Grading Andy Dalton's performance from Week 10 loss to Steelers

There was a football game between the New Orleans Saints and the Pittsburgh Steelers and well... It happened. That's about as much as Saints fans would like to acknowledge the existence of the 20-10 loss to an offense that scored the second-fewest points in the league entering the game.

Andy Dalton might have played his final snap as the Saints' starting quarterback, or at least he should have played his final snap with the team. There's literally no benefit to continuing to start Dalton moving forward. He's not under contract for next year and Jameis Winston was signed to a two-year deal. He should be the starter next week against the Rams.

Let's circle back to Dalton though. A game was played so it's time to give the Saints starting quarterback a grade for his performance.

What grade does Andy Dalton deserve for his Week 10 performance?

Dalton finished the game going 17-of-27 for 174 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions while getting sacked twice. The offensive line did him no favors but Dalton showed that he shouldn't be the starter down the stretch.

It was okay to continue to throw him out there when he was playing well and the Saints were winning games but neither is true now. There's been a lot out of Dalton's control but he needed to make better decisions when throwing the football in this one and he didn't do it (yes, I recognize that one of the picks was because Jarvis Landry didn't haul it in).

As Ross Jackson noted in the tweet above, the offensive line was bad but Dalton didn't get pressured too much and he was only sacked twice. It's easy to point to that as an excuse for Dalton's poor play but when push came to shove, he just isn't getting it done for this offense anymore. There's nothing left to gain from starting him.

I'll cut him some slack because of the poor offensive line play but not a ton of slack will be given. Dalton gets a D- from me this week.

What grade are you giving Andy Dalton?