Gayle Benson made it clear that the Saints' performance to start the 2026 season was not acceptable, and her staff very much took notice.
Saints GM Mickey Loomis addressed the media in Versailles, France this week as his team took the field for practice ahead of the NFL's first-ever Paris game, and addressed the recent speech made by the team's owner.
“Look, I understood where she’s coming from," Loomis said, "and I think every once in a while we all need to be a little uncomfortable. That’s OK.”
At the time of her speech the Saints were 1-4 and coming off of three straight home losses in front of an increasingly frustrated fanbase. The team got back on the winning track against the Giants, but the result was marred by a near fourth quarter collapse after the Saints built a 34-10 lead. The Giants outscored the Saints 17-0 over the final 10 minutes of the game behind backup QB JJ McCarthy and had a shot at the end zone to tie the game, but that drive fizzled out in the red zone.
"I think all of these experiences, especially adversity, are growth opportunities and learning experiences," Loomis continued, "and for a lot of our guys who haven’t been in those situations before, they’ve got to learn from that and they will learn from that."
In the end it was a victory ahead of the trip out to Paris this week, where the Saints will face off with the Steelers, looking to get back to a game within .500 before the team's bye week. While Loomis said the slow start was unexpected, he continued to note that this group is in a "rebuilding phase" and led by a young head coach and quarterback. Despite some results going against them, he said he believes the team's process-focused approach is on the right track.
"I'm always really positive," Loomis continued. "I see a path to a high level of success every year and so ... we didn’t have the outcomes that we wanted, but they were there for us to take them, and I think one of the things about a young team is they have to learn how to win and we’re in that process.”
The Saints will hold two more practices in Versailles before facing off with the Steelers at Stade de France in Paris. Catch all the action on WWL and Audacy.
MORE FROM LOOMIS
Any evaluation of Kellen Moore's peformance
“I’m not going to have an evaluation of him that I would share with you at this point. That’s for later down the road. He’s, like I said, 23 games into his career and with a rebuilding team, let’s not forget that. You know, but I like what I see.”
On Tyler Shough
“It all starts with the quarterback, right? And I think we’re all excited about him, excited about the way he performs at times, excited about the way he reacts when things don’t go well and, you know, that’s the start of it, but there’s still a lot of development. He’s 13 or 14 games. He hasn’t even started a full season yet, and yet I think the expectations are a lot greater than what his resume is so far.”
What does success look like for this team?
“I think we start with winning the Super Bowl, right? That’d be a successful year, and there’s a lot of ways to measure that after the fact, but our goal hasn’t changed. We have the same goals that we would have if we were a veteran team, the same goal that we had in 2012 with Drew Brees. We want to win the division. We want to make the playoffs. We want to have a run in the playoffs, so the goals aren’t different. Maybe the expectations are different and the ... process that we use to get there is different, but I wouldn’t say that the measuring stick is a lot different in terms of what our goals are.”
