Saints' Moore about the Bye Week: Evaluations Will Be Made

Sign up for the daily Saints Newsletter by clicking here.

The Saints fell to Pittsburgh in Paris on Sunday by a 16-10 count. New Orleans head coach Kellen Moore addressed the media as they open their bye week.

How do you guys plan on fixing the run game?

Yeah, obviously, we have a bye week, we have to put a lot of work into it. Because, again, there's just too much ebbs and flows. There's weeks where it's good and there's weeks where it's not. And we just weren't able to get any movement. And creating increases in the opportunities in the run game . 17 for 18. 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 gotta get it done.

Are you at a point where you consider changes if that doesn't get better?

Yeah, we just gotta really dig in and solve this thing. Again, this is the week of, anytime you go into a bye week, you go into an evaluation mode as far as identifying the things that you need to work on and solving those.

Do you already have a plan for it?

We just gotta evaluate everything. I mean, I'm not gonna jump to anything right now. We just gotta get better and we'll focus on that.

Do you already feel that you have a good sense of what needs to be adjusted in the run game?

I think we just have to, we really have to dig in to it from step one. Evaluate the whole season as a whole and find solutions. So the main focus is gonna be the running game, right? I think certainly that's an important aspect of this thing. When you have a day like today, 17 runs for 18 yards, it's gonna be hard to win football games doing that. And so while there's some other things, I think we're real positive for our football team. We weren't able to get that done.

You said frustrations. Is that the primary one or what else would you consider?

Yeah, I think it's just there's tight margins in this game. And so when you look at third downs, you look at red zone, you look at obviously their ability to run the football and put their self in a lot of third and threes, third and fours, twos. And they're able to run the football still in those situations because of that. They were just able to extend drives. And that was a game where there's only so many possessions, you gotta value the football.

Right now have a kicker that's missed at least a kick or a point in six of the seven games. Is that a place where you also look at it and evaluate the percentage?

I think it's fair to say we gotta evaluate that. And we go through that process during the bye week.

Do you feel that the late arrival this week (of kicker Daniel Carlson after the birth of his child) factored in there or is that that way?

I wouldn't say so. I mean, the other team came in at the same timeline.

What's kind of your level of concern that it seems like it's a lot of the same for the inconsistencies on our slow starts, run games, stop and run. Does that bother some of you that it's kind of the same issues every week?

Yeah, there's always frustration with that. Again, we gotta run the football better. And we can't have a week like we did last week where we feel good about it and respond and get put ourselves in the situation we did today. And so, again, there's a lot of frustration with any of this.

Do you feel like there are answers, like you guys can find them?

Yeah, yeah, I think there's certainly an opportunity to find those solutions. We gotta dig into it, we gotta evaluate it, we gotta take the emotion out of it. I think that's the challenge of the NFL seasons is we're all frustrated and there's a lot of emotions with it. And you gotta take the emotion out of it and truly just evaluate it and find what the next steps are.

Are you guys putting too much on (quarterback Tyler) Shough, is there too much on your shoulders?

I think you can say that about any quarterback. Any quarterback that gets to team up with the run game just allows the mixed downs to look better, less obvious pass situations. And that's certainly something we have to address.

What did the Steelers do defensively, if anything, that you didn't see coming to neutralize your guys' attempt at being hit?

They just executed well, they did a good job. They obviously stopped the run in some situations, made some plays.

You talked about how much you enjoyed coming here early and getting to take in powers as you are. Does the performance make it a little more frustrating that it was such a good week leading up to that?

Yeah, ultimately, you're here to win football games. That's the ultimate result. I think we did have a good week here. I thought we practiced well, we prepared well. I like the energy, I like the physicality of our practices. Ultimately, it didn't translate to Sunday from a win perspective. And so that's disappointing, but we also, I think it's important to recognize the things that we can carry through from this week. And so I thought going to New York, playing that game, getting the win, traveling here, having a really good week of practice. We need to carry the positive things that came out of this week moving forward, because obviously we're on the bye week, and then we gotta go for it.

What went into starting (cornerback Martin) Emerson over (Quincy) Riley?

Just based off the last week.

Injury, anything that you expect to be necessary moving forward?

Yeah, there's just a couple guys that obviously were concussion-related with CJ (Donaldson) and Justin Reid, and so everything else should be okay.

Can you just share your evaluation of Tyler's day?

Yeah, I think Tyler battled. He battled, he made some big plays, some plays with some hard downs, and there's going to be a few that we get to learn from. I thought he did a heck of a job keeping us in that and putting ourself in a position to have a chance to win.

Saints Mailbag

Wednesdays, On SI Saints will answer your questions about what we see from our vantage point. To submit your thoughts or inquiries click here.