No one would look at the Saints' 3-5 record and say they've dominated anything this season, but they could soon control the NFC South.
A white-knuckle win over the Browns and an 0-3 record for the rest of the division in Week 9 leaves the Saints in a tie for the division lead with the Carolina Panthers. That just so happens to be next team heading to the Caesars Superdome, and head coach Kellen Moore made it clear on WWL Radio that his group understands the importance of the opportunity ahead.
“Everyone knows the path to the second tournament is always through your division, and so we recognize how important those games are, the impact they have," Moore told WWL's Bobby Hebert and Mike Hoss. "Obviously looking forward to an opportunity against Carolina.”
Hear WWL's full, exclusive interview with Saints head coach Kellen Moore in the player above.
The Saints have a daunting three-game stretch on tap following the showdown with the Panthers. They'll have difficult road trips to face the Bears (7-2) and Bengals (6-2) before returning home for a game against the Packers (6-3). That will be followed by four division games in the final five weeks, sandwiching a win against the Cardinals (3-6).
"We know sometimes you’ve got to throw out the records," Moore continued. "These are going to be fun, physical battles. We know them well, they know us well. We’re going to play a couple times this year and this will be a lot of fun.”
The Saints haven't won the NFC South since 2020, which also marks the last time they reached the postseason.
MORE FROM MOORE
On replacing Erik McCoy
“The good thing is fortunately for us we have a few options here. We’ll let the medical work itself out with Erik and hopefully we get him back here in a little bit, but we’ll have to make some decisions there and obviously I think we have the depth in that position, which has been valuable, you know, to see what [William Sherman] did, to see what Jeremiah [Wright] did when he had an opportunity to play. I think both those guys are physical players that we feel real comfortable playing football with.”
On explosive plays allowed vs the Browns“
"I think this is a really good example of, you can play a lot of really good football on defense and it just takes three or four plays and it changes the whole trajectory of the game, and so, you know, they were able to make some explosive plays. Obviously we’ve got to knock that down. We’ve got to do a better job in those situations, there’s some contested situations we’ve got to come up with, but we’ve got to learn from this because there’s too much good football in there and then you’ve got a couple of these plays that obviously changed the game.”
On Jordyn Tyson's return/debut
“It’s been a long journey for Jordyn, going back to, you know, the end of his college career through the whole offseason program and the limited capacity he was able to, you know, practice, so we understood there’s going to be an acclimation period for him. I thought he did a good job hopping in there and the snaps he played in will continue to build that role as we go and get him more and more opportunities and more reps. Again, the ball security thing is a really valuable, challenging lesson. These guys attack the football in this league better than they ever have in any possible capacity, and so especially for those young guys, you’d better protect the football because these guys are coming after it every single play, and so he responded, he had a few nice catches in there, helped contribute and we’ve just got to keep building and going.”
