The New Orleans Saints are well aware that correcting the array of errors in Week 1 will be essential going forward, but that won't mask the fight Kellen Moore's team showed in a 20-13 loss to the Cardinals.
Despite 13 penalties and some missed opportunities, the Saints defense locked in for key stops and the offense executed a rally that came up painfully short. Speaking on WWL Radio this week, that's what the Saints head coach highlighted as something that he expects to bode well in Week 2 and beyond.
“We’ve got to play a cleaner game. We’ve got to clean some things up, but I love the way our guys battled," Moore said. "I loved the energy, I love the juice. If our guys play like that each and every week we’re going to be winning a bunch of games.”
Hear the full, exclusive interview with Saints head coach Kellen Moore in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
The Saints trailed by 10 points in the 4th quarter and had multiple heaves to the end zone for a potential tying touchdown. The best chance was a high ball to Juwan Johnson that the TE had in his hands but was dislodged when Cardinals safety Budda Baker came flying in and appeared to get his shoulder on the ball, while fellow safety Jalen Thompson had a hand in raking it out. The next play was an incomplete ball out of bounds in the area of Chris Olave.
The narrow margin of the game only served to highlight how damaging the repeated penalties, and also a missed field goal, were to the final result. That'll be a focus in practice this week.
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The Saints ran their offense at a high pace and that could've contributed to some of the procedural errors, but Moore doesn't sound like he has any intention to take the foot off the accelerator.
"[The officials] called that game really tight and I think it was consistent. They called a lot. They called the procedural thing really, really tight," Moore said. "Our guys have got to be really, really dialed. ... It’s a big-time growth opportunity for our guys and I think our guys will respond really well this week, because if we clean up that, you know, the tempo operation had a lot of success."
The Saints' opportunity to change the narrative will come on Sunday against the 49ers in the Caesars Superdome. Catch all the action on WWL and Audacy.
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More from Kellen Moore
On Julian Blackmon's injury
The Saints safety is likely out for the season with a shoulder injury, something that wasn't discovered until well after the game. He played 100% of the defensive snaps against the Cardinals.
“Yea, it’s a unique one. Your body naturally feels a bit sore but there’s adrenaline pumping through you and as you go through it usually soreness starts kicking in, but for it to be this severe of an injury obviously is unfortunate for Julian just because we were so excited to be able to onboard him late in the process. He did an excellent job during training camp, just the way he and Justin were working on the back side of that thing, in the back end. I thought they did some really good stuff.”
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Will Alvin Kamara get increased touches going forward
“No doubt. Alvin is a special player for us. He’s going to get a lot of opportunities and, you know, the way that game went down we weren’t able to play in mixed downs as well as we could’ve because we shot ourselves in the foot too many times. Penalties, putting ourselves in second and long, we’re not able to play run downs as many times as we’d like, so we definitely want to give him more opportunities.”
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On Kool-Aid McKinstry's day
“We feel so good about him and the progress he's made, and he’s going to play some tough downs in this league. He’s going to play against the best of the best. He’s gonna have those 1-on-1 opportunities and so we feel like he’s going to win more than he loses, and so he’s just got to respond the right way. … He’s close right there. He’s attacking the football right through the catch, you know, I think we’re really, really close on that play and I think that was the big thing about our defense was there’s so much good and they have a really long pass and then they have a really long run, and those were two of the biggest plays in the game that kind of, you know, put them in favor.”