The New Orleans Saints have had to navigate several challenges over the first five games of the season.
Those have come in the form of suspension, injuries and other on-field challenges. But an under-the-radar hurdle has been the setup of their first-half schedule. It's forced the Saints to not only play five of their first eight games on the road, but also to navigate a run of five largely unfamiliar AFC opponents. That started with the Titans in the opener, and included the Patriots, with the Texans, Jaguars and Colts on tap.
Listen to the full, exclusive interview with Saints GM Mickey Loomis in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
One of the tougher stretches comes the next two weeks, when the Saints have to prepare for the Texans and Jaguars in a span of 10 games, both trotting out quarterbacks the team has never faced before in C.J. Stroud and Trevor Lawrence on Thursday Night Football.
"It’s hard on our coaches," Loomis told Mike Hoss this week on WWL Radio, "because the preparation time for the Jacksonville game is really compressed. It’s hard on the players because their recovery time from one game to the next is compressed. And so it’s hard on both groups in different ways."
The grueling 10-day stretch on tap is part of what made an impressive, 34-0 win over the Patriots such a welcome sight.
The Saints will catch a break in that regard with Colts rookie QB Anthony Richardson headed to injured reserve with an AC sprain, meaning they'll likely face a more familiar passer in Gardner Minshew after longer, post-TNF layoff.
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"Usually or often times you’d get it in a stretch like this, you’ll get a division opponent you’re very familiar with," Loomis said. "That’s not the case here. These are teams we don’t play very often, and so we don’t have the luxury of familiarity with any of these opponents. So yea, it’ll be a little stressful."
All that said, unfamiliarity cuts both ways, and it might be the Saints picking up the most benefit from that exchange. Two of the Saints' three wins have come against AFC opponents and a Panthers team starting a rookie QB with just a week of regular season tape available. In contrast two of their losses have come to NFC teams, including the division rival Bucs.
"It’s just a lot of factors that go into the strength of a team," Loomis said. "When you play them is probably more important than who you play."
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MORE FROM MICKEY LOOMIS
On OC Pete Carmichael's performance
“Look, Pete’s a great offensive coordinator. He really is, and he’s a really good play-caller," Loomis said. "He’s had a lot of success, and when you’re not having success, that bothers him more than anyone, and yet, man, I’ve always had confidence in him. We have confidence in Pete, our players have confidence in him and so, yes, it’s good to have some success, and yet I think that he would be the first one to tell you that there were some opportunities that we missed that we could’ve easily scored another 12 or 14 points in that game if we execute properly. And so we’ve got lots of things to work on, but it’s good to work on things off of a win as opposed to working on things off of a loss.”
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Thoughts on red zone performance on offense and defense
The Saints were 3-of-3 in terms of scoring touchdowns in the red zone against the Patriots, and only allowed on third down conversion in 14 opportunities on defense.
“It’s easy to flip the red zone numbers if you don’t allow them in the red zone, which is what our defense did in this game," Loomis said. "They didn’t have any attempts in the red zone, 1-for-14 on third down. That’s just unheard of, and look, they certainly had some opportunities and didn’t cash in, but I think that quite often it was our guys making plays as opposed to them missing plays. There was some of both, no question, but I thought our guys made some really good plays in the situations where it called for it. It was great to see Tyrann [Mathieu] get us going with the interception return for a touchdown on a play where our d-line affected the quarterback and caused an errant throw. There was a lot of good things there.”
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On shutting out the noise
“I don’t think it’s that hard to do, because listen, we’re just busy," Loomis said. "We’ve got a lot of stuff, coaches are here until 10, 11, 12 at night. They don’t have time to listen to the noise. You catch a little bit of it here or there, but you don’t really get as much as your wives and children are getting. They’re the ones that bear the brunt of that much more so than any of us. And look, it just comes with the territory. We want passionate fans. We want them to care. We want them to be excited about our team. And so, you know, it’s natural that if they’re passionate about what we do when we’re successful, then they’re going to be passionate about the team when it’s not successful, and they’re going to be critical, and that’s just part of the territory, part of the game, part of what we know we’re buying into, and it’s not going to change how we approach our jobs.”