The first thing to know about the Lions’ opponent: Don’t be fooled by the Saints’ 6-11 record
New Orleans played winning football after making one major change last season, and its defense was quietly among the NFL’s best in several important areas.
The Detroit Lions open their 2026 season against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday at Ford Field, and with that in mind, we’re starting a new series here. Every Wednesday, we’re going to talk about the first thing you need to know about the Lions’ opponent each week. Let’s start with the Saints, because this one is pretty simple. Detroit is not playing the New Orleans team that started 1-7 last year.
Look, I know what everybody is going to see when they look at the Saints. They’re going to see a team that went 6-11, finished last in the NFC South, and is coming into Ford Field against a Lions team with legitimate playoff expectations. That sounds like a perfect opening week opponent. It might even sound like a layup for Detroit.
Here’s the thing. That 6-11 record tells you what New Orleans was over the entire season. It does not necessarily tell you what the Saints became by the end of it.
Tyler Shough changed the Saints’ trajectory
New Orleans changed when quarterback Tyler Shough became its starter. Shough took over in Week 9 and started the final nine games. The Saints went 5-4 in those starts after opening the year 1-7. That’s not a tiny improvement. They went from being one of the worst teams in football to playing winning football over the second half of the season.
Shough completed 67.6% of his passes for 2,384 yards, 10 touchdowns, and six interceptions. He also ran for 186 yards and three touchdowns. Those aren’t superstar numbers, but they’re encouraging numbers for a rookie quarterback who took over a struggling football team in the middle of the season. He also got better as the year went along. Over the final five games, Shough completed 70% of his passes, threw for more than 1,300 yards, and produced a passer rating of 99.1. He had consecutive games with more than 300 passing yards, including a 333-yard performance against Tennessee.
For comparison’s sake, Jared Goff threw for 1,539 yards, nine touchdowns, three interceptions, completed 64.5% of his passes, and had a passer rating of 96.6 in the final five games of the Lions’ season last year. The circumstances were way different for Detroit down that stretch because of offensive line injuries, but it’s worth bringing up. Goff has been one of the better quarterbacks in the league, and Shough showed something during those final five games.
The Saints didn’t have to wonder whether they needed to find another quarterback this offseason because Shough did enough to earn the opportunity to come back as the unquestioned starter. That matters for Detroit because the Lions aren’t facing a rookie making his first NFL start. They’re facing a second-year quarterback who already went through the difficult part of his development. He’s already been thrown into a losing season, already experienced pressure, already led fourth-quarter game-winning drives. Now he gets an entire offseason with head coach Kellen Moore to build an offense around what he does well.
Shough isn’t someone the Lions should be afraid of, but he is absolutely someone Detroit needs to take seriously. He can move. He ran for three touchdowns last year. He had a 55-yard rushing performance against Tampa Bay. Detroit cannot allow him to escape the pocket on third down after the defensive line has already won the rep. We’re not talking about Lamar Jackson here, but Shough can do some of the frustrating stuff we saw hurt the Lions at times last season, where they would generate pressure and the quarterback would find an escape lane and turn a potential sack into a first down. If Detroit’s pass rush isn’t disciplined, Shough can make them pay.
The Saints upgraded around Shough, too
New Orleans added Travis Etienne to a backfield that still includes Alvin Kamara, though Kamara is not expected to play in this game. Wide receiver Chris Olave is coming off a season with 100 catches, 1,163 yards, and nine touchdowns. The Saints added David Edwards to the offensive line and still have young tackles Kelvin Banks Jr. and Taliese Fuaga. Tight end Juwan Johnson is a player Lions coach Dan Campbell talked about at length on Tuesday, offering glowing praise and even comparing wide receiver Jackson Meeks to him.
First-round receiver Jordyn Tyson is injured and will miss the beginning of this season. That takes one potentially dangerous weapon away, but this is still a better offensive situation than the one Shough inherited last November.
The defense might be the bigger reason you can’t dismiss New Orleans
Honestly, the other side of the ball might be the bigger reason the Saints can’t be dismissed. New Orleans quietly finished 9th in total defense last season. The Saints were 4th against the pass, 6th in yards allowed per rushing attempt, and 3rd in opponent third-down conversion rate. They did not allow a single 300-yard passer all season. Defensive coordinator Brandon Staley did a good job with that group. The Saints could disguise their coverage, limit explosive passes, and make offenses string together long drives.
That’s important because this will be the first game for Drew Petzing as the Lions’ offensive coordinator. We haven’t seen the actual offense yet. Detroit saw pieces during training camp and the preseason, but the Lions were never going to show New Orleans the complete version of what they plan to do with Goff, Jahmyr Gibbs, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, and Sam LaPorta. Now Petzing has to unveil the offense against a defensive coordinator who is very good at changing the picture after the snap.
The Saints want quarterbacks to become impatient. They want Goff to look for the explosive play that isn’t there. They want Detroit to take a penalty, lose yards on first down, and wind up in third-and-long. That’s where Chase Young, Carl Granderson, Cam Jordan, and the rest of that defensive front become a problem. New Orleans ranked 3rd in third-down defense last season. The Lions cannot spend this game living in third-and-8. Detroit needs to stay patient, take the four-yard run, take the short completion, make New Orleans tackle Gibbs in space, stay ahead of the sticks, and prevent Staley from controlling the game with his pressure packages and disguised coverages.
The Lions should still win, but the Saints’ path to making this uncomfortable is real
None of this means I’m picking the Saints to beat Detroit. The Lions are a better team. They have more high-end talent. They’re playing at Ford Field. They have a defensive line that should give the Saints’ protection real problems. New Orleans allowed 49 sacks last season, the 7th-highest total in the league. Aidan Hutchinson had 100 pressures and 14.5 sacks, and Detroit kept 11 defensive linemen on its initial 53-man roster. This is exactly the type of game where that depth should matter. The Lions should be able to rotate five pass rushers, move Hutchinson around, and force Shough to operate under pressure.
If Detroit gets ahead early and makes the Saints abandon their balanced offense, the Lions are in very good shape. But the Saints’ path to making this uncomfortable is real. New Orleans needs to keep the score close, run the ball, use Etienne in the passing game, prevent explosive plays, and wait for Detroit’s new offense to make a mistake.
That’s why the first thing you need to know about the Saints is not their 6-11 record. It’s that they were 5-4 once Shough became their quarterback, and they paired that improvement with a defense that was already much better than most people realized. From what we’ve seen from Campbell in his pressers on Monday and Tuesday, the Lions are preparing for that team. They are not looking past New Orleans or treating this like some sort of layup game. In fact, in some regard, they see the Saints as the 2022 version of themselves, a team that didn’t have a great 2021 for the most part but started to really turn things up in the second half and showed people what it could be.
We’ll have our full prediction for this game on Friday once all the injury reports are out. We’ll see you then.
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