The focus for the New Orleans Saints this week against the New England Patriots should be finishing drives with touchdowns. The Saints ended last week with all of their points coming via field goals. That issue isn’t isolated to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game.
When New Orleans does move the football, they struggle to put the ball in the end zone. The Saints offense has led 13 scoring drives this season, nine of them ended in field goals. The offense has yet to finish a game with more drives ending in touchdowns than field goals. In Green Bay, one of the touchdowns was a Rashid Shaheed punt return touchdown.
The offensive struggles were mitigated by the defense the first two weeks of the season. The defense is strong but shouldn’t be expected to never waver. That was evident against the Packers. This shouldn’t be the game the defense gets lit up, but the Saints should still stress putting up points on the board.
This is an issue that needs to be fixed beyond just this game, but it could be what takes the Saints over the top this week. The Saints and Patriots are two teams who have struggled to score points. New Orleans is the fifth worst scoring offense and New England is the third worst scoring offense in the league. If a team scores two touchdowns, that could be enough in a battle of low scoring offenses.
