A New Orleans Saints run defense that has been wounded could possibly receive a bandage on Sunday.
The Saints, fresh off allowing 205 yards and five rushing touchdowns on 35 carries to Atlanta, are surrendering 147.8 yards per game (third most in the league) and 5.1 yards per carry (fourth most). But Sunday in the Caesars Superdome, the Saints (1-3) will entertain the Vikings (4-0), who enter averaging 106 rushing yards (17th) on 3.7 yards per carry (23rd).
But in order to make good on taking advantage of the time, place and opponent, New Orleans first must shore up all that consistently went wrong in the loss to the Falcons, who had 14 runs of at least 5 yards, including touchdown runs of 59, 8 and 11 yards.
"Be more locked in on what we're doing," edge rusher Chase Young said. "It's not really doing anything differently, just being more locked in.
"(It was) not really doing too much. It's more so: Nobody's perfect, right? Nobody that y'all look at has a perfect game. What you try to limit is too many mistakes each play. So it's a difference if I make a mistake one play but everybody else is doing their job. Might be a 3-yard gain. But when you got a play where it might be five people, then that's where you got your explosive. That's the game, though. So we've just got to do our best to limit mistakes and just go back to the basics and just do our job.
"We've got to make the routine plays, too. The plays that come to us, we've got to make."
Safety Jonas Sanker said he knows the defense can be better because he has experienced it. New Orleans allowed 120.6 yards per game last year, when Sanker was a rookie, but only 74 per game in the last three of 2025.
"Just get back to kind of what we were doing all offseason, all camp and just really honing down on doing your running lane, doing your job," said Sanker, whose 25 tackles is tied with linebacker Pete Werner for the team lead. "And doing it efficiently. When it comes to you, be able to make-the-play type of thing. I know we'll be better this week and going forward just in terms of playing the run because I think that's something we've had a lot of success in as far as I've been here in the last year-and-a-half."
Two opponents — the Falcons and Lions (165 yards and two rushing touchdowns) — accounted for 370 of the 591 yards (63 percent) and seven of the nine touchdowns (78 percent) New Orleans has surrendered on the ground. Each run game was spearheaded by players jockeying for the best-in-the-league title, Detroit's Jahmyr Gibbs and Atlanta's Bijon Robinson.
Minnesota's leading rusher is Aaron Jones (297 yards and a touchdown on 72 carries).
He won't be overlooked; the Saints can't afford to, as they attempt to fix an area that has shown significant cracks.
"I think on a lot of the plays that didn't go right (Monday) night, you'll see guys just kind of trying to force the issue too much," defensive coordinator Brandon Staley said of the overall defense. "Whether it was an assignment — just kind of being in between — (or) playing the wrong technique, it just added up to a lot of inconsistent play."
