Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

It's mo' bettah with a 2023 thread.

I can't predict anything at this point. So I am going to wait until the draft is over. But, please enter your thoughts since it's already begun in the 2022 thread. :bng:

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

20-0 Baby!!

Who Dat!

:bng:

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

It’s too early to give a final prediction but I will say 6-11 at this point and update later as I said in the earlier thread. I feel Carr is a minor and risky upgrade. Our schedule is a bit easier so maybe that gains us one game also. But I think we lost solid starting caliber players in free agency in Onyemata and Ellis and gained question marks. I think retaining Thomas and Peat is actually a minus and destroys accountability. We are also abou the oldest team in the league and needed Ellis for the future as David and Jordan decline, not Peat to keep us old. I think our division is getting better with the Panthers having a #1 pick qb and the Falcons raiding our defense and having cash. I think Allen is a bad coach and 4-12 is the sort of record he historically reverts to, especially with his coaches not Paytons. So the net for me is 6-11. We will see how the draft and free agency goes for us and for division rivals and if we trade any young stars to the Eagles for 5ths.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

A retired Tom Brady and Carr leading the team equates to 4-4 more wins in my opinion. I’m saying 11 wins

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

So we upgrade at running back and quarterback, keep valued pieces on defense, and Tom Brady retires and you think we will lose one more game than last year? Slowly back away from the pipe. It’s bad for you

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

The scary part is the guy comes up with this crap sober. :D

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

I really like “ Carr is a minor and risky upgrade” … Ouch guess he wants to draft a QB. Last QB the Saints drafted and started was Archie.

I think all the defensive pieces we “Lost” actually the Saints choose not to resign with a defensive upgrade in mind to improve the run defense. Ellis was just unfortunate timing.

Really sorry we didn’t move on from David he’s too old, not sure who that might be but I am glad we kept Davis and Jordan.

Sure glad Bako is Internet football analyst and not a 401K fund manager.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Carr - 4 wins
Thomas - 13 loses

Get it ?! :beatnik:

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Waiting to see if we acquire any more FAs, then subsequent draft.

I had us winning 11 games last season 😒.

Who knows, EVERY NFL TEAM looks good on paper.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Lutz should be fully healed from his abdominal tear and could bring an extra win or two. Carr is probably good for three to four wins. MT is worth two to three more wins minimum. Still waiting on the next wave of free agency and the draft though.

I'm going to start the countdown at 13-5 with one playoff win for now .

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

I’ll say 10-7 at the moment as a base line. If we’re going to be weak in certain areas then we have to be really strong in others.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

If the over/under was at 10, I would bet the over rez … just saying. With a healthy roster and the current pool of offensive weapons when it all comes together will present a real challenge to our opponents. :bng:

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

I predicted our exact record last year.

Carr is not even a definite upgrade at QB. Statistically he was worse than Dalton last year. He profiles as a Drew Bledsoe going from Patriots to Bills type, like 9 years of pretty good but not great, taking his act to a new team. The new team is not known for its offensive coaches skill, and it could almost as easily go very bad as pretty good. I think adding one win for Carr is generous.

At RB we mitigated not upgraded. Kamara is a year older and could be suspended anywhere from 0 to 17 games. People say 6 but nobody knows, Goodell might want to send a message. Anyway, Williams vultured a lot of TDs in a career year but was still below average in YPC. Williams will help mitigate Kamara's absence and provide an upgrade at #2 when Kamara is back, but Kamara's absense will still hurt. RB is a wash for me.

We did not keep the defensive players we value, we kept the ones we could afford. We lost players the market thought were worth more and replaced them with players the market thought were worth less. If the market thought the replacements were better, the market would have offered the replacements more than the players we replaced them with and we would have lost them too. Maybe we are geniuses and this guy who can do backflips but was 'eh' in KC will become a hall of famer for us. But there is nothing that can prove that now. What I see now is we lost a starting DT and we lost a young linebacker who got us 100 tackles but is expendable because we like the old linebacker to stay good forever and the hurt linebacker who forced him into action to never get hurt again. Fact is we have a lot less depth now, and the depth we lost was the young depth many teams would have lost the old and hurt guys and promoted.

