Who the Saints Need To Step Up After the Bye Week

So far, the New Orleans Saints' 2026 season has gone bad, to say the least. Injuries to key players, second-year standouts regressing, and little improvement from the coaching. This was supposed to be a year of growth, progression, and potentially playoff football. The crazy thing is, even at 2-5, getting into the playoffs is not out of the question.

The NFC South has been the worst division in football for the past two seasons, at least. The Saints finished last in 2025, but they were only a few games away from being in first place. All the teams have massive issues that keep them from dominating, and although the Saints have had some of the worst this year, improvement after the bye week could catapult this team into first place. 

New Orleans is already getting reinforcements with Travis Etienne returning and Jordyn Tyson finally being able to make his debut, but they just need to fix some issues to really take advantage of the star players on the roster. 

First, the run game. The Saints are bad at running the ball because of coaching. Yes, the personnel is not great, but it should never be as bad as it is. The Saints have tells in their playcalling that is causing teams to know what they are going to call, and that's something that should just never happen. 

If they can figure out some way to get more consistent running, this offense will be 10x better, so Kellen Moore really has to step up in that area. 

Next is the 2026 Draft Class. As of now, this year's draft class has been extremely underwhelming, and the rookies, especially at the top of the draft, must step up. Tyson must stay healthy, Christen Miller needs to play more, and I do think he can really help the run defense, and Oscar Delp should be involved in the passing game. It does come down to coaches not playing the rookies enough, but all three of these players need to make some major impact moving forward. 

Last is Kool-Aid McKinstry. Simply, McKinstry has not played close to a CB1 this season, and there’s a real chance he gets demoted to CB2 next year. Consistency is key for McKinstry, and for the rest of the season, the Saints need to see him do that and make some turnovers happen. This entire DB group needs to improve, but McKinstry especially.