A lot can change between now and the start of the 2022 NFL regular season, but Las Vegas waits on no one. Projected win totals are already live and bets are flowing in on how many games the New Orleans Saints will win this year. At time of posting, the Saints had a projected win total of 7.8 — an even further step back from their 9-win campaign in 2021, which was the first time New Orleans failed to find double-digit wins since 2016. It suggests the Saints are on the downslope, or at least that’s what the oddsmakers and sportsbooks are thinking.
Using projected win totals for the 2022 season, NFL analyst Warren Sharp calculated the strength of schedule for each of the 32 teams — and he found that the Saints sit right in the middle of the group at No. 15. Here are the teams New Orleans is expected to face at home and on the road, ordered by their projected win totals:
- Home: Tampa Bay Buccaneers (11.5), Los Angeles Rams (10.6), Cincinnati Bengals (9.8), Baltimore Ravens (9.7), Minnesota Vikings (9.0), Las Vegas Raiders (8.5), Seattle Seahawks (6.4), Carolina Panthers (6.0), Atlanta Falcons (5.0)
- Away: Tampa Bay Buccaneers (11.5), San Francisco 49ers (10.1), Cleveland Browns (10.0), Arizona Cardinals (9.0), Philadelphia Eagles (8.4), Pittsburgh Steelers (7.6), Carolina Panthers (6.0), Atlanta Falcons (5.0)
On the one hand, the Saints are facing both of the teams that competed in Super Bowl LVI, and nine of their seventeen games are against 2021 playoffs teams. But at the same time, New Orleans does enjoy the benefits of a weak NFC South– neither the Panthers nor the Falcons appear threatening, Tom Brady’s Buccaneers have been frustrated by the Saints at every turn, and New Orleans has achieved a 24-8 record in divisional play dating back to 2017, including the playoffs. They’ve swept the six-game regular season series as recently as 2020. See for yourself:
- 2021: 4-2
- 2020: 6-1 (lost to Buccaneers in playoffs)
- 2019: 5-1
- 2018: 4-2
- 2017: 5-2 (defeated Panthers in playoffs)
So if the Saints do stumble against some tough opponents from outside the conference, they know they can fall back on a division full of poorly-run franchises they can run grind into a fine paste and improve their record.
The stakes were already high in the first year of the Dennis Allen regime. But this trade with the Philadelphia Eagles put their 2023 first round pick on the line; if the Saints fail to meet expectations and get back to the playoffs after coming up short in 2021, they’ll be recovering from that pitfall without their best asset. Let’s hope their next move is the right one.