Tom Brady retired. The Bucs will likely be garbage. But the Panthers will go from PJ Walked and Sam Darnold to the #1 overall pick. And the Falcons we beat twice by a hair are young and had lots of cap to spend and raided some of our solid players and took our best DC leaving us to replace him with one of Dennis Allen's old drinking buddies from skull and bones at yale who didn't lead any good defense last year.

We probably the oldest team in the league. Tom Brady retiring sealed that. That is not good. The Falcons and Panthers are young. Yet here we are resigning peat. I could get a sack on Peat by tossing a box of little debbie's in one direction and juking in the other.

Slowly back away from your own pipe. You probably thought we were gonna go 12-5 last year or something. The pipe you need to back away from is inside some CK boxers with the monogram ML.

Edit: Also worth mentioning that the Bucs replacement for Tom Brady, Baker Mayfield, did beat us last year. I think we will be better than the Bucs because they are doing a rebuilding year to get young and we are putting that off so we should be a little better for 1-2 years after which they can be much better if their rebuild is not a disaster. But still, Mayfield could go undefeated against us, he did last year.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

9-8

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Well, Bako nailed the prediction on record/analysis for coaches and most players. So there's that.

The NFC South won't be a shoo-in/slam dunk for the Saints as many here believe. Coaches still have to coach and we have Dennis and Pete.

Every NFL team looks good on paper right now.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Want to get fired up?

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

https://blackandgold.com/u/4976-albu...icture1516.png

Since you asked... and I was curious ... I asked AI to predict the Saints season... and what do you know, this came back !!!

I hope AI didn't jinx us !

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Teams aren't even done building rosters.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

We haven't even gotten to the draft yet. As I understand it, NFL teams use the draft to build their teams.iirc If I had to guess I'm looking at 10-7 or possibly 11-6. But, it is kind of early to take an educated guess.

We've made some good off season moves. So, that's just my uneducated guess.:doh:

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

We've certainly made moves. How good, also yet to be determined.

I'm with you though, it feels like the right moves...

I'm also extremely curious to see how Sean Payton's moves pan out this season and beyond. Things in New Orleans with him got stale at times and ultimately feels like there was no plan for life after Drew Brees.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Or life after Dan Marino. Or after Peyton Manning. Or after Fran Tarkenton. Or after ...

I feel there was a plan after Brees but it was thrown into complete disrepair when COVID shut everything down and Winston got injured.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Or Joe Montana or Brett Favre or John Elway.

Oh wait... each of their successors won a Superbowl.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

In all fairness, I don’t think Elway’s did. Bob Griese took over for a while then Jake Plummer. It took awhile for Payton to bring another title to Denver. Young and Rodgers did though. But your point stands.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

9-8 or 10-7

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

You're right. I just needed a third example.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Upgraded chess pieces, same checker players moving them.

We have not addressed play calling in any way and it is going to take Carr time to gel with the players and what ever playbook there is.

If our record improves over 2022 it’s because other teams slid.

Toss up between 9-8 and 8-9 which will be decided by player health.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

So twice in history that we can think of a great QB was succeeded by another great QB. The norm tends to be more like years, and sometime decades, before an equally worthy replacement is found. Sometimes, in the case of Joe Namath, never. Sorry, but I can't blame Payton for not having Brees v.2.0 in place.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

I believe we have addressed playcalling with the addition of Carr and Michael Thomas alone. Chunk plays and critical red zone and third down conversions were not there and I believe that was due to the personnel in place. Carr can make every throw. Dalton couldn't. Thomas can catch anything thrown his way. No one else could. I sat there watching wide open receivers intermediate and deep while Dalton consistently checked it down on three yard outs and curls. I agree that Carmichael was conservative at times, but he was getting players open quite often that were ignored by Dalton.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Between losing MT early, not having a QB who could stretch the field once JW was injured and a make shift offensive line week to week. Not sure DA and PC had the ability to game plan using the whole playbook. The defense had 8,9 personnel living in the box because they knew the ball wasn’t going past 10 yards downfield except with YAC.

