Studs and Duds from Saints' first win of the 2025 season

The New Orleans Saints got a major morale boost on Sunday with their first victory of the season, taking a double-digit, 26-14 victory over the visiting New York Giants.

For the first time this season, we saw an offense that could get into rhythm and maintain in, while also putting together explosive chunk plays that helped propel them to victory. The defense, though Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart did a decent enough job in his own right of hurting himself, also made the stops and plays when it needed to.

So, who stood out and who faltered? Here's a look into just that:

Stud: QB Spencer Rattler

The jury has been out on Rattler for a while, especially with how neck-and-neck things seemed to between he and rookie Tyler Shough during the preseason, but he's made some believers out of his performance against the Giants. And, it's not that Rattler hasn't shown sparks previously, but consistency is something he's struggled with to this point.

Rattler threw a career-long 87-yard touchdown to Rashid Shaheed to mark the true momentum shift, and to stand for one of the longest Saints plays over recent history. In addition to using his legs to move the chains and making largely the right decisions as a passer, Rattler lit up on the stats sheet.

The former South Carolina quarterback finished out the game 20-of-30 passing for 225 yards with one touchdown. He also had 22 rushing yards on five carries.

Stud: RB Alvin Kamara

If there's one player the Saints have who is consistently reliable, it's Kamara. The veteran seems to achieve a new milestone practically every game, and Sunday held more of the same. The running back has officially

He finished out Sunday's victory 27 rushing yards on eight carries, also with four receptions for 28 yards, contributing practically equal in both categories. But that is not what stood out the most. Kamara now is in the top five players with the most receptions in NFL history with a career total of 590 catches.

This puts him behind only Keith Byars (610), LaDanian Tomlinson (624), Larry Center (761), and Marshall Faulk (767). 

Stud: WR Rashid Shaheed

No player stole the show quite like Shaheed did, as he was the recipient of the Saints' most explosive play of the game in the form of a 87-yard touchdown reception not long before halftime on an 11-second drive.

Not only was this play the Saints' only touchdown of the game and the longest reception of Shaheed's career, it was also the fastest touchdown of the NFL season after Shaheed reached 21.72 miles per hour on his dash to the end zone.

Shaheed finished out the game with 114 receiving yards and one touchdown on four catches.

Dud: K Blake Grupe

There are a couple of ways to look at this one. To be fair, Grupe did put up all 14 points the Saints scored in this game outside of the touchdown reception. The argument could technically be made that the Saints may not have won the game without him, though getting into field goal range to begin with was the work of the Saints offense itself.

But Groupe showed concerning inconsistency, only making four of his six field goal attempts for an ultimate success rate of 66.7%. His long for the day was 53 yards.

Dud: QB Jaxson Dart

Dart referenced coming into this game with a chip on his shoulder. That didn't exactly pay off as the former Ole Miss signal-caller had several miscues that saw him finish the game 26-for-39 passing for 202 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions.

"I think that there's always a chip on your shoulder anytime that something like that happens," Dart had said. "I felt like my visit with them went good. You kind of have thoughts in your head during the draft of what options are really realistic, and I definitely felt like that was a place that could've panned out."

Saints fans have mixed reviews on the team passing on Dart at this point.

Dud: TE Juwan Johnson

While the Saints did have strong production through the air, one person in the pass-catching corps who truly dropped the ball was Johnson. In this one, Johnson had just two receptions for 17 yards. He also drew a false start penalty on the first series, leading to a quick three-and-out.

Such is not a surprising, necessarily, given that Johnson has struggled to be a truly consistent contributor over 72 games in his career.

This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: Saints vs. Giants: Recapping studs and duds from Week 5 win