MEQB: Kellen Moore ranked 27th out of 43 Offensive Playcallers
Ryan Heath's How To Be An Elite Playcaller study ranked 42 offensive play-callers from 2021-25 based on how frequently they utilized six efficiency-based concepts.
Kellen Moore finished 27th out of 42.
His scores out of 100:
55 — Pass on Early Downs
45 — Play Action
33 — Box Advantage
52 — Downfield
33 — Under Center
76 — Fourth Down
That paints a pretty interesting picture.
Moore isn't particularly bad at everything.
He's reasonably aggressive passing on early downs. He's okay attacking downfield. And his fourth-down score is the strongest parts of his profile.
But the three areas where he really struggles are the areas that could fundamentally change how difficult his offense is to defend:
Play action.
Box advantage.
Under center.
Statistically last year's data coincides with his deficiencies.
The Saints ran Play-Action on 18.4% of snaps 2nd fewest in the league
The Saints were in Shotgun on 74% of snaps
The Saints were in 11 personnel 69% of the time but only dabbled in 12, 21, or 13 personnel 19%, 7%, 0.2% respectively
Want to know how using more play action, heavier personnel packages, and moving under center all connect?
They collectively pose the threat of run
Improving in those areas is a cheat code for Kellen Moore. If he reduces the amount of time he's in 11 personnel, gets under center more, and runs more play action, defenses would have to respect the threat of run.
The box advantage score is where Kellen Moore has the biggest opportunity to update his offense.
12, 13, 21, and 22 personnel are all "heavy" packages that should force base defenses.
Those packages scream "were likely running the ball here" even if you don't. Sure a defense could decide to stay in nickel but then you can punish them for keeping an extra defensive back on the field.
The mind game offenses must play to get box advantage are simple, Show run, pass the ball OR show pass and run the ball.
Last year Kellen Moore's offense showed pass and then passed 70% of the time out of 11 personnel - they were predictable.
And that's a problem because of the way NFL defenses are evolving.
Passing yards per game hit their lowest point since 2008 last season, with teams averaging just 209.7 yards per game, down from 243.8 a decade ago.
Defenses are becoming more exotic.
Fangio-style defenses in particular are willing to sacrifice some ability to stop the run in exchange for being structurally sound in coverage. The philosophy is essentially: You aren't beating us deep, and eventually you're going to get impatient and try to force the pass, right into the teeth of our defense.
So what's the answer?
Kellen Moore has to be willing to diversify his personnel packages and run the ball, or at least threaten to run it.
The Preseason Says There Was change but is it enough?
Preseason is a time to practice and install new concepts and to Moore's credit, there were some tweaks to his scheme.
The Saints were in shotgun on 109 of 172 plays in the preseason (63%), compared with 74.75% the year before.
That's roughly a 11% decrease in shotgun usage, an improvement if it holds.
Same with play-action.
Of 99 passing plays, 25 came with play action and 74 did not. Roughly a 25% play-action rate. That's a 7% increase in play-action usage. That rate would have ranked them 13th in the NFL last season, a significant jump from the 2nd worst 18.4% rate.
Again, improvement.
But a leopard can't change it's spots.
The Saints still ran the majority of their offense from shotgun. And through the portion of my preseason personnel count I completed before NFL Pro crashed my browser, they'd run 69 of 81 plays from 11 personnel through two games, that's — 85%.
The under-center numbers add to the story.
Of 63 under-center plays, 44 were runs and only 19 were passes. Meanwhile, 80 of 109 shotgun plays were passes.
The offense is still showing pass and passing with the added bonus of showing run and running.
If under center increasingly means run and shotgun still means pass, you've changed the formations without necessarily changing the information you're giving the defense.
And that's a huge part of what Moore needs to fix.
Yes, it's ONLY preseason and Moore didn't call the first two pre-season games but who you are in "practice" typically translates to who you are in games.
So here's the question heading into 2026:
Did the Saints improve enough as a roster, and can Kellen Moore evolve enough as a play-caller to take advantage of it?
The answer to the first question is yes.
The jury is out on the second.
Kellen Moore/Offense receive boost but Staley lost talent.
The biggest improvement on this roster is on the offensive side of the ball.
The Saints have more talent and or depth at virtually every offensive position group.
The offensive line replaced Trevor Penning with David Edwards at left guard and Toricelli Simpkins with Jeremiah Wright at right guard for a talent boost, but the losses of Dillon Radunz to IR and Luke Fortner to free agency reduce the depth. If Taliese Fuaga and Kelvin Banks improve, Cesar Ruiz plays up to his contract and Erik McCoy stays healthy, this group has a legitimate chance to be one of the better offensive lines in the league.
