The team will win 5 of 6 division games

This may come back to bite, due to how extremely tough the NFC South is as a division. For two of the last three seasons, the South represented the NFC in the Super Bowl. Hopefully, the Saints will be the third different team in four seasons, but the road won’t be easy. All three rivals have franchise quarterbacks: Matt Ryan for Atlanta, Cam Newton for Carolina, and Jameis Winston for Tampa Bay. Last year, the Saints fell to the Falcons on Thursday Night Football in Week 13, and to the Buccaneers during a fluke Week 17 matchup in Tampa. 

For a team with low expectations, winning two-thirds of the division games in 2017 was very promising. The team swept the Panthers, handled business on a normal week against the Falcons, and destroyed the Bucs in their other matchup. Their 4-2 2017 division record looks even better under a microscope, and, since the team has improved on both sides of the ball this offseason, it’s actually reasonable to tag the Saints as potentially going undefeated against the NFC South. 

Since Winston will serve the first of his three-game suspension against New Orleans Week 1, and since the Saints beat the Panthers three times last year, then New Orleans should go 4-0 to me. Their only division loss I see coming is Week 3 in Atlanta. It’s the week after the Saints host the Browns, and the comfort of facing an easier opponent combined with the possibility of the Saints getting off to a slow start makes me think the Falcons could steal this game easily. 

Never doubt Drew Brees and Sean Payton, though. That’s the key to their future division success. The duo is the longest tenured QB-coach combo in the South, and experience in this league is everything. They are also the only duo in the division to hoist the Lombardi Trophy, so I’m going to put my chips in their corner for rivalry success in 2018. 

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