New Orleans SaintsÕ run game coordinator T.J. Paganetti during training camp in Metairie on Friday, July 31, 2026.
STAFF PHOTO BY BRETT DUKE
Some time between reviewing every game his team had played this season and flying back from Boise, Idaho, after seeing the unveiling of his statue at his alma mater Boise State, [Kellen Moore](https://nola.com/tncms/asset/editorial/ed7b7879-b902-4be5-b06b-b5c486a97621) decided to make a change.
The New Orleans Saints head coach decided to shake up his coaching staff for the first time during his tenure.
Coming out of a bye week, Moore said Monday morning that he fired run-game coordinator T.J. Paganetti.
“T.J.'s a really good coach; I just felt like coming out of the bye week that we needed to make a few adjustments,” Moore said.
Those adjustments will aim to improve one of the league’s least effective rushing attacks, including the last game in which New Orleans mustered its fewest rushing yards since 1999. Firing Paganetti signals Moore recognizes something needs to change, even if it is debatable how much impact one move alone will make.
With Paganetti gone, Moore said offensive line coach Brendan Nugent will oversee the run game. But that expanded role rewards an assistant whose own unit has struggled this season. Nugent also already had considerable say in how the Saints’ rushing plans were developed.
Moore said Nugent was tasked with presenting the installation of every run plan to the players, but now he will absorb Paganetti’s former responsibilities.
The goal, Moore said, is to create a better “workflow” for the staff.
While Nugent and Paganetti worked together to form a plan, they also received insight from Moore and running backs coach Joel Thomas.
Were there too many cooks in the kitchen?
“These things aren’t fun at all,” Moore said. “I feel like this will give us a path forward that’ll create a little bit of a flow and a sequence. I think that’ll be beneficial for our guys.”
Paganetti joined Moore’s initial staff in 2025 after coaching with him in Philadelphia. There, he served as an assistant offensive line coach under Jeff Stoutland.
The Saints rank 28th in rushing yards per game this season, the same ranking they had a year ago.
The team entered 2026 knowing it had to fix its run game. Instead of making coaching changes, New Orleans spent significant resources upgrading its personnel and tweaking its schemes. In free agency, the Saints signed former Jacksonville Jaguars running back Travis Etienne to a four-year, $48 million deal and former Buffalo Bills guard David Edwards to a four-year, $61 million contract. The Saints also implemented more outside zone blocking schemes, believing those plays fit the group’s strengths.
The overhaul hasn’t panned out.
Etienne hasn’t played since Week 3 when he suffered a hamstring injury that landed him on injured reserve.
His backups have been largely ineffective. The Saints opted to retain Alvin Kamara on a revised contract in the offseason, but the franchise’s all-time leading rusher has only 125 yards rushing on 41 carries, good for a disappointing 3 yards per carry. Kendre Miller, who leads the Saints in carries, has managed even fewer yards per attempt — his 2.8 yards per carry is the league’s third-worst mark among backs with at least 40 rushing attempts.
Until now, Moore had resisted this kind of change. He elected to retain his entire staff in the offseason, believing the black and gold would benefit from the continuity. The Saints did see former assistant offensive line coach Jahri Evans depart for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the same role, but that departure was voluntary.
But the Saints’ poor start finally swung matters. Against the Pittsburgh Steelers in France, the Saints managed just 18 yards on 17 carries.
“They definitely had us schemed up, every run we had,” Miller said. “They had an answer for it.”
Added Edwards: “You feel somewhat responsible because us as players, us as linemen, we're not having success and you feel directly responsible for a decision like (Paganetti’s firing). That's what makes it hard.”
The move drew some criticism from Paganetti’s brother, Ryan — a former analytics staff member for the Eagles, Jacksonville Jaguars and Las Vegas Raiders. In a now-deleted tweet, Ryan Paganetti wrote that his brother’s “run game coordinator title in New Orleans was not what was expected,” calling it a “smaller support role as Kellen/Nugent designed, installed and taught the run techniques.”
Asked about the comment, Moore maintained he thinks “the world” of T.J. Paganetti but had to find a way to run the ball better.
That did not include firing Nugent.
“There’s no exact science to this,” Moore said when asked why Nugent was retained. “This is what I think is the best workflow for us moving forward. Again, these decisions are never, never easy. We’ll shuffle some other stuff within the staff just to help our workflow. And I think this will put us in a good position.”