’s our biggest concern,” Allen said.

It's a big problem and it's only gotten worse. And the Saints don't have time on their side. They begin Thursday night against the Denver Broncos. When asked if the team can eliminate those missed tackles in just four days, Allen answered succinctly.

“It's something we'd better fix in four days,” Allen said in a gravelly voice. It may be an exaggeration to say that his job is at stake if things don't get better, but that's how these situations unfold. If he can't get his team to play basic football, he won't be their coach much longer.