The New Orleans Saints are back fresh from the bye week and ready to take on their final seven weeks of the 2025 season.
That's what Saints head coach Kellen Moore told Mike Hoss and Bobby Hebert on WWL Radio this week.
"Bye weeks are all about recharging, it’s not necessarily about relaxing all the time, but it’s recharging," Moore said. "It’s recharging your body physically and mentally and a chance for us to scout ourselves, evaluate where we’re at and where we need to go, and so I feel like there’s a lot of urgency, a lot of juice and excitement with what’s moving forward. We’ve got a bunch of really exciting opportunities moving forward.”
The first of those seven opportunities will come against the Atlanta Falcons, a rivalry that Moore is eager to see for the first time.
“I’m excited about this. I think the more you’re around everyone in the organization and the building, certainly the players that have played so many awesome battles against these guys, you learn the rich history of this game and so it’s going to be a huge impact, it’s going to be a ton of fun playing this first one at home," Moore said. "These guys have played a bunch of close games late and for whatever reason they’ve missed their opportunities and they lost a couple in overtime. They’ll obviously be itching for a win and they need one as much as we do.”
The Saints (2-8) host the Falcons (3-7) at 3:25 p.m. in the Caesars Superdome. Catch all the action on WWL and Audacy.
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More from Moore
On third down efficiency
“Third downs are hard downs, as we always like to call them. They’re not easy, but when you talk about, hey, we want to control the time of possession. We want to score more points and extend drives, a lot of it comes down to being able to execute on some hard downs, on third downs and credit to our guys collectively, you know, the perimeter guys, certainly Tyler makes some plays in there and those had huge impacts in that game and you’re not going to convert 100% of your third downs, but when you’re above 40, more around that 50% range, you’re having really good outings on Sundays.”
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On facing Kirk Cousins rather than Michael Penix
“Obviously they’re different quarterbacks, they’ve had different experiences and I think for them, fortunate to have Kirk available, you know, for the circumstance they’re in and Kirk has played a ton of football in this league, had a ton of success. He’s going to do a really good job for them and going to be certainly a big challenge for us when we play these guys.”
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On Bijan Robinson
“Bijan has had a huge impact on each and every game. He’s a big-time player. He’s one of the best running backs in this league for a reason, you know, his ability to play in the run game, but also the pass game. He’s a threat there, and so he’s going to have a huge impact on this game and so we’ve got to do everything we can to limit the explosive plays in particular with him. He can change games quickly. It’s going to be a fun challenge for our guys, I think our guys will be excited about it. Obviously they had a challenge going to Carolina, coming out the L.A. game where they were able to run the football and we were able to run the ball up there, and so hopefully we can carry some of that momentum in this one.”