Is this now the biggest challenge you’ve had here?

“Oh, yeah. It really is a big challenge. More so than anything else, it’s really about taking it one game at a time. I know I talk about that all the time, but that’s the truth of the matter. The easiest thing to do is quit, but shoot, we’ve got 10 games to play. Atlanta lost last night. So heck, we’re not in a bad spot. What we’ve got to do is take care of our business and doing the things we’re capable of. That starts now. We’ve got an opportunity to step back this week, evaluate us, go through some self- scouting and hopefully look for some answers and get some answers.”

How do you explain the lack of pressure and sacks?

“Well, that’s probably the biggest disappointment is we haven’t had the production we would have liked out of the front. The front has done a nice job. We’ve done a good job stopping the run. But that’s not what’s killing us. The thing that we have to do is find that productivity. Again, this is a good week for us. We’ll get a chance to evaluate it, make sure we’re putting them in position, giving them opportunities. We’ve also got to find other ways to create those opportunities for us to put pressure on the quarterback.”

But why is it happening?

“Well, what you’re seeing, when you break the tape down, which we’ve done the last Atlanta, Tampa and New Orleans now, the one thing we’re seeing is we’re getting a lot of double teaming of our three techniques, a lot of play-action on first and second down. Third down we’re seeing a few more chips on the outside of our defensive ends. There’s some things we’ve got to be able to do to counter that stuff. We’re going to look at it and try to put those guys in better positions and make sure that we’ve got the right guys out on the field rushing.”

Did you guys put too much faith in developing your young defensive ends?

“We thought some guys were making some strides for us. You see what Kony is capable of doing. You saw that in the Super Bowl. Again, maybe we put a little bit too much on his shoulders. But again, we think he has that kind of ability. Charles came back and Charles has played very consistent for us. I know he doesn’t have the production numbers a lot people want to talk about. But if you look at the other production numbers of the quarterback hits and the pressure, he’s right where we need him. Again, you’d like to have the sack number. Mario has played solid for us, but you’d like to get a little more out of a situational guy. Probably the wild card is the fourth spot. We brought Lavar Edwards in to give him an opportunity. Ryan Delaire, a guy we’ve counted on who missed OTAs, minicamp and just started coming into his own, he went out with knee surgery. Some guys that we counted on haven’t been productive, and some guys we counted on haven’t had opportunities because of injuries. We’ve got to find ways to manufacture it.”

Have you figured out Kony Ealy? He seems very streaky.

“Yes, he is. That’s one of the things we’re hoping, to get him on a hot streak. Last year, he had like four weeks in a row where he had a sack. He had three weeks in row where he had a sack, caused fumble. Then you get to the Super Bowl and playoffs and play the way he did. Again, we have to find those answers.”

Would you hope a second-round pick like Ealy would be further along in his development?

“Well, in terms of production, yes. Right now, for a six-game stretch you’d like to see a little more production. It’s not like he’s not trying. It’s tough because of the way people approach us now and look at us.”

How much does the lack of productivity have to do with the secondary?

“Again, it’s a combination. If you’re good in the back end, you’re doing certain things a certain way. It creates a little more time for the quarterback to hold onto the ball. So there’s a little bit of cause and effect. If we are able to tighten it up a little bit more and prevent the quicker throws, the quarterback holds the ball a little bit longer, too.”

Was letting Josh Norman go a mistake?

“That’s 20-20. It’s called hindsight. I ain’t going there.”

And how about releasing Bené Benwikere? It seems like he could have still helped.

“We’ve got young guys that are going to play, and quite honestly Bene’ didn’t do the things we needed him to do. So feeling the way we did about it, and feeling there’s some things we had to do to get these young guys some opportunities, that’s what we decided. So we’re going to go forward with it. They’ve made mistakes. We’re going to take our lumps. But hopefully, they’re going to pick it up and get things going. If we get the pass rush going, I think we’re going to be OK.”

Can you expand on what you mean about Bené?

“He just didn’t do the things we needed to do and we asked of him. Going forward it’s one of those things where we’ve got to make sure everybody’s on the same page, and if we’re not, we’ve got to get guys that are going to be on the same page and get them out there and get them playing.”

Is that referring to anything off the field?

“No, I’m referring to football. That’s it.”

After what happened in Atlanta, how were the Saints able to have another huge passing day?

“We gave up two big plays and that’s really the gist of it. One of them was on a broken route — the one that went right through the middle with both of our safeties there and both of our linebackers there. The tight end really should have bent the route across the middle. We were breaking on the slot receiver and the guy, 6-6, reaches up and catches the ball. I venture to believe if you ask the Saints, they’d tell you that ball was probably intended for Willie Snead as opposed to Coby Fleener. Fleener just happened to be still running through the middle. If it’s the route we think it was, he should have been running across to the other hash, pulling Luke out of there. Luke read it and went right through to Willie and the guy went up and made a great play. The other one was a double move. We just didn’t stay in the lead position. We always tell everybody on that first initial move we always want to climb. Instead, we had our eyes in the back, we started to break flat and he just turned it up on us. We’ve got to be a little more disciplined and young guys have got to learn and understand. That’s what we’re going to get right now because there’s a bunch of young guys out there.”

