Sinking Saints plumbed new depths in a lopsided loss -- and have another tough road game up next

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans Saints coach Kellen Moore wants to believe that his team can turn an ugly, lopsided loss into a galvanizing opportunity to get right.

That does happen in football sometimes, and Moore didn't have to look back a whole calendar year to cite an example from his own, personal experience.

Last Sept. 29, the Philadelphia Eagles — with Moore as their offensive coordinator — lost 33-16 to Tampa Bay to drop to 2-2. After that, Philly won 15 times in a 16-game stretch that ended with a Super Bowl triumph.

“You play football long enough, you've dealt with a game like we dealt with on Sunday,” Moore said, referring to New Orleans' 44-13 loss in Seattle. "We can all lean on a bunch of different examples.

“They're great opportunities for us to pivot, re-evaluate, lock in together and get really improved,” he added.

Moore, in his first season as an NFL head coach, hasn't celebrated one victory since green and silver confetti was raining down on him in the Superdome after the Eagles' title clincher over Kansas City last February.

While a playoff push would appear unrealistic, the Saints (0-3) opened this season with a pair of losses by a touchdown or less, providing hope they weren't far off from winning a game.

Then came Sunday's debacle at Seattle, replete with untimely penalties and botched execution that helped the Seahawks race to a 21-0, first-quarter lead.

Moore said he spent the long plane ride home from Seattle reflecting on what his next steps should be.

“How we respond is going to be really, really impactful,” Moore said. "There's too many examples of teams that have gone through challenging games like this and they're sometimes really good momentum shifters.

“If your team responds the right way, this can be a good little pivot for our team to get better and draw closer to each other,” Moore said.

The Saints defensive front has been solid against the run in the first three games and was especially so against Seattle, allowing just 87 yards rushing to a team that was playing with a multiple-score lead for more than three quarters.

Seattle running backs Kenneth Walker and George Holani had 26 carries between them and combined to average just 2.5 yards per carry.

At the top of an evidently long list is team discipline.

The Saints committed 11 penalties for 77 yards in Seattle and now have been penalized 31 times (tied for the NFL high in that category) for 211 yards in three games.

“We have to play cleaner football. We have to execute at a much higher level,” Moore said. “There's got to be urgency with this. We've got to get it corrected.”

Special teams looks like an issue as well.

The Saints had a punt blocked and another punt returned 95 yards for a touchdown. One Saints kickoff was returned 60 yards. And kicker Blake Grupe missed a field goal for a third straight game.

Moore said the blocked punt was simply a matter of Saints players “not being on the same page.”

“It was a combination of people,” he said. “There's not just one person that blatently doesn't block a guy.”

Tight end Jack Stoll, a fifth-year NFL player out of Nebraska, scored his first career touchdown on a 13-yard pass from Spencer Rattler in the fourth quarter.

“Jack did a phenomenal job,” Moore said. “He got to the back corner in a scramble drill, found the void in the zone and catches a touchdown as a result.”

The unit directed by Saints first-year special teams coordinator Phil Galiano is coming off one of the worst performances in the kicking game that New Orleans has had in a long time. The Saints had gone 222 games spanning nearly 15 years without having a punt blocked, which had been the longest active such streak in the NFL before it was snapped on Sunday.

The Saints played without starting right tackle Taliese Fuaga because of knee and back ailments that could continue to affect his availability this week.

Meanwhile, Chase Young has yet to play this season after straining his calf during a Week 1 practice.

“Sometimes those are tricky injuries,” Moore said. “He's doing everything he can. I know it's his desire to be out there as soon as humanly possible, but ... we've got to do what's right for him, not just this week, but from a season-long perspective.”

1 — The number of times in franchise history that the Saints have given up as many as 38 first-half points, as they did Sunday in Seattle.

The Saints visit unbeaten Buffalo on Sunday before returning home to face the New York Giants.

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