NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The New Orleans Saints and coach Kellen Moore have returned from France, where their latest performance left them looking like a team with a lot of work to do in a short period of time if they want to restore hope of making the playoffs for the first time since the 2020 season.
“It’s self-scout week,” Moore said Monday. “Obviously, we’re going to evaluate everything.”
While the 16-10 score of their loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers might lead one to believe that the Saints (2-5) were competitive right to the end, some of the important statistical trends from the game presented a different picture.
New Orleans spent most of the game struggling along the line of scrimmage, which was never more evident than when the Steelers kept the ball for nearly all of the final six minutes.
The Saints' best chance to get the ball back as time wound down was when Steelers kicked a late field goal. But the Saints jumped offside, and the Steelers elected to take points off the board and keep the ball so they could run out the clock
The Saints had just six possessions which consumed less than 28 minutes. Four of those drives crossed the Pittsburgh 40-yard line, but one series ended with a missed field goal and another with a turnover.
“I’m going to spend a lot of time focused on how we can find a way to score points," Moore said.
This week, the Saints won't have a game, but it doesn't sound as if Moore and his staff will be taking much time off.
Considering how much the offense struggled as a whole, quarterback Tyler Shough's performance — 30 of 38 passing for 278 yards and a touchdown — demonstrated that he and the passing offense are not the problem, his red zone interception notwithstanding. Had the Steelers been forced to respect the Saints' running game at all, throwing on a short field likely would have been an easier task.
Through Sunday's games, the Saints ranked in the top half of the NFL — albeit barely, at 15th — in yards passing per game at 229.7.
New Orleans' running game and rush defense both struggled.
Although the Saints set a season high for yards rushing in a Week 6 victory against the New York Giants, New Orleans' anemic production on the ground was more in line with how it has fared in most games this season. Through Sunday's games, Saints ranked 26th in the NFL in rushing, averaging 86 yards per game. The Saints' offense has been held to 91 or fewer yards five times this season, losing four of those games.
Meanwhile, the Saints allowed 148 yards rushing to Pittsburgh and allowed the Steelers to run out the final 5:52 of the game on mostly running plays. New Orleans has held just one opponent to fewer than 100 yards rushing and ranks 29th against the run.
Rookie receiver Barion Brown had three catches for a team-high-tying 57 yards against the Steelers, including a 49-yard reception on a deep ball over the middle that went down as the Saints' most explosive play of the game.
While kicker Daniel Carlson has been a perfect 5-for-5 this season on field goals from within 50 yards, he missed his fourth this season — of seven total — from beyond 50.
Running back CJ Donaldson left Sunday's game in the first half with a shoulder injury. Safety Justin Reid is recovering from an apparent concussion that sidelined him for part of the game in Paris. While right guard Cesar Ruiz was able to return to practice from a knee injury late last week, he was left out of the starting lineup, replaced by rookie Jeremiah Wright.
27 — the number of years since the Saints gained fewer than the 18 rushing yards they had against Pittsburgh. Sunday’s total in France was not quite as low as the 11 yards on the ground they had against Baltimore in 1999, during a 3-13 season under then-coach Mike Ditka.
The Saints play next at the Superdome — where they are 0-3 — on Nov. 8 against Cleveland.
See AP’s full NFL coverage here
New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara (41) is tackled by Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Jalen Ramsey (5) during an NFL football game in Saint-Denis, outside Paris, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Steve Luciano)
New Orleans Saints quarterback Tyler Shough (6) is tackled by Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker T.J. Watt (90) during an NFL football game in Saint-Denis, outside Paris, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
CORINTH, Miss. (AP) — President Donald Trump campaigned Monday in Mississippi, as he continued a closing midterm rally blitz that has highlighted Republicans' challenges ahead of an election that could drastically shift power in Washington and statehouses across the country.
“I'm here because Cindy’s doing great, but I just got to make sure. I can’t take a chance,” Trump told the crowd, his voice audibly hoarse, as he worked to boost Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who is facing a surprisingly stiff challenge from Democrat Scott Colom.
Colom was spotted at the rally site, too, creating the rare spectacle of Trump's staunchest supporters interacting directly with a figure the president would soon go on to denigrate as a “Marxist radical” and “fake" and “shameless phony who pretends to be a moderate” from the stage.
Mississippi, among the nation’s most reliably Republican states, is not where the Republicans envisioned needing a late-October stop from the president. But Colom is one of many Democratic underdogs who have managed to expand the House and Senate battleground maps because of widespread voter discontent over inflation, the Iran war and other aspects of Trump’s second presidency.
He said he had planned to go to the rally site to listen to what was on Trump supporters' minds.
"They actually deserve a senator that will listen to them, that actually cares about what they think, actually cares about what they’re going through,” Colom said ahead of the president's arrival.
Trump's event kicks off a week of aggressive campaigning that will include more stops in states he won comfortably in 2024, including Texas, South Carolina and Iowa. Trump also plans to hold a rally Saturday in Salina, Kansas, officials announced late Monday, marking his second visit to the state in less than two weeks.
