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At 4:00 p.m. Paris time, or 1600 as they say in France, Saints head coach Kellen Moore met with the media to discuss how things were looking as his team prepared for their Sunday match against Pittsburgh at the Stade de France, just north of Paris. Kickoff is set for 8:30 a.m. New Orleans time.
Practice Update from Moore
There was just two guys not there so I'll just kind of acknowledge those two. (Kicker) Daniel Carlson didn't practice with a personal thing. They're expecting a little one here in a little bit so navigating that and then (guard) Cesar (Ruiz) did not practice with the knee. Everyone else will have some limited guys and full participants here once we exchange with Pittsburgh. So other than that, really good practice today. It was a lot of fun.
Is Carlson going to be able to make it to Paris in time for the game?
He's still in the States so we've talked through this all. We're all on the same page so he should be out here shortly. We're expecting him to be here. Obviously, we do have Charlie (Smith, on the practice squad) if something goofy happened.
You're in the backyard of the Sun King. What do you enjoy the most about Paris so far and Versailles?
It's been a great experience for our players. It was great for us to get here essentially Monday morning. Our guys had a little bit of time to get acclimated, spend a little time in the city and in the surrounding areas and you know it's been a lot of fun and so I've really enjoyed this. Our team gets to spend a bit more time together. We get to experience something unique. It's a really unique and grateful opportunity that we have to be here and be a part of the first NFL game here in France and so it's been awesome.
We saw linebacker Kaden Elliss participating in practice today, will he be able to play Sunday?
Kaden's obviously an important part to our defense. He was out there some today and so that'll be good to just see him out there and just see how the rest of this week progresses and you know obviously he's done a great job at the start of the season.
A question about the stadium, Stade de France: have you ever been there and if not are you excited about going? Do you know much about the stadium?
Very excited with the opportunity. The history of that stadium is really special. I have not been over there yet. Our anticipation is for Saturday for our team to go over there, do a walk-through type practice out there just so our guys can get a feel for the surrounding area and the field and you know kind of experience and soak it in before the game.
Mickey said Jordyn (Tyson) won't practice this week. Do you guys have any like idea on a timeline? Is he going to start after the bye? Has anything been firmed up?
Nothing locked in yet. Yeah, he won't practice this week and you know obviously we have a bye week after that and so we'll kind of see where everything is. I think you just got to be patient with it and you know again we didn't we didn't put a hard line on this for a reason just because you know we want to get him healthy and get do the right thing and so he's progressing well. I think you know he's doing some stuff on the field and he's been doing a good job and we just got to keep moving. We'll just keep working through it. He's doing a great job.
Are you able to say anything about the severity nature of Cesar (Ruiz)'s injury? Did he have to remain in the states or anything like that?
No, he's here. He traveled with us so again it's just a thing that we'll just take it kind of day-to-day and we'll see where this thing progresses as the week goes.
The NFL has many international games going on but this one feels extremely special as Louisiana has some French history and you are in France now. How important is it for you guys and the players to be connected to France in that way?
It's a unique opportunity and a special opportunity. You know Louisiana and New Orleans has such a French influence there and so we feel very tied to both communities. I think our guys have been really excited looking forward to this opportunity and they've enjoyed it a ton. Our guys have had a chance to explore a little bit. Obviously the middle of this week is a big work week for us. We got to get into our routine but it's been great. It's been great amenities, great people helping support us and allowing us to have a great week here.
As a young coach, what was kind of like the biggest thing you took from Mike McCarthy's coaching and maybe the influence he had on you?
Mike was great for me. Mike's been a head coach this league for a long time. He's had a lot of success. I think his consistency was something that the players and certainly my experience being with Mike, I respected so much just his consistency week after week, day after day. I think that's important as you go through an NFL season because again there's weeks that are really good. There's weeks that you have to navigate some challenges and I think Mike was always a really consistent person and that showed and allowed us to continue to navigate all those things.
It seems like there's a more upbeat attitude like I feel it in you and with a lot of it just from the win on Sunday. Can that kind of win be a little bit of a catalyst? Is that I guess kind of what you're hoping for?
Wins are important ultimately. That's the ultimate result we're all looking for and so I think it was a good win for our team, a resilient win. I think this has been awesome coming out here together. I mean our practice was great today. We had a couple rainstorms in the middle of it at various times and I think our guys didn't bat an eye. They were fired up, juiced up, having a ton of fun. There was a couple rainbows in there so it was a great day.
As you turn your attention to Pittsburgh, what stands out to you about them both offensively and defensively?
