Based on the amount of times he used the word ‘clean’ in his postgame press conference, you would’ve thought that New Orleans Saints head coach Kellen Moore was the long-lost son of clean freak and iconic TV dad Danny Tanner. In reality, Moore, who is still in search of his first win as a head coach, was simply lamenting the many times his team made a mess, so to speak, and let opportunities slip by in their 26-21 loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
“We gotta, so called, clean your own house and play cleaner football in all three phases. There’s only so many opportunities in these games,” Moore told reporters after the game. “We gotta put ourselves in better situations. We can’t be in these third and longs, and then when the opportunity presents itself, we just gotta play clean football and have everyone on the same page.”
Cleaning up their act after a Week 1 defeat at the hands of the Arizona Cardinals was supposed to be priority number one for the Saints last week. New Orleans ended the opening week of the season as one of the most penalized teams in the NFL, and versus the 49ers, the Saints were penalized another seven times.
But it wasn’t just when the flags came out that the New Orleans Saints were hurting themselves. The 49ers faced 15 third downs on Sunday afternoon and moved the sticks on eight of those plays, including conversions on 3rd and 6, 3rd and 7, 3rd and 10, 3rd and 11 and 3rd and 14.
“We want the rush to show up sooner. We want the coverage perspective of it to play cleaner and give ourselves a better opportunity to be successful,” Moore explained. “We gotta execute at a much higher level in those situations. We’re doing too much good on 1st and 2nd down to put yourselves in those situation, and it’s happened two weeks in a row, these 3rd and 10-plus plays, we’re giving up way too much in that situation.”
In Week 1, the Saints allowed the Cardinals to go 6-for-13 on 3rd downs, with conversions on 3rd and 9, 3rd and 10 and two 3rd and 11’s.
Career Best Performance From Spencer Rattler Not Quite Enough For Saints
One area where New Orleans did do a reasonably good job of ‘staying clean’ was on offense. Against a 49ers defense that forced two turnovers in Week 1 and held the Seattle Seahawks to just 13 points, the Saints scored three touchdowns and turned the ball over only once in Week 2. The primary catalyst of this was quarterback Spencer Rattler, who despite dropping to 0-8 as an NFL starter, may have played his best professional game on Sunday afternoon.
Moore noted that while Rattler didn’t play perfectly, it was a promising step forward for a second-year quarterback who had to earn the starting job before the season began. Rattler finished with 207 yards, 3 passing touchdowns and he posted a career-best 118.1 passer rating. He also picked up two 1st downs on the ground with his legs.
“His legs certainly showed up,” Moore told reporters. “The 4th down was a really good decision, with the ability to throw it and he ran with it. He made some plays with his feet, got some 1st downs in some situations.”
Just as they did in Week 1, Rattler and the Saints offense had a chance to march the ball down the field and either tie, or take the lead, late in the game. Each time though, the Saints offense came up short, and now, they face an 0-2 hole with a pair of tricky road games — at Seattle and at Buffalo — coming up before welcoming the winless New York Giants to New Orleans in Week 5.
Kellen Moore Sounds Off on Saints’ Self-Inflicted Wounds in Week 2 Loss