Week 4 of the 2025 NFL season has arrived, and the New Orleans Saints are making the long trip to Highmark Stadium to compete against the Buffalo Bills. After starting the year 0-3, including a demoralizing loss to the Seattle Seahawks last week, the Saints are trying to figure out how to turn things around and resolve some of the plentiful issues they have had early on. Unfortunately, they have had trouble in pretty much every facet of the game at one point or another, and now have to resolve it against a 3-0 Bills squad.

With the matchup on the way shortly, here are three reasons for optimism heading into the game for the Saints:

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1. The Buffalo Bills are one of the worst run defenses in the NFL so far

One of the few clear problems with Buffalo throughout these first few weeks has been their run defense, which has been getting gashed rather profusely. They are currently allowing a league-leading 6.2 yards per carry, a league-leading 468 total rushing yards, and are tied for the most rushing touchdowns allowed with 4 as well. While they have forced four fumbles on rushes, they are allowing 30.7% of rushes to go for a first down, too, so it is a bit imbalanced.

If the Saints are actually able to get their offensive line on the same page this week and give Alvin Kamara some blocking, they could find some momentum there at minimum.

2. There is room for Spencer Rattler to work through the Bills’ secondary

Buffalo has a very intriguing secondary from a statistical standpoint, as they are locked down in many of the counting and average stats, but there are a few keys that Spencer Rattler may be able to find. Going after Christian Benford will be one of the big points of emphasis, as he has had a tough season efficiency-wise. While he has remained solid compared to previous years, he is allowing a 120.0 passer efficiency rating when targeted, while not picking up any pass breakups on 19 targets.

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He is also allowing rather decent chunks of yards, giving up 117 receiving yards and three touchdowns on a 63.2% rate of completion. While not exactly someone a team would want to target in any given game, he has shown some signs of weakness at points in 2025, and could be a good target for the speed of Rashid Shaheed or the height of Devaughn Vele.

3. Very little room to get worse after a tough showing in Seattle

One of the beauties of getting demolished on each side of the ball in the previous week is that it would be extremely difficult to have a worse appearance than that. It sounds somewhat off-putting, but building some momentum of any form in this game is a positive for the Saints, and would be something they could use for film moving forward. The issue with their game against Seattle is that there were so many issues to digest at once that it is going to be nearly impossible to fix them all.

A loss and fall to 0-4 would certainly hurt, but if there are at least some positive takeaways and reps from the young core, they at least will have something to work with rather than just a bunch of negative plays.

This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: What are some reasons for optimism as the Saints take on the Bills?