Kellen Moore - Head Coach, saints Event: Press Conference | Date: 2026-09-09 | Full transcript (primary source).
Kellen Moore, Head Coach of the Saints, addressed the media on September 9, 2026, to provide updates on player injuries and roster changes ahead of the upcoming game. The press conference focused on the status of key players, including Cam Jordan and Alvin, as well as recent roster moves.
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Transcript
Moore: Medical wise Oscar Delp did not practice at the hamstring. Audrey Guesstimate did not practice with the thigh. Cam Jordan did not practice at the hamstring. Cam will not play this week and then Alvin had the knee. He was limited; he was out there for summer practice. And then the only roster move made was just our practice squad. We released Jonah and signed Kyriece Rowan. So Jones just got a medical thing. He'll be fine. He's just not quite ready, but obviously we have a plan for him to be a part of this. So open up the questions.
Reporter: Did you ever think that Cam might be able to give it a go this week? I mean, how's he progressing?
Moore: Cam's going to do everything possible to play in this game. So again, he's progressing well. He's done a really good job through this recovery process and we'll just take it week by week.
Reporter: But you didn't place him on IR instead of hope that you were turns with him?
Moore: I guess the first four, there's potential. Yeah, we'll just again, we'll just see how the singer spawns.
Reporter: Was the injury coming out of the game or is it yes?
Moore: Yes.
Reporter: With your captains, with Chase Young specifically, how much of the work that he did in a voluntary phase, like he was at every session, right?
Moore: I thought so, just about, yeah. And so like how much of that work he put in then?
Moore: Yeah, I'll start the captain thing and just in general. We have a lot of captains and again, we have nine there. But we can go, we got a whole lot of guys who had votes and so the guys vote on it. We just find the spot where we can draw a line. We drew it right there and plenty of other guys that are worthy that are, hey, they're leading this team. There's not just nine guys that everyone else just stared and watches those guys. Everyone's a part of this thing. I thought for Chase, he has done a great job through the whole offseason of really being a natural leader by how he acts, how he prepares, how he plays. You know, I thought he's just done an excellent job and certainly you can see the appreciation his teammates have shown towards him.
Reporter: What kind of stance am I about him that doesn't think Chris is a big-time leader for our football team particularly on special teams?
Moore: He's one of the anchor pieces of that as far as leading that group, all the things he does with those guys as far as the preparation, getting prepared each week, the energy, the juice he brings, you know, on the field in special teams. Again, he's a guy who's, you know, certainly well recognized by his guys.
Reporter: Yeah, offense votes for offense, defense votes for defense, anybody a part of special teams votes for them. They vote for two players in each category and you know, we tally them up and we try and find a line that we can draw again. There's nine here. There's probably 18-20 guys that have votes.
Moore: Again, there's a lot of guys that are worthy of this.
Reporter: Good sign that so many players think so many of their teammates are worthy of a vote?
Moore: Yeah, I think it shows the depth of our team from a leadership perspective that, you know, an offense got a bunch of skill players aren't necessary captains that had a bunch of votes. You know, defensive guys throughout the defensive unit, special teams, we had plenty of other guys that were a part of that, not just Zach and Chris. And so again, there's a lot of guys that are going to lead this football team.
Reporter: What happens at the captain's dinner? Is it just the captains or are there more people there? Do the coaches go? Full team, coaches, players?
Moore: I thought it's a cool tradition that's been here for a number of years that we've certainly continued with. I think it's kind of that start, official start of the regular season Monday night, just having a dinner together and then we announce the captains. They have an opportunity to kind of share a message with their teammates and the rest of the team. And so I thought it's been a really good experience.
Reporter: How does your process change just like looking back to people and last year going through a season? Get more and some stuff like there's anything about your process for going into the game would change?
Moore: Probably just the rhythm of it, just the timing. Again, week one's, there's an element of unknown. We can chase every possible rabbit we want to just because they've had a whole offseason. We've had a whole offseason. I think you got to put together a good plan. You've invested a lot through the whole offseason on certain, you know, concepts, plays, philosophical approaches. And so we just got to go play football. We just got to play clean football and put ourselves in good position to be successful and they'll do something that we haven't seen. We get that, that's a part of this and so that's what week one's about.
