Over the first month of the season, the New Orleans Saints have made strides on offense.
In Sunday’s win over the New York Giants, quarterback Spencer Rattler finally got an explosive play to detonate when he hit Rashid Shaheed for an 87-yard touchdown. The week before that saw the run game find some much-needed consistency.
The offense is still far from an elite unit, but the improvements matter to coach Kellen Moore as he tries to turn around the franchise.
The next step? The Saints have to start converting in the red zone.
The Saints went 0 for 4 on touchdowns inside the opposing 20 against the Giants, bringing New Orleans’ season total to just 7 of 17 — a lowly 41.2%. Only three teams rank worse in the red zone than the Saints this season: the Los Angeles Chargers (38.5%), the Las Vegas Raiders (35.7%) and the Giants (31.6%).
The struggles in the area are even more frustrating because the Saints have done a solid job of sustaining long drives. They have strung together a league-high 14 drives of at least 10 plays.
But of those 14, the Saints have scored only six touchdowns. The team’s touchdown rate on those 10-plus play drives ranks exactly league average at 42.9%.
Against the Giants, the Saints had three drives of 10 plays or more. They settled for field goals on all three, two of which entered the red zone.
“Ultimately, you need to score touchdowns down there,” Moore said.
Through five games, the red-zone problems could be boiled down to a mix of accuracy issues and curious play-calling. While Rattler’s completion percentage has improved in his second season — from 57% to 67% — the quarterback isn’t hitting his targets at nearly the same rate when the space is often condensed inside the red zone. Rattler’s 48% completion rate (12 of 25) ranks sixth-to-last among 33 qualified passers.
But Moore isn’t free of blame, and the first-year coach said he needed to be better when asked about the issues Monday. Moore pointed to the team’s lack of efficiency on first down, saying the Saints have to improve at running the ball in those scenarios.
As a play-caller, Moore also has made a few questionable decisions in the red zone. Against the Buffalo Bills in Week 4, his choice to run the Philly Special trick play led to a Chris Olave interception. Then on Sunday, the Saints bypassed a chance to take a shot at the end zone with 11 seconds left in the first half and instead threw a short pass that resulted in a 1-yard loss. Asked about the latter, Moore said he had called for a “man beater,” given the Giants’ tendency to play man-to-man defense, but that New York played off coverage and matched the patterns well.
The Saints proceeded to take a quick shot at the end zone on the next play, though Rattler was forced to throw out of bounds so that he could leave enough time on the clock for a short field goal.
Stats to know
38.9%: The Saints have a first-down success rate of only 38.9% in the red zone this season, which backs up Moore’s assertion about the lack of efficiency. New Orleans is also throwing it 61.7% of the time in the red zone.
63: Cam Jordan played 63 snaps against the Giants, his highest amount since 2023. With Chase Young still out with a calf injury, the Saints are playing their starting defensive ends at a staggering rate. Carl Granderson and Jordan have played 80.1% and 72.4% of the snaps this season, respectively.
32.6%: The Saints did not make life easy on Giants rookie Jaxson Dart. They blitzed him on 32.6% of his dropbacks, the second-highest rate at which New Orleans has sent an extra rusher this season. Only in the Seahawks game did the Saints blitz more, but Seattle had only 21 pass attempts, and the outcome was decided early.
Up next
It’s a clash of the 2024 quarterback draft class when Rattler has to face off against Drake Maye and the New England Patriots.
The Patriots are coming off their biggest win of the Maye era, upsetting the Bills in a 23-20 road win on “Sunday Night Football.” Maye was phenomenal in prime time, but the Patriots offense is humming as of late thanks to the re-emergence of All-Pro wide receiver Stefon Diggs. Coming off an ACL tear, he has had two straight games of at least 100 yards. He caught 10 passes for 146 yards against his former team Sunday.
Defensively, the Patriots are starting to gel under new coach Mike Vrabel — the former Patriots linebacker who had a successful six-year coaching stint in Tennessee. The run defense has been particularly imposing, holding Bills star running back James Cook to only 49 yards.