I think offensively just a really sound scheme. (Quarterback) Aaron (Rodgers)' done this for a really long time. He's obviously one of the best quarterbacks to ever play in this league and he has a really good control of this entire offense and so you can't give him anything easy. That's the biggest thing is if you give him an opportunity, he's going to see it. He's going to take advantage of it and so we just got to play really sound football, play really clean assignment sound football to give us the best opportunity.
See what Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis had to say about the trip here.
Then on defense, to me this is a physical big front. They do an excellent job stopping the run. They got obviously edge rushers that can wreck games in the pass game from a protection standpoint and then their back end is doing a good job of contesting the football. So I think this is going to be a fun challenge for us.
How are the players since they arrived in Paris and do you feel a particular energy around the team being in Paris?
Yes, our team has loved being here and the last day or two our guys have had an opportunity to kind of explore the city and the surrounding areas. You know I think a few guys went to the other football version of football match last night and yeah I think it's just been great for our guys. They get to spend time together. They get to do something that's different than just about anyone else in the NFL to have an opportunity to spend a week here. We can't be more thankful for Mrs. B (Gayle Benson), our organization for allowing us to kind of have this setup where we can spend the entire week here, have a great week of practice but also you know have a little bit of an opportunity to spend some time together and experience this and I think it's been great.
What's the biggest adjustment you need to make in (3rd down) situations against Pittsburgh?
I think just continue to play really good execution football and I think that's the biggest thing you know for us protecting the football. Turnovers have a huge impact on these games. We have to protect the football and then you know we got to execute for four quarters and that's ultimately how these NFL games are played. They're all tight no matter what and you know I think we've certainly felt good about the run game taking a step last week. We got to continue that. We got to keep playing really good situational football in the red zone and third downs.
How can you make (the running game) your consistent identity and what's kind of preventing it from being is it just the situations of being able to call it?
I think we have to get there. We have to be more consistent now. I think putting yourself in more favorable situations to allow it. Penalties, negative plays when you're in second and long or third and long you don't get as many opportunities. When you don't convert third downs you don't get to extend those drives and so you know we just got to play efficient football and if we play efficient football, move the ball downfield, stay in sequence it's going to allow us to get more rush attempts.
When you spoke to us earlier in the week and you talked about kind of the middle eight in that game against New York. What are the things that you're looking for from that middle eight to translate more consistently over the course of a full 60 minutes?
I think complementary football. Obviously the turnover is huge. Our kickoff unit creating a turnover that's been a really important unit for us. They've done a great job and then you know when you have a turnover when you have an opportunity like that we got to be able to score and so you know even with our defense creating some turnovers in the middle of that game we gotta be able to score points off of those and so I think we were three of our four turnovers I think we created points off of them and that's huge in those games. You gotta be able to capitalize on that and sustain that a little bit better in the fourth quarter and put ourselves in an even better situation.
You built a 24 point lead (against the Giants), that's obviously a good thing but then the way it kind of evaporated there like how do you what are the lessons you kind of learn from the game management part of that?
We've got we got to play cleaner football on offense we got to protect the football we got to convert first downs especially when in those situations where maybe we were you know running a couple times kind of get the get this thing going and then we got to prevent the big play you know on defense. I think that's the biggest thing if you make people go the long way the clock keeps going when you have a lead and all that sort of stuff and you just it just takes a turnover, a sack, something to create a stop there and so we just can't give up those big explosive plays those allow them to score very quickly which certainly happened last Sunday.
I know you're trying to make this week as normal as you possibly can. How normal is it and how different is it?
I think it's not 100 percent normal. Certainly we all recognize that and I think that's an important spot we're not going to be oblivious to that. Our guys had some time to spend time around the community which was great, and also get acclimated to the time zone which I think is an important part. It allows our guys to get into now our routine. Wednesday through Friday is very similar and really Saturday morning even will be very similar with a few adjustments just for logistic purposes and so I think it's important we got to have a really good week of practice which our guys are focused on and then we'll be ready to go.
How important was it to come straight from New York to Paris?
I think for us we feel fortunate for us for our organization to be willing to allow us to travel here coming right off of game in New York. I think the acclimation is really important for us I think our guys are already quickly getting acclimated to the time zone which allows us to just have a normal week and so I think there's a lot of these games now from an international perspective teams are getting more used to the logistics and how the travel works and a lot of teams do it different ways and there's not one way that's you know right or wrong but you know I love what we have been provided and I think it's gonna be a great opportunity for us.
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