Twelve Rushing Yards in Paris: Inside the Saints' Bye-Week To-Do List

The New Orleans Saints have played seven games, and the bye week could not have arrived at a more useful moment. Sunday's 16-10 loss to Pittsburgh at Stade de France — the first NFL regular-season game on French soil — dropped them to 2-5 and sent them into the break with a very specific set of problems to solve.

Start with the run game, because in Paris it essentially stopped existing. New Orleans ran 16 times for 12 yards, an average of 0.75 yards per carry. That came one week after a 36-carry, 142-yard showing against the Giants that looked like the breakthrough the offense had been waiting for. The season-long numbers sit at 171 attempts for 602 yards — 3.5 yards per carry — which explains why the offense has leaned so heavily on Tyler Shough's arm.

Shough has been asked to do a lot. He's 183-of-273 (67.0 percent) for 1,721 yards, 13 touchdowns and six interceptions with a 90.9 passer rating, and he's taken 15 sacks while fumbling six times. Against the Steelers he threw for 278 yards and a 1-yard scoring pass to Devaughn Vele, with Daniel Carlson adding a 38-yard field goal. But the volume hasn't translated into points: the Saints average 23.1 per game against 27.7 allowed, and over their last three the offense is down to 19.0 points and 255.3 yards per game.

Here's the split that should frame the bye-week conversations. New Orleans is 2-1 on the road, scoring 29.3 points per game away from home with a plus-4.3 point differential. At home, they're 0-4, averaging 18.5 points against 29.8 allowed — a minus-11.3 differential per game. Every one of their next two games, and four of their final six, come at home. Whatever is causing that gap is not a cosmetic issue.

The turnover ledger is another quiet culprit: 13 giveaways against four defensive interceptions, a minus-4 differential. Add 45 penalties, and the Saints are consistently handing opponents extra possessions while their own margin for error shrinks.

There are real building blocks. Chris Olave has 49 catches for 636 yards and two scores. Rookie Barion Brown has carved out a role — three catches for 57 yards against Pittsburgh, including a 49-yard spark, to go with 469 kick-return yards and 124 punt-return yards. Chase Young has seven sacks and 11 quarterback hits on a defense that has kept things close in stretches, which is exactly why his name surfacing in trade chatter should be treated skeptically; he's one of the few reliable sources of disruption on the roster.

The bye week also offers a chance to get healthier. Defensive tackle Nathan Shepherd (illness) did not practice and center Cesar Ruiz (knee) was limited heading into Week 7, and the interior of both lines matters for a team whose identity has to start with running the ball and stopping it.

The schedule is not forgiving. Cleveland (5-2) visits in Week 9, then Carolina (3-3) comes to town in Week 10 — the Panthers currently own the best record in the NFC South. At 2-5 the Saints are tied with Tampa Bay at the bottom of the division, but the gap to first place is not insurmountable. What won't work is another game where the ground game disappears and Shough has to throw 40 times behind a line allowing consistent pressure.

The bye week is when a staff can rebuild a run game, clean up the giveaway problem, and figure out why the same team performs so differently in its own building. For New Orleans, those aren't abstract fixes. They're the difference between a season that stabilizes in November and one that slips away by Thanksgiving.