dvdman
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Ask the same question in 3 weeks. I think we should know a lot more of this team then.
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The Saints Will Win a Wild-Card Spot
Micah Peters: Here’s the thing: The current NFC picture looks sort of like that hopeless and parched Mad Max dystopian future, but instead of rusted-out, souped-up muscle cars roving an endless desert in search of water and “blood bags,” you’ve got like, rusted over “Priuses” and “Nissan Cubes” or whatever. Everyone’s still wearing football pads though, obviously. . . . As it sits now, every team in the NFC is either on pace for a playoff berth or a win away from being on pace. This is to say: The door is completely off its hinges and everything is possible at this point.
WHICH MEANS.
The Saints, who stumbled out to an 0–3 start but just beat the Seahawks this past Sunday — on the strength of their defense, no less — for their second win in three games, will sneak into the postseason with a 9–7 record. Considering the conference is a raging dumpster fire, this isn’t all that farfetched. It’s actually very plausible. In fact, it feels almost certain.
Not Just the Wild Card — the Saints Will Win the Division
Kevin Clark: Everyone knows that the Saints’ biggest flaw is that they stopped playing defense after the 2013 season. Here’s the twist: This year, everyone in their division did! In fact, the division hosts four of the eight worst defenses in points per game allowed in the NFL. The NFC South is like college football in that there can be high-scoring games every week. But it’s unlike college football in that Dirk Koetter is winning games.
What separates the Saints is that they have the highest-ceiling offense in the division and that fact alone will propel them to the 10 wins needed to grab the division. Even though the Falcons are now 5–3, they were 6–2 at this point last year and collapsed. Matt Ryan, who is having a career year but has a habit of peaking in September, will need a solid defense to help him avoid another rudderless November and December — and that’s a big ask of an awful Falcons defense. The 2–5 Carolina Panthers forgot how to play football at some point in the last eight months. And the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, let us never forget, squandered a real chance to compete this year when they drafted a kicker in the second round. Excuse me, they traded up to get a kicker in the second round. Oh wait, one more thing: The kicker is bad.
Drew Brees is leading the NFL in passing yards per game with 337.9 — he’s going to put up a ton of points and Sean Payton is still (we think, at least) a decent coach. The Saints would win the Super Bowl all the time if defense wasn’t a part of the equation. That’s not in the cards, but the next best thing is: Having a bad defense is no longer a handicap in the NFC South. When that’s happening, it’s a good year to be the Saints.