Saints land at No. 24 in offseason power rankings, with coach-quarterback pairing a key offseason theme

The New Orleans Saints check in at No. 24 in a July offseason power ranking that argues the franchise, which appeared headed toward a difficult rebuild, instead made two swing decisions last offseason that stabilized its direction. The ranking’s core premise is that New Orleans looked like the better team in its division during the second half of the prior season, and that the offseason moves set up that improvement.

The offseason decision that sits at the center of the ranking is the coaching hire of Kellen Moore. Yahoo Sports’ preview notes that the Saints were the last team to fill their head-coach vacancy, and it links Moore’s availability to the timing of the Eagles’ run through the postseason. In other words, Moore’s hiring is presented less as a “quick fix” and more as a calculated wait for the right offensive mind.

Moore’s counterpart in the Saints’ offseason plan, according to the same preview, is quarterback Tyler Shough. The piece discusses Shough as a prospect who had been viewed positively by some analysts, but also suggests his path to New Orleans was shaped by evaluation concerns that kept him from being drafted closer to the top of the order. The preview specifically points to the fact that Shough was available when the Saints selected him with the 40th overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

The draft context matters because the Saints’ 2025 selections did not look like a traditional “find a franchise quarterback early” approach. Yahoo Sports’ preview says that if New Orleans truly believed Shough could be the long-term answer, it would have addressed the quarterback position at ninth overall rather than taking offensive lineman Kelvin Banks Jr. That critique frames Shough as an investment with upside that still carried uncertainty, given that other teams with pressing quarterback needs passed on him.

The ranking also treats Shough’s rookie season as part of the broader story of how New Orleans’ offseason bets played out on the field. Yahoo Sports reports that Shough struggled to beat Spencer Rattler in preseason action and that New Orleans did not make a quarterback change until later in the year. It then links those developments to the team’s overall early-season struggles and emphasizes that the Saints’ improvement came after those early fixes.

For now, the No. 24 placement reads as cautious optimism. The Saints are viewed as improved enough to avoid bottom-tier status, but the ranking still considers the roster-building work incomplete, particularly around young talent and quarterback certainty. What to watch is whether the Moore-Shough pairing produces consistent offense when there is no longer any “second-half of the season” narrative to lean on, and whether New Orleans can convert incremental improvement into sustained scoring across quarters.

With training camps and the early preseason window still ahead, the key test for the Saints will be responsiveness to coaching. Moore’s reputation is rooted in offensive design, but the ranking’s thesis ultimately depends on execution at quarterback. If Shough can stay efficient, reduce operational misses, and lead the offense to steady drives against multiple looks, New Orleans’ No. 24 outlook could shift from “found something” to “found a direction.” If not, the concerns raised in the power ranking will return to the foreground quickly.