I feel like the Saints have addressed last seasons play calling issue by signing the players that speak directly to what made the play calling look so pedestrian last season. DA and PC were driving an overweight Yugo in morning traffic on the 5 or 405, my daily commute for years.

If the offense stays healthy this season and STILL does not improve significantly then it will be clear and I would that something, someone or multiple someone’s needs to change or be changed.

:chug:

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

^^^^
Ditto this!

Glad I'm not the only one that saw it all this way, WW. I'm also wondering how many times Dalton checked out of the pass on second and long. I remember seeing a stat late in the season that we had run the ball on second and long more times than any other team in the league. If anything, based upon his prior experience, Carmichael was actually too aggressive at times. That really makes me think Dalton was a major factor in that one way or another.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

12-5

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Predicting a record before the results of the draft and end of free agency is like throwing a dart blindfolded. I will say that If I had to go over/under the 7 wins we had last year Id take over.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Something to take into consideration in addition to upgrade at QB and with Thomas, a HUGE upgrade at WR, is the strength of schedule. The Saints had the 7th most difficult projected strength of schedule on 2022 based upon opponents records. In 2023 their strength of schedule projection is the 2nd easiest!

Rank	Team	Opp. Record	Opp. Win Pct.
1	Philadelphia Eagles	161-123-4	0.566
2	Miami Dolphins	158-127-2	0.554
3	New York Giants	157-129-2	0.549
3	New England Patriots	156-128-3	0.549
3	Dallas Cowboys	156-128-4	0.549
6	New York Jets	155-129-3	0.545
7	Buffalo Bills	155-131-2	0.542
8	Washington Commanders	153-133-2	0.535
9	Los Angeles Rams	152-133-3	0.533
10	Las Vegas Raiders	150-136-2	0.524
11	Arizona Cardinals	148-137-3	0.519
12	Denver Broncos	148-138-2	0.517
12	Seattle Seahawks	148-138-2	0.517
12	Los Angeles Chargers	149-139-0	0.517
15	San Francisco 49ers	147-139-2	0.514
16	Kansas City Chiefs	147-140-0	0.512
17	Cincinnati Bengals	146-140-2	0.510
18	Chicago Bears	143-145-1	0.497
18	Minnesota Vikings	143-145-0	0.497
20	Detroit Lions	143-146-0	0.495
21	Baltimore Ravens	138-147-2	0.484
22	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	138-148-2	0.483
23	Jacksonville Jaguars	135-148-4	0.477
24	Green Bay Packers	137-151-1	0.476
25	Pittsburgh Steelers	134-151-2	0.470
26	Cleveland Browns	131-154-2	0.460
27	Carolina Panthers	130-157-2	0.453
28	Tennessee Titans	127-157-4	0.448
29	Indianapolis Colts	124-162-2	0.434
30	Houston Texans	123-163-2	0.431
31	New Orleans Saints	122-164-3	0.427
32	Atlanta Falcons	119-167-3	0.417

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

I don’t disagree, I based mine on a lack of HC & OC. A draft won’t change that, and I’m not confident they would be able to pull value out of a great draft if they had one.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

DA had what DA put on the team and field. If his seasons game plan required MT then that’s on him, there is reason to have a back up plan. If his QBs couldn’t stretch the field then that’s what he decided that he wanted.

Dennis Allen tried to execute Sean Payton’s game plan and that’s on him.

I get that you are taking the wait and see approach but brother when you lose your QB and HC it’s time for change that adapts your game to who you have.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Skepticism is warranted. I still maintain that things out of his control went against him last year. But time will tell! He’s got the QB that he wanted. Has a pretty successful draft under him with three or four solid players added. We do the same this year and I’ll be happy. I just see real chance at adding a game changing TE and DL player this draft. That will help a lot.

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

On paper anyway

Re: Predict the Saints' Record Year 2023
 

Precisely.

We looked good “on paper” in 2022. Injuries WILL happen so you better have quality DEPTH. Nothing is “easy” in the NFL.

Players gotta play & coaches gotta coach.