The New Orleans Saints are coming off their bye week hoping to turn things around with a trimmed down coaching staff.
Saints head coach Kellen Moore joined WWL Radio on Monday to discuss the decision to move on from TJ Paganetti, who had served as the run game coordinator since last year. The decision came on the heels of an 18-yard rushing effort in a loss to the Steelers in Paris.
"These are never fun decisions," Moore told WWL's Bobby Hebert and Mike Hoss. "We felt like, as we went through the self-scout, ... some adjustments, just as far as responsibilities was gonna be beneficial for us from a staff perspective."
Hear the full, exclusive interview with Saints head coach Kellen Moore in the player above.
The decision will continue to narrow the lens on the run game operation. Saints OL coach Brendan Nugent was a key piece of that process already, and a majority of that will fall on him, though Moore has made it clear the effort will be collaborative. He also noted that there would likely be some additional adjustments as the Saints look to turn around the season after a 2-5 start. The changes allowed for a "cleaner flow" in the operation, Moore said.
"There’s some other things we’ll address from a staff perspective just as we go through this week and how our week process looks," Moore continued. "TJ is a really good coach, just felt like this is the best thing for our football team this week and we’ll make some other adjustments as we go.”
If the Saints can get the ship righted, there's still ample opportunity ahead with no team in the NFC South currently holding a winning record. The Saints also have five division games left to play, including four in the final five weeks of the season. The Saints will need to start by turning their fortunes around within the Caesars Superdome, where they are 0-3 this season and 3-8 since the start of the 2025 season. The Saints host the Browns (5-3) and Panthers (3-4) over the next two weeks.
“We’ve obviously not played our best football yet," Moore said. "We’ve got some really good football coming ahead of ourself and we’ve got to have all the confidence in the world that it’s coming here shortly.”
MORE FROM MOORE
Will Jordyn Tyson and Travis Etienne return to practice this week?
“We’ll see. We’ll know more [Tuesday] and that’ll put us in position as far as what Wednesday looks like. Again, we have a few guys on injured reserve that are doing everything they can to get back and get ready to go and it’s just a matter of time before we get to that point where medically they are good to go.”
Why has the TE production disappeared in the passing game
“That’s a little bit by gameplan. I think if you look at our game against Pittsburgh, we felt that we had to help the edges a little bit more in the protection game. That’s a really good front and we got into too many passing situations. Obviously we used the pass game as an extension of the run as that game went, unfortunately, and felt like that was our best chance to keep the ball moving. As a result of that our tight ends were less downfield and more helping protection. ... We can’t lose that vertical threat, the ability to get them going downfield in the dropback and the action game and they’ve done some good things early in the year. We’ve got to get back to some of those components, which will help our team as a whole.”
Thoughts on the Browns
“It’s a good football team. They’re 5-3. They’ve won a bunch of one-score games, which is always an impressive feat, when you have a lot of games that come down to the end and they’ve been able to win those. Pittsburgh ran the ball really well, were able to kind of take control of that game. ... That’s going to be an important part of our plan is just having the ability to play more balanced and run the football, and that doesn’t mean it has to be all in one way. We’ve got to be a balanced football team and these guys have had the ability to hang in there and then they make these plays in critical situations with their offense. It seems like every time they need a play in these one-score games they come up with them late in the game, and credit to these guys of putting theirself in position.”
