Saints Coach Moore Discusses Loss to Falcons, Upcoming Game vs. Unbeaten Vikings

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Today, Saints head coach Kellen Moore met with the media via Zoom to discuss the Monday Night Football loss to Atlanta, 45-24.

Did you see a higher level of player attendance today than you maybe normally would on what was assigned today?

Yeah, I think it's a late night game. I think you saw a lot of guys in our building trying to get better today. So, whether it be rehab treatment in the weight room, in the film room certainly, certainly seeing a lot of phases.

Do you have a better sense of kind of the preparation issues, now having some time to move? Like is there anything you identified 24 hours after or less than?

I feel like we had a good week of practice. I feel like, unfortunately, the game and the practice didn't come together. Obviously, it's a disappointing game. There's a few moments in there in all three phases where there's some good. But, overall, Atlanta played better than us and took advantage of the opportunity when they were presented.

See the Saints On SI grades for the Saints loss to the Falcons here.

You mentioned last night the kind of varying approaches that you all have taken to try to get started in games a little bit sooner, things like that. Do you intend to try anything new this week, going into this next upcoming game against the Vikings?

It's definitely gonna be a discussion, talk through some potential adjustments, just to find a way to play better there. Again, that was obviously a start that Anthony scored us to go three and out. And our defense had a little moment there of settling down and we're able to score it. Touchdown later, right at the end of the second quarter. But we just didn't play well enough.

What are some of the things that you look at tweaking in situations like that?

Really, logistics scheduling, to kind of maybe adjust practice plans accordingly. And then, obviously, looking at what the back end looks like as far as our preparation of what we're doing, early in games from a schematic standpoint. That's really the two main areas.

Why was Christen Miller inactive yesterday?

He was just coming back from an injury and I thought he had a good week of practice. But with the time on task with those other guys, it felt like a great decision for us.

From talking with you and other coaches, the sort of focus on the run game was that you guys had it locked in last year. And as the year went on, you kind of honed in on what you thought you did best, and you wanted to concentrate more on that. Has that been the case this year, or have you tried a bunch of different things, and you still haven't settled on sort of what main scheme or philosophy is working best for the run game?

That's a good question. When you have a four game sample size, there's gonna be some things that are going the way you want them to, and there's gonna be some things that aren't. Unfortunately for us, I think the first and second down run game's gotta be a little bit better. Particularly kind of the dirty run, so to speak, the outside zones, the duos, the kind of DNA type runs. And we just haven't been able to get those started as efficiently as possible. I think there's some other things that we've been doing that have been a little bit more effective. But again, I think we've gotta find a formula that settles in a little bit more with a consistent approach. I know this is kind of a naive kind of question, but I mean, there are some offenses where their run game has a name.

Social media was brutal after the loss to Atlanta Monday Night. Read about it here.

Do you find the issues for the run game, is it blocking? Is it finishing once they've gotten their block? Or is it the running backs? Where do you kind of see the issues kind of boil down?

Yeah, I truly watched every single run from last night. Everyone has a piece in it, you know, and it's obviously everyone's gonna make a note of the offensive line and running back play. And there's things we gotta do a little better there, but it's perimeter blocking. We gotta get to safety, block corners when they're at point of attack. Make the adjustments to play scrimmage and play better there.

Is there anything to losing the way that you guys lost last night to really kind of have to face the music in a way?

That's a fair question. I think that's certainly a moment where you say, it just simply wasn't good enough at all. And there's a few good moments, but there weren't enough. And certainly, I think the focus and attention moving forward has to be right where it needs to be. It needs to be on correcting the mistakes that we've made and getting better and looking forward to the future. And so, yeah, I think this is a great opportunity for our team ultimately. That's the way we have to look at it. It's a great opportunity to evaluate yourself and get better moving forward. There's a lot of really good football ahead of ourselves. But we have to use this one as a kind of a momentum builder, so to speak, as far as getting better moving forward.

Was there something to Kaden Elliss missing and Pete Werner missing the whole week of practice that really hurt the run defense plan this week?

Yeah, I think those are talented players. Pete was able to still play in some packages with limited practice. At the end day, collectively, I think the focus is collectively. I don't think this game, just like the offense, some are in the defense, it's not one group, it's not one position. It's a consistent effort in all phases of the defense playing better football. And so everyone had their piece of it, everyone had their share of mistakes. So we really gotta dig into those mistakes and come out better.

Do you anticipate Kaden practicing this week?

We will see, we'll see. We'll have a, obviously coming off the Monday and a lot of the walks throughout Wednesday. Walks we tried to practice on Thursday, we had full practice, but we'll see pretty soon.

Are there any injuries coming out of the game, like Alvin (Kamara), what's his status?

We have a lot of guys kind of in a little bit of maintenance that are kind of day to day, and we'll let that kind of take its course. Nothing coming out of the game that's a multi-week, long-term, any of that sort of stuff, and just some day-to-day stuff.

During the TV broadcast, Troy Aikman said something about (Tyler) Shough and how impressed he was at how well Tyler plays. Could you speak to the pressure that Shough was under and how well he played in that game?

The game took a course where it became a little bit too much of a drop back game than we'd like. Obviously, Tyler, as a result, had to move around the pocket a number of times. Faced a few more pressure opportunities than we would have liked in that particular game because they do an excellent job. I thought Tyler hung in there really well. He battled. I thought there were some moments in the past game where there was some good football being played. But again, we gotta have a more balanced attack. And that takes all three phases. We've gotta play better football.

Can we get your thoughts on the Vikings and the way they've been playing as they're gonna come on in undefeated?

Yeah, playing as well as anyone in this league, obviously defensively. Playing just excellent football, really excellent situational football. When you look at their third down from their red zone.Obviously, everyone knows their theme as far as their ability to pressure the quarterback and blitz. They do an excellent job, better than anyone in this league. And so, when you look at that, you look at special teams playing really good football. Offensively, they're protecting the football and the type of games they're playing. It's gonna be a battle. It's gonna be a big time battle for us. That's gonna be a great opportunity for us as well.

With the amount of pressure that Tyler faced at the end of the game against the Raiders and throughout this most recent game against the Falcons. Do you look at changing or varying up the approach to protection?

These type of plans every week don't have to feel different, particularly this week's not to feel different. We're gonna definitely have a good plan for these guys and handle it accordingly. And there's gonna have to be different types of ways in which you handle it. You can't just do one way or else they're gonna attack that.

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