The New Orleans Saints didn’t just lose in Paris on Sunday. They put together one of the most startlingly empty rushing performances you’ll see in an NFL game, finishing with 18 yards on the ground in a 16-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers at Stade de France.
That number jumps off the page because it hardly looks real. It is real, though.
Eighteen yards in 60 minutes. The kind of production you’d cover on foot before breakfast.
It was the kind of day that leaves a team with two glaring problems and no easy escape route. The Saints couldn’t run the ball, and they couldn’t slow down Pittsburgh’s run game either.
The Steelers finished with 148 rushing yards, with much of that damage coming from running back Jaylen Warren, who averaged 5.6 yards per carry and might have piled up even more if Pittsburgh had leaned on him harder. New Orleans, by contrast, averaged 1.1 yards per rush.
Even Pittsburgh’s 42-year old quarterback managed to scramble for a first down on third-and-6 to help close things out.
For Saints fans, it had to be a frustrating reversal after last week’s 175-yard rushing day in a win over the Giants. Sunday looked much more like the version of New Orleans that has spent most of this season stuck near the bottom of the league on the ground.
There was a number from around the league that drove the point home. After Sunday’s games, 46 players had rushed for more than the Saints did against the Steelers. Six of them were quarterbacks.
If there’s a bright side here, it’s simply that the Saints have a bye this week. No game next Sunday means no fresh reminder of how rough this looked.
Still, the break gives Kellen Moore time to keep working on a problem the Saints expected to address in the offseason. They signed running back Travis Etienne in free agency in March, and two days earlier added guard David Edwards to help create space for Etienne, Alvin Kamara and Kendre Miller. But Etienne went on injured reserve after a hamstring injury Sept. 27 against the Las Vegas Raiders, and he hasn’t been available since.
That leaves Moore with a run game that needs fixing fast.
“We have to put work in that,” Moore said. “There's too much ebbs and flows.
There's weeks when it's good and weeks where it's not. We just weren't able to get any movement and create any creases and opportunities in the run game today.
Seventeen (carries) for 18 (yards) and Tyler's got a couple scrambles in there. And so it wasn't good enough.
We had to throw the ball a number of times, and we got to get it done.”
It’s not the job of Tyler Shough and the receivers to carry everything. Moore was hired as an offensive-minded coach, and through 24 games on the job, the Saints haven’t shown much progress in the areas that were supposed to improve most - the slow starts and especially the run game. Seven weeks into the season, the offense is still searching for answers.
After the game, Moore leaned on the same language he’s used before. His press conference was filled with familiar terms like “opportunities,” “solutions” and “evaluations.” He used some version of those three words 19 times.
That was one more than the number of rushing yards his team managed in Paris.
In Other News...
Saints Paris Trip Could Mean More For New Orleans Than Fans Realize
State and local officials who went along with the Saints to Paris came home talking as much about economic development as football. The trip gave Louisiana leaders a chance to sit down with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and other executives, while also opening doors through business networking events aimed at deepening the states connection with France. Gov. Jeff Landry used the visit to advance those conversations, and the broader message was clear: the Saints overseas footprint can carry value well beyond the field.
New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno also used the trip to strengthen a city-to-city relationship, meeting with Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grgoire and discussing ways to bring more French tourism to New Orleans. The exchange fits into a larger push to make the Saints a gateway for international attention, especially as officials look for practical ways to turn a rare team trip into longer-term ties. For now, the most interesting part may be what those conversations lead to back home. [Read more 🡒]
Saints Bye Week Puts Kellen Moore Under Real Pressure
The Saints bye week arrives with more than rest and repair on the agenda, because the conversation around Kellen Moore has shifted from frustration to real uncertainty. New Orleans has been stuck in a stretch of poor performance, and the lack of progress has started to put the head coachs standing under a brighter spotlight than anyone around the team would prefer at this point in the season.
Ownerships public frustration has only added to the noise, turning the off week into a potential pivot point for the franchise. If the Saints decide a change is coming, there is already a natural line of succession being discussed internally, but for now there has been no official move or announcement. The silence only makes the next few days feel even more consequential. [Read more 🡒]
Saints Have One Dominant Strength And Two Frustrating Problems
The pass rush remains the part of this Saints team that can make the rest of the league take notice. Chase Young and Carl Granderson were disruptive again against the Steelers, combining for three sacks and continuing to give New Orleans a front-line edge that has been difficult for opponents to solve. Even with Granderson missing a game, the pair has been one of the NFLs most productive pass-rushing tandems and a steady source of pressure for a team still searching for consistency elsewhere.
The problem is that the same game showed how thin the margin can be when the rest of the offense sputters. The Saints could not get much going on the ground, and the run game has been a recurring issue, with key backs sitting near the bottom of the league in yards per carry. New Orleans also let long drives slip away, turning just one of four possessions with 11 or more plays into points, which leaves the defense doing a lot of heavy lifting while the offense keeps leaving chances on the field. [Read more 🡒]