Can the Saints break trends, or will things stay the same?
Entering Week 3 of the 2026 NFL season, the New Orleans Saints are one of the league's more exciting teams. Nearly completing their comeback in Week 1 against the Detroit Lions and beating the Baltimore Ravens in Week 2, the Saints have some impressive games under their belts already.
In past years, especially in the Dennis Allen/Derek Carr era, the Saints started very strong and then completely fell apart. I honestly feel more comfortable with this team being 1-1 than with them being 2-0 in those past seasons. Some early challenges will make this team even better, and that is what happened against the Lions and Ravens. Results are always important, but for the first two games of the season, it’s arguably a bit more important what the team did in those results.
The Saints’ first impressions from these two games can reveal what we see from the rest of the season, and here are some that stood out to me so far:
Tyler Shough Is the Guy in New Orleans, but This Run Game Must Help
This is a bit of a two-parter. First, Tyler Shough, a player who still had some stuff to prove in year 2, has been great. Week 1, he had a bad start to the game, but that has now felt like the ultimate outlier. When the Saints had to rely on Shough to make the comeback, he did, and the same thing happened against the Ravens, but that one resulted in a win. Speaking of that Ravens game, Shough looked calm, confident, and reacted well to what the defense was giving. The one worrying factor in the passing attack is that players just weren’t open at times.
Another struggling part of the offense is the rushing attack, and it has hurt the Saints' offense and Shough. The Lions and Ravens didn't have to respect the running game, so they could go all out to stop Shough from passing the ball. It’s clear that Kellen Moore is failing to run the ball, because unlike last season, when personnel might be to blame, this season is on the coaches.
The Slow Starts and Incredible Ends
We are already seeing a pattern in Saints games. This team will start slow, learn what the defense is doing, then attack late in the game. It takes New Orleans and Moore time to adjust to what the opposing team is throwing at them, but once they learn, it has been really good. The Lions were throwing blitzes right at Shough for the entire first half, and this was a surprise because Detroit did not do this last year, and the Saints couldn’t deal with it for a while. Once they figured it out, it was over for the Lions' defense.
It seems like the Saints will be a fourth-quarter team this year.