Top Democratic candidates and their surrogates were also greeting voters — more than 30 million of whom have already cast ballots, according to data collected by The Associated Press from election administrators across the country — as they try to end Republicans' threadbare majority in the House, reclaim control of the Senate and claw back power in state capitals.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats' 2024 presidential candidate, campaigned in Wisconsin with Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who faces Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Trump ally, in the governor's race. If elected, Crowley would be the first Black governor to lead the battleground state.
“This is a tight race because the stakes are so high,” Harris said at an event billed as a “Women for Crowley” rally.
Meanwhile, in Michigan, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed distanced himself from an ad created by a group called Rebellion PAC that blames high grocery prices on U.S. support for Israel.
“This ad is not affiliated in any way with the Abdul for Senate campaign,” a spokesperson for El-Sayed, Roxie Richner, said in a statement about the spot, which features a couple discussing U.S. support for Israel as they shop for groceries.
“Apparently it’s costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza,” the woman says.
The ad had been condemned by U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, who narrowly lost to El-Sayed in the Democratic primary.
The way to win Michigan “is not by blaming the high costs of our goods on the only Jewish homeland in the world,” Stevens wrote on X.
El-Sayed, who would be the country’s first Muslim senator, has denounced antisemitism while fiercely criticizing Israel for its military operations in Gaza — a position that has been a frequent point of attack for both Republicans and supporters of Israel in his party.
Vice President JD Vance returned to Kansas to stump for Sen. Roger Marshall, who finds himself in a tight contest with Democratic nominee and pastor Adam Hamilton. Hundreds of people were gathered inside the warehouse of a steel-fabricating company in north Topeka in a state where Democrats haven’t won a Senate race since 1932.
Marshall, who has raised far less money than Hamilton, told the crowd that Trump is on the ballot, even if his name doesn’t appear, because of how Democrats will thwart his agenda if they win control of Congress.
“Democrats are coming out like it’s a presidential year,” he said, calling on the GOP to match Democrats’ energy.
Jace Sullivan, a 50-year-old electrician from Topeka who describes himself as “85% Republican,” said Trump supporters need to “circle the wagons” and get out to vote.
Wearing a red “JD Vance for President 2028" shirt, he said he thinks Trump is rightly working to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
“Gas prices are high and it does suck, but it’s a means to an end,” Sullivan said.
Trump, at the Mississippi rally, said he had, in fact, expected gas prices to rise even higher than they had.
“It worked out fine and it’ll be over soon,” he said of the war with Iran.
Earlier, Vance was in Belgrade, Montana, to campaign with Republican Aaron Flint, who is facing Democrat Sam Forstag in the race for the state’s 1st Congressional District, and Republican Senate candidate Kurt Alme.
Despite the visits to ruby red states, Sen. Tim Scott, who serves as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told The Associated Press Monday that GOP candidates are “closing very strongly” in races across the country, including South Carolina, which Trump is set to visit for the second time in as many weeks to stump for GOP Sen. Darline Graham.
“One of the reasons why we will be in the majority is because he has invested the time and the energy on the campaign trail,” Scott said on the sidelines of U.S. Rep. Russell Fry’s 3rd Annual Freedom Fry event.
But it's Trump's visit to Mississippi that perhaps brings the midterm landscape into the sharpest relief with just a week of campaigning left.
To be sure, Hyde-Smith, who is vying for her second full term, remains the favorite in a state Trump won three times by an average of nearly 20 percentage points.
But Colom, a local prosecutor who would make history as Mississippi's first Black senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction, is looking to parlay inflation, Trump's lagging popularity and Hyde-Smith's mistakes into an upset.
Senate Democrats’ super PAC has been a late entry in the contest, with a $1.2 million investment. Mississippians have not chosen a new Democratic senator since 1947, and Democrats last won a Senate race there when that senator, the onetime segregationist John Stennis, won his last reelection in 1982.
In New York, meanwhile, one of the party’s most vulnerable House members pulled from Trump’s campaign playbook. Rep. Mike Lawler, who is in a tight race with Democrat Cait Conley in New York City’s northern suburbs, manned a McDonald’s drive-thru — mimicking something Trump did two years ago, even as Lawler has tried to emphasize his independence from the president.
Barrow reported from Atlanta and Colvin from New York. Associated Press reporters John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Meg Kinnard in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Laura Turbay in St. Paul, Minnesota; Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix; Seung Min Kim in Belgrade, Montana, and Anthony Izaguirre in New York contributed.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at Women for Crowley event Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., talks before President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Crossroads Arena, in Corinth, Miss., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at Crossroads Arena, in Corinth, Miss., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
People watch as President Donald Trump's motorcade heads to a campaign rally in Corinth, Miss., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump yells as he arrives on Air Force One at Frederick W. Smith Airport, in Memphis, Tenn., Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, en route to a campaign rally in Mississippi. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Vice President JD Vance reacts after speaking at a campaign rally at Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport, Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, in Belgrade, Mont. (Finn Gomez/Pool Photo via AP)
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, left, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, receives an embrace from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., at a campaign rally Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, at Lincoln Park Middle School in Duluth, Minn. (AP Photo/Erica Dischino)
President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a campaign rally at McMorran Place Sports and Entertainment Center, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026, in Port Huron, Mich. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