Moore: Yeah, I think you just got to have an area focus. Again, you got a whole season last year you can look at. You can go beyond that, previous years. You got preseason football, which certainly still have to keep an eye on some of the things there. And you got to focus also on your football team as far as what you've been doing. The last thing we want to do is show up and disregard all of the training camp, you know, time on task football that we've put into this and try and recreate football. It's about our guys playing fast and decisive and confident and doing what they certainly know that they can do.
Moore: I think it's really hard week one not to overanalyze it. You know, again, this is a really sound football team. It's won a lot of games. They have really good schemes. They're going to do a really, really good job against this. It's going to be a hard game. But you got a lot of your guys to play fast and free and confident. And so a lot of that comes to time on task type stuff, things that, hey, we know how to problem-solve these type of looks. We've invested a lot of time in it. And then we'll have a few little nuggets here and there that certainly we want to have available to us and we'll see how it goes.
Reporter: You guys get the schedule in early day just like curiosity anxiousness. When's the first time you looked at any tape of the Lions defense?
Moore: I think I've seen it all offseason. I think our whole offseason goal is really to study the league on all phases, you know, and really have an understanding of where it is. Because naturally there's trends with everything as we're watching what we can do to improve on offense. We're also recognizing, hey, the top defense in this league, everyone's going to go watch those guys and see what can we add and implement. And so you got to be prepared to solve those challenges as well. And you know, these guys have done a really good job. They have a very diverse defense when you talk about from our offense perspective. You know, they've played a ton of base last year. Certainly they did a really good job of that versus all personnel groups and they have a lot of other tools at their disposal. And so, you know, we got to be prepared to adjust and just play clean ball.
Reporter: Organizes it like it's Tuesday in June with slimes time or is it like that's like a base defense of everyone?
Moore: We really focus on ourselves all through OTAs and even most of training camp. You know, coaches in the background, we're studying those early opponents. We're aware of what could be coming down the road the first few weeks. At times you may implement some of it into training camp just as kind of a, we don't announce it, said, you know, Detroit play or a Detroit emphasis or whoever else we may be playing here in the next few weeks. You know, you're just trying to give yourself as much exposure so that week one again, we've put time into all this stuff and we're not recreating football week one.
Reporter: How excited are you for Tyler's opportunity? You know, Sunday having a full offseason and training camp being the guy for him to kind of, you know, enter this thing, you know, with so much optimism in all season for him.
Moore: Yeah, Tyler's had a great offseason. This would be a great opportunity for us just to test ourselves against a really good football team, one of the best ones in this league in my opinion. They had to navigate a few things last year and they just missed the playoffs. But again, they've had tons of success the last few years. They're really well coached. They got some really talented players. They got really clean schemes and it'll be a lot of fun. It's going to be a great atmosphere. Ford Field's going to, you know, be loud and exciting and that'll be fun.
Reporter: How would you evaluate what you've seen from him even as a way for these preseason games? Whatever we've seen, the pregame speeches and whatnot. But from a leadership perspective, how have you seen him kind of, you know, evolve into that?
Moore: Yeah, Tyler earned being a captain on this football team for a reason because of, you know, his presence throughout the whole offseason and the preparation that he's put into this. And he does a really good job of being that vocal leader when necessary like so many of these guys. And so, you know, he's done that.
Reporter: For you, kind of in that we were talking about that overanalyzing because you have this five months before that start, particularly with like calling plays for Tyler. Do you get to a point where you're like, all right, here's like what I think could probably recreate the success that he had last year and then it's like, all right, but what do I call it? It does that, I guess that, that do you overanalyze that part of it to like trying to like recreate what you wanted to have that success with Tyler?
Moore: I mean, week one's, there's always an element of unknown. So I think a lot of times you got to be aware of the opponent and study those guys. But they had a whole offseason too. So you got to play clean football, you know, execute at a really high level. And so a lot of that's focus in on the things that we've invested a lot in through training camp and some of those things fall back to last year. And so I think we have enough in the plan. We got plenty of plays in the plan to navigate whatever may come its way. And so yeah, I think our guys have done a nice job with that. Again, I think it's just about clean operation, execution, putting yourself in favorable situations early in games.
Moore: And yeah, I think that's certainly going to tell you that we're moving where we need to move.
