There won’t be any excuses for the New Orleans Saints in 2023. Head coach Dennis Allen has another year under his belt, he got his quarterback in Derek Carr, and the Saints have the easiest strength of schedule around the league, per NFL analyst Warren Sharp, based off projected win totals from sportsbooks.
The Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers aren’t far behind at Nos. 2 and 3, which gets to the root of the issue: the Saints and their divisional rivals benefit from playing in the NFC South, where at least one squad (the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who slot in at No. 13) has already punted on 2023.
If the Saints are going to reach the playoffs and end their two-year postseason drought, they’ll need to be more competitive in these divisional matchups. They were swept by the Buccaneers and Panthers last season, though they thankfully took care of business against the Falcons. Here’s New Orleans’ record against their NFC South neighbors over the last six years:
- 2022: 2-4
- 2021: 4-2
- 2020: 6-1 (lost to Buccaneers in playoffs)
- 2019: 5-1
- 2018: 4-2
- 2017: 5-2 (defeated Panthers in playoffs)
We’ll see how accurate this ends up being, and whether the Saints can take advantage of what looks like a weak slate of opponents. Last offseason Sharp had the Saints ranking 14th in strength of schedule, with the actual result falling at 18th after some unexpected teams climbed the rankings. That could very well happen again if one or two teams in the NFC South are better than anticipated.
