ESPN Analytics grades New Orleans Saints off-season with a lowly D

Rexman100 said

Good point, the Vegas line is a snap shot in time. What if this new offensive system quickly takes hold and the Saints win their first two games? Check Vegas again and you'll see 11 games as the ceiling from 8. Its easier for Vegas to quantify a teams success by the addition and subtraction of players. It cannot quantify a philosophy change or coaching changes. Best example, the Chargers add one of the best coaches ever in Jim Harbaugh, but yet bookmakers are expecting the Los Angeles Chargers to be slightly worse in 2023, as the team's over/under is set at 9.5 wins, compared to the 10 games they won last season. So there you go.

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I agree. I’m always curious to see how often a team projected to be mediocre ends up making a deep playoff run. Obviously the 2006 Saints were projected to be one of the worst teams in the league and we all know how that went. But I wonder how many were projected to be in the .500 range and then went deep.

Vegas had the Saints at 8.5 wins last season and they hit 9. So it would seem that they had a decent read on things - but what legit happens last season if Carr doesn’t get killed in Green Bay? We probably win that game - we also maybe steal a close one we lost when Carr was playing though a bum shoulder. So at worst we are 10-7, maybe 11-6 and hosting a playoff game.

So Vegas was right - but did they factor in a serious injury to the QB? So it would stand to reason that they’d have been off on their estimate had Carr stayed healthy. Again, analytics are useful but they don’t add variables like an injury to the starting QB. They might factor in some broad injury metric - but an injury to the starting QB is devastating to a team usually.

Having said all that - I'm super excited for this season and what Kubiak might do. At the very least, it’ll be something different. But I’m still excited.