Every team in the NFC South lost this past week. Back in Week 4, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were the only team in the division to win when they faced the New Orleans Saints, a fellow member of the NFC South. The division isn’t that impressive, which was expected before the season. The state of the NFC South is a gift and a curse for the New Orleans Saints.
At this current time, New Orleans isn’t a good team. Fingers can be pointed in many directions, but the final conclusion is this team isn’t that good. The struggling division, however, gives them time to figure it out. As draining as this season has been, the Saints only have one more loss than the division leading Buccaneers. This division can still be taken by anyone other than the Panthers. New Orleans fixes prominent issues on their offense, and it feels like they should be able to win the division.
The problem is it doesn’t feel like the Saints will fix those issues. Another problem is the Saints could not fix those issues and still somehow stumble into a divisional championship. While a division title sounds great, that would be the wrong circumstances to win the title.
New Orleans could use an early draft pick to reload the team. They could also potentially use a change of leadership. A playoff berth could secure the job of coaches who have underperformed for another year.
This is not rooting for the Saints to be bad and lose games. It’s rooting for the Saints to leave the purgatory they are currently in. The Saints need to either figure it out or reload. Winning the division without fixing issues could leave the Saints complacent and thinking they can run it back with the same crew. That would just leave next year being a frustrating rerun of 2022 and 2023.