Should there have been more of an emphasis on bringing in another pass rusher this offseason?

“If we looked at where we were, now where we are is a little bit different. We had a guy last year that was very productive that was going into his third season. We had a guy that we picked up and was productive and flashed for us, and we anticipated those guys being developed. Unfortunately one of them gets hurt, and we don’t have him on the football field right now, and we have another guy that’s been slowed a little bit that hasn’t been as productive. And we’ve got some young guys that are truly developing back there, and it does go hand-in-hand.”

Is Ryan Delaire someone you could bring back from IR?

“Yes, he most certainly is.”

Are you planning to do anything about Graham Gano?

“We’re going to stand pat. If you go back and you evaluate it as an extra-point kicker, he’s right about 95 percent, which is a little bit more than league average I believe. And then in clutch kicks, again he’s well above the league average. Maybe he’s having where he’s missed one here or there and they’re not what cost you football games. There was one — Denver, the opener. Other than that, he’s been very solid for us and he’s done a good job. I think what we’ve got to do is just continue to work at it. The guy’s one of the best kickoff guys in the league, he’s got an exceptionally strong league, and as I said, we’re going to evaluate everything. I know I was asked a question yesterday, I know there was an article written about it, which prompted me to speed up my review of things as far as that’s concerned just so I had these answers.”

What did you make of your offense scoring 38 points despite a slow start?

“The disappointing thing is if you think about it, for 25 minutes and four seconds, I think, we were down 21-0. Then the last 34 minutes and 56 seconds, we scored 38 points to their 20. We did start slow. Same thing that happened in Atlanta. We started slow. There’s a little bit of a rhythm you’ve got to get into and we’ve got to get into that rhythm faster. Whether it’s not making the costly mistakes or penalties early on in the game. Now we didn’t do that in this game with the exception of one that I’m challenging with the league just to make sure I get a good explanation as to why. But, again, having said that we’ve come charging back a couple of times. So we’ve given ourselves a chance to win football games and that’s part of finding how to start fast. One thing I will say, too, if you can get a lead earlier in the game, it changes the way teams are going to protect against you because now you know they’re going to throw the ball. That’s part of our problem, too. It’s about getting that lead early, putting them in position where you know they’re going to throw the ball.”

How much have you been affected by Gano’s miss at Denver in Week One?

“Well, if you get that you’ve got two wins. So who knows. At that point, it’s all conjecture. You just don’t know. We’ll never know that. Sometimes things like that do. It’s easy to go back and wonder, but the truth of the matter is, as I said, we are what our record says we are. We have 10 left to play, but we’re going to play them one at a time.”

Did you take too much of a risk going as young as you did in the secondary?

“We had two veterans — Robert McClain and Bene Benwikere. Again, it was a little bit of a roll of the dice, I guess. We felt good about (James) Bradberry and didn’t expect him to get hurt. So it’s one of the tough things right now. But Daryl Worley has been playing pretty well and I thought Zack (Sanchez) has been showing some things. You are going to take your lumps when you do that. The thing we have to do is getting a little more pass rush and find ways to create it.”

Was Shaq Thompson essentially your nickel back yesterday?

“Yes. It’s something that we have to continue to work through and find an answer. Part of it is what they do. We felt like we could do some other things to help ourselves and create some positives.”

Was Michael Griffin injured?

“No. Because of the passing, we wanted to put Tre (Boston) out there.”

Why were you more aggressive on fourth down?

“Early on I felt like we needed touchdowns to beat them. You have to score touchdowns to beat Drew Brees. It goes back to what Jack Del Rio said when they beat them in the opening game., The reason he went for two is he didn’t want to give them a chance, and I agree with him. That is what I thought. We had to score touchdowns to beat these guys. The trick play, I thought the timing of the play was perfect. You are moving the ball and got them on their heels a little bit. The reverse pass to Teddy (Ginn) was good timing. If Teddy could have put it up a little bit more then (Brenton) Bersin makes the touchdown catch. The timing of the call was perfect. Well conceived.”

What did you think of Cam Newton’s press conference?

“I didn’t see it.”

What’s the schedule this week?

“Work them today and tomorrow and then get them off. We are trying to mix things up and find the right combinations.”

Do you feel there’s still time left to turn things around?

“Yes, and that is exactly what I told them. This is an opportunity for us to take a look at us and figure out some things. And get things put together and move forward.”