According to an NFL official, the TBD date and time for the Week 15 matchup between the Saints and Falcons at the Caesars Superdome will be announced following the Saints at Buccaneers game on Dec. 5.
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Come on, man. It doesn’t need to be this difficult. The New Orleans Saints relayed a message from an NFL spokesman on Tuesday that the league isn’t much closer to scheduling Week 15’s game with the Atlanta Falcons at the Caesars Superdome than it was before making this statement — saying that kickoff will be announced after their Week 13 road game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Dec. 5.
And that game, of course, will be played on a Monday night. So Saints fans will have 11 or 12 days to make travel arrangements between that prime-time matchup and the decision to play on either a Saturday (Dec. 17) or a Sunday (Dec. 18), including New Orleans’ late-season bye week. That’s hardly ideal, but it’s what the league has decided.
Talk about a convoluted process. But the NFL schedule-makers are probably looking for more of a spark from the Saints before putting them in a more-prominent Saturday timeslot. If New Orleans rallies to better compete in the NFC South title race and improve on their 4-7 record (Atlanta is ahead of them at 5-6, with the Buccaneers on top at 5-5 coming out of their own bye), it makes sense to put this always-heated rivalry game in front of a larger audience.
If the Saints regress again after knocking off the L.A. Rams and put more games in the loss column, this isn’t quite as appealing, in which case coverage gets punted to an early-morning broadcast on Sunday against three or four other matchups. Still, it’s disappointing to see the NFL giving fans who are spending their time and money to travel and catch games live (in teh middle of the peak holiday travel season no less) so little wriggle-room. We’ll put out something more concrete on the situation as soon as the league itself does.
