VERSAILLES, France — So that is what the New Orleans Saints offense can look like when the run game is going.

That has been a question for much of the Kellen Moore era in New Orleans, hasn’t it? When the Saints have enjoyed successful offensive performances the last two seasons, more often than not it was because quarterback Tyler Shough and receiver Chris Olave were dragging the rest of the offense along with them.

Not the case in the Saints’ Week 6 game Sunday against the New York Giants. The Saints ran the ball 38 times for 175 yards.

What is somewhat funny about the performance is that the down-to-down efficiency was not that great: The Saints’ 37% rushing success rate was actually a few percentage points worse than their season average. The bulk of their yardage came on explosive plays, which is something new.

New Orleans racked up six runs of 10 or more yards, five of them by running backs Alvin Kamara, Kendre Miller and C.J. Donaldson. To put that in perspective, Saints running backs had accounted for four runs of 10 or more yards in the first five weeks of the season combined.

The Saints were successful on both zone- and gap-scheme runs, and also got more out of quarterback Tyler Shough as a rusher (five carries, 32 yards) than they had all season.

Rookie guard Jeremiah Wright, who entered for the injured Cesar Ruiz, definitely played a part in helping unlock some things — all but one of those explosive runs came after Wright checked into the game.

New Orleans will have a chance to keep that going this week against a Pittsburgh defense that has allowed at least four yards per carry in four of its six games this season.

About the finish

The Saints took care of the most important thing — they won the game — but they almost let it slip through the cracks against the backup to the backup quarterback.

J.J. McCarthy entered for Jameis Winston trailing 34-10 with about 11 minutes to go in the game. His 243 passing yards in the fourth quarter were the fifth-most by an NFL quarterback in NFL history.

McCarthy completed 11 passes against New Orleans in that final quarter, and here is what those plays gained in terms of yardage: 19, 27, 8, 49, 24, 11, 13, 46, 17, 20, 9. That is an average of 22.1 yards per completion — the most by an NFL quarterback (minimum 10 completions) since Derek Carr posted the exact same line (11 completions, 243 yards) for the Saints against the Cowboys in Week 2 of the 2024 season.

There was some luck involved. His longest completion, a 49-yarder to Charlie Jones, was a 50-50 pass that Quincy Riley probably should have intercepted. But by and large, New Orleans failed to generate much of a pass rush, allowing McCarthy to sit back and pick apart its zone coverage.

The Saints generated pressure on only six of McCarthy’s 23 drop-backs.

Looking ahead

Quarterback Aaron Rodgers and receiver D.K. Metcalf may be the biggest names on the Pittsburgh Steelers offense, but the focus for the Saints defense this week should be on running back Jaylen Warren.

The Pittsburgh back enters Week 7 with 460 rushing yards, which ranks seventh in the NFL. His 5.5 yards per carry average is behind only Kansas City’s Kenneth Walker and Atlanta’s Bijan Robinson.

New Orleans is coming off one of its better performances against the run, but it has struggled to contain some of the NFL’s premier backs this season. Only four NFL teams have allowed more runs of 10-plus yards than the Saints (21) this season.

Odds and ends

Donaldson isn’t going to be confused with Jahmyr Gibbs or Robinson any time soon. But while he lacks the top end speed to be truly explosive, he has added juice to the Saints run game. Sunday against New York, he ripped off runs of 11 and 17 yards, and he is now leading the team with a 4.8 yards-per-carry average on the season (on 17 attempts). But, if Donaldson is going to get more run, he’s going to have to avoid the type of costly mistakes he made Sunday against New York: His fumble with 9:03 to go is what ignited the Giants comeback.

Shough got off to an uneven start, completing just seven of his first 18 passes. This felt like a combination of good Giants defense and some accuracy issues from Shough. There were a few missed opportunities. On one play in the first quarter, the Saints lined Olave up in the backfield and faked a screen, which was a brilliant call. New York bit hard on the play and left Devaughn Vele open down the right sideline for what would’ve been a gain of 20 or more yards, but Shough sailed the throw. Saints receivers also dropped two passes, and Giants rookie linebacker Arvell Reese also single-handedly blew up a pair of screen passes. Shough eventually got hot: Starting with his fourth-down touchdown to Bryce Lance, he completed nine straight passes.

The offensive line had a nice bounceback effort in pass protection, allowing zero sacks on 30 drop-backs. The Giants pressured Shough on 11 of those drop-backs but often had to rely on the blitz to heat up the Saints quarterback.