The Saints are trying to stop the slide, but the task in front of them is about as unforgiving as it gets. New Orleans heads into Sunday against the 4-0 Minnesota Vikings, a team backed by the best defense in the NFL.
That makes this one look rough on paper. Still, the Saints have a few places where they can poke through, and if they want to leave with a 2-3 record, those edges have to show up.
The biggest chess match in this game is Kellen Moore against Brian Flores. Everything about the Vikings starts with Flores, and that means the Saints’ offense is staring straight at the league’s most aggressive defensive mind. Flores brings the fiercest pass rush around and blitzes at a 76% rate, while New Orleans has been one of the worst teams in the NFL against the blitz.
Moore has spent the season under a microscope, with plenty of attention on whether he’s ready to be a head coach. He finished 2025 strong, but the Saints’ Week 4 issues looked a lot like the problems they had in Week 1, which doesn’t exactly scream progress. Sunday gives him a direct test against his opposite number, and the bigger question may not be whether the offensive line can hold up, but whether Moore can build a plan that keeps Flores from dictating everything.
There’s also the matter of Minnesota’s ground game and what Aaron Jones brings to it. The Saints’ run defense has been rough all season, but the schedule hasn’t done them any favors. They’ve already faced three of the league’s top running backs through the first four weeks, and that matters when you’re trying to judge just how bad the numbers really are.
New Orleans does rank third-worst in the NFL against the run, though, and Jones is not the kind of back you want to let settle in. The Vikings are only 17th in rushing offense, which puts them in the middle of the pack, and the Saints did manage to hold the Las Vegas Raiders to 113 yards on 27 carries against a similar rushing attack. That doesn’t solve everything, but it does suggest the defense may have been skewed a bit by the quality of the opponents it has seen early.
The Saints also have to find a way to get more out of their own run game, because the passing volume has gotten out of hand. Shough has thrown 180 passes through four games, which works out to 45 attempts a game.
At that pace, his arm is doing way too much of the heavy lifting. Running the ball more would help take pressure off him and slow down the rush that has been living in the backfield.
That won’t be simple against a Vikings defense that ranks seventh against the run. New Orleans sits sixth-worst in rushing offense, and the group is still being carried by Alvin Kamara. He’s not the back he once was, but he can still do damage when his workload is managed.
The loss of Travis Etienne makes that challenge even bigger, and now it falls on Moore to put together a run plan that gives his quarterback some breathing room.
In Other News...
Saints Are Putting Tyler Shough In A Dangerous Spot
The Saints rushing problems have become impossible to ignore, and they are bleeding into everything else on offense. In the latest game, New Orleans managed only 2.6 yards per carry and 50 rushing yards, numbers that leave the passing game working uphill from the opening snap. For a team trying to settle in around Tyler Shough, that kind of imbalance makes life harder before the quarterback even gets to his second read.
Shough felt the effect in real time, facing pressure on nearly half of his dropbacks as the pocket kept shrinking around him. When a run game cannot force defenses to back off, the hits pile up, the timing gets rushed and the margin for error disappears. For the Saints, improving that ground attack is not just about staying on schedule, it is about giving Shough a chance to stay upright long enough to develop and keep the offense functional. [Read more 🡒]
Saints DC Fires Back After Falcons Loss Sparks Defensive Criticism
Brandon Staley did not spend much time letting the criticism linger after the Saints loss to the Falcons. The defensive coordinator pushed back publicly on ESPN commentator Troy Aikmans assessment of New Orleans defensive issues, saying the comments were false and arguing the performance did not reflect what the unit is supposed to be.
Staley framed the setback as an outlier and pointed to the kind of game-changing mistakes and missing pieces that can tilt a divisional matchup. He said he still believes in the players in the room and in the defenses ability to bounce back, which matters for a Saints team trying to steady itself after a frustrating loss. [Read more 🡒]
Saints Suddenly Have A Tyler Shough Concern They Cant Ignore
Tyler Shoughs first injury note as the Saints quarterback is one the team would rather not be dealing with this early, but all signs point to him being available for Week 5 against the Vikings. The left hand issue showed up after the Week 4 game against Atlanta, and it was enough to make him a limited participant in practice as New Orleans started turning the page to Minnesota.
The bigger concern on the practice field may be the collection of other absences around him, including Alvin Kamara sitting out with a back issue and several other Saints missing work ahead of Sunday. Chris Olave was back on the sideline but only resting, which is at least a healthier kind of quiet for New Orleans, though the offense still has a few moving parts to monitor as the week goes on. [Read more 🡒]