The biggest improvement may be a tie between receiver and running back.
A healthy Kendre Miller alongside Travis Étienne gives New Orleans a legitimate 1-2 punch and, more importantly, gives Alvin Kamara a chance to become more involved in the passing game. The Saints have the versatility to use 21 or 22 personnel without having to make Kamara the centerpiece of every rushing package. Zamir White and C.J. Donaldson also give the team some depth behind them.
The wide receiver group has potential to develop around the loss of Jordan Tyson, which takes some of the weight off his eventual return.
Bryce Lance can carve out a role as a sacrificial X and deep-ball specialist with some untapped YAC ability underneath, while Barion Brown adds some jet-sweep juice as a quality 4th receiver with some gadget ability.
Chris Olave will be the playmaker and Devaughn Vele will serve as safety valve and for Tyler Shough
Depending on how slowly they want to bring Tyson along, these guys could have established roles by the time he returns to a regular workload allowing the Saints to gradually reintroduce Tyson back into the offense.
The talent and depth added to the tight-end room gives Moore the ability to run more 12 or 13 personnel if he chooses.
Noah Fant and Oscar Delp provide additional flexibility along side Juwan Johnson, and Fant could end up being one of the more important additions because the Saints keeping only four receivers should signals more reliance on the veterans at tight-end early on.
Instead of living in 11 personnel and shotgun, the Saints now have enough running back and tight end talent to create legitimate personnel variation.
The defense is a slightly different story.
The Saints have regressed in talent and depth at defensive back after losing Alontae Taylor to free agency. The saving grace is a healthy and deep safety room. Julian Blackmon is the force multiplier, and if he and Justin Reid, who could help protect the young corners by making sure nothing gets over the top. That allows Jonas Sanker, Kool-Aid McKinstry and Quincy Riley to operate underneath.
McKinstry is probably the biggest wild card.
He remains the de facto No. 1 corner and was trusted without safety help frequently in 2025, but he was also responsible for eight touchdowns. If he reaches his third-year potential, the secondary gets some much-needed bite.
Bryan Bresee landing on IR was as costly as it was unexpected.
Losing him is a significant blow to the interior pass rush, but it should accelerate the development of Christen Miller and Vernon Broughton, with the former seeing a larger roles in the rotation than initially expected and the latter taking over as the starter.
The linebacker room is perhaps the most interesting defensive group.
The Saints lost Demario Davis' pure run-stopping ability but added Kaden Elliss, who fits Brandon Staley's scheme and could help generate more pressure as an interior blitzer. Pete Werner gets the start based on seniority but Danny Stutsman is the better schematic fit and will be a rotational norm in sub packages.
So the roster equation is fairly simple:
The offense got deeper. The defense got thinner.
So What Does This Mean for the Saints?
The roster is better.
The offense has more depth.
The running back room is significantly more versatile.
The tight end room gives Moore more flexibility.
The offensive line has a chance to be better if it stays healthy.
And Tyler Shough gives the Saints a quarterback they believe can be the answer.
There is also something tangible to build on with Shough. Once he took over, the red-zone offense improved from a 34.5% conversion rate to a 75% conversion rate across multiple games. He posted a 133.4 red-zone passer rating with six touchdowns and zero interceptions, plus another rushing touchdown.
But the defense is almost certain to regress and won't be able to carry this team in the way they did down the stretch last year.
Staley's defense is still fundamentally built to bend without breaking, but last year it was more suffocating especially on 3rd down. That could get harder if they regress stopping the run on early downs without Demario Davis.
That puts the burden back where it belongs.
On Kellen Moore
The Saints didn't hire an offensive minded coach in Moore with the expectation that they'd only score 18 points per game last year.
And this is where Moore has fewer excuses than he did a year ago.
Prediction: 9 Wins Is Possible. But 7-8 Is Where I'm Landing.
I think this is a better football team than the one that went 6-11, but I'm not ready to call it a nine- or ten-win team simply because the roster improved.
I'm landing at 7-8 wins, with 9-10 as the ceiling if the offensive changes materialize, the defense holds together, and they stay relatively healty.
The Saints gave Kellen Moore more tools.
Now he has to prove he knows how to use them.
Lagniappe:
Saints added Jonah Williams to the practice squad. He was on the Saints last year but was lost in free agency. This is a good bonus to the interior depth
Saints will vote on team captains today
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