The New Orleans Saints are once again facing a familiar concern after 1-5 start to the season, punctuated last week by a 25-19 loss to the Patriots that saw more than its fair share of missed opportunities.
The black and gold’s woes in the red zone have been a consistent issue for what ranks as the 28th scoring offense through six weeks. The Saints are converting for touchdowns on just 42.1% of red zone trips, which ranks 29th in the league.
“Our first four drives [were] producing points," Saints OC Doug Nussmeier told WWL's Bobby Hebert, "it's just that we weren’t finishing those drives with touchdowns... we’ve gotta coach better, execute better.”
Hear the full interview with Saints offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
The Saints scored on their first four drives in the game, but only one drive found the end zone. The others saw the Saints settle for Blake Grupe field goals of 34, 48 and 38 yards in the first half. The Saints did do enough to keep pace early, taking a 16-14 lead late in the second quarter, but went into halftime trailing 22-16 and couldn't find the scoring plays to close the gap the rest of the way.
There were only two red zone trips for New Orleans in this game, with one touchdown coming on a short run from Taysom Hill. They had multiple other drives that ended just outside the 20 yard line, including a near miss targeting Chris Olave in the end zone on a key third down in the third quarter. Another promising drive was cut short after a holding penalty negated a Spence Rattler strike to Devaughn Vele inside the 5 yard line.
“We’re obviously looking at different ways to get different guys in position to make plays down [in the red zone], and obviously, another guy who can make plays down there because of his size and his length and his athleticism is Juwan [Johnson],” Nussmeier said, noting that he and the coaching staff are on the lookout for advantageous matchups every week.
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Johnson is currently second on the team in targets with 36 and has one of the team's 6 receiving touchdowns, but there have been missed opportunities as well, including a critical fumble in the 4th quarter against the Patriots as the Saints were driving for a potential go-ahead touchdown. He also narrowly missed coming down with a difficult grab in the final moments against the Cardinals in Week 1 that could've potentially sent the game to overtime.
“It’s a combination of a lot of things and ... a lot of our struggles have been because we’ve had self induced penalties or lost-yardage runs,” Nussmeier told Hebert.
The going won’t get any easier for the Saints moving forward. They’ll have to take care of business against a re-energized Bears team fresh off a walk-off win over the Commanders on Monday Night Football. After that? The 5-1 Buccaneers with early MVP candidate Baker Mayfield, the 4-2 Rams and future hall of famer Matthew Stafford, and two more divisional rivals in the Panthers and Falcons.
The Saints will play the Bears up in Chicago at noon this Sunday. You can catch the action right here on WWL and Audacy.
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More from Nussmeier
How has second round pick Tyler Shough handled being the backup in New Orleans?
“[Quarterback’s coach] Scott Tolzien had done a great job with that room ... We want to create competition, and they compete their butts off both in the [QB] room, and when we go out onto the practice field. And they all understand that whoever is the starter and whoever is going to be playing, we’re all going to support him... the whole room has done a great job at supporting Spencer [Rattler], and we won’t have it any other way. Tyler’s invested in getting better, and he’s also on a day to day basis helping Spencer be better, so it’s been a great room.”
What is it like to be the father of LSU star quarterback Garrett Nussmeier?
“As we say, it’s faith, family, football, in that order. So I’m gonna be a dad first. I’m very proud of Garrett, and I’m very proud of the [LSU football] team. Right now they’ve got a great opportunity to do some great things; and obviously my wife Christi, she’s awesome. She’s there all the time for him, and he and I talk all the time... we talk about football a lot. We’re very proud of him and very proud of the opportunity to be at LSU and be the quarterback.”