I am not scared but I think we will lose more games than we win. Those losses will not physically injure me or cause me pain, they will validate my beliefs on roster development. And I expect we will get a high first round draft pick. I wish we would win a lot, but I just don't see it this year, and that doesn't make me scared of anything. People can say we just need to be healthy, but our roster is a year older and we brought back Thomas, Peat, etc and used our 1st round pick on a player who hasn't been healthy in 2 years. Thats not how you get healthier. If we have injuries and lose games, we have a built in excuse of bad luck that can never repeat, which is Mickey Loomis' plan every year. I would like us to win, but I feel like Derek Carr is a reclamation story after 9 years of almosts with the Raiders, and Dennis Allen is a reclamation story after a lot of 4-12 with the Raiders and now 7-10 with the Saints, and I just have trouble believing an old roster coming off many injuries pulls of a double reclamation of a coach head coach with 4 seasons in the NFL where he never had exceeded a .412 record stacked with a starting QB who went 9 years without a playoff win. They all have excuses for the past, and maybe those excuses are valid, but the problem is that all the excuses need to be valid. A couple years ago Derek Carr had a head coach who had winning seasons and won a Super Bowl and that didn't save Derek Carr bc the uniform was still the wrong second color. Last year Dennis Allen inherited a winning team but still didn't win. But this will be the year. Maybe. But not so likely. Sorry.

Let me ask you this bako. Who do you think wins the NFC South and do you think that team will win 9 games? In other words do you think every team in the division will be sub .500?

Individually I would predict a sub .500 record for every team in the NFC South. I expect the division overall to be below .500. Overall I expect one team or another to beat the average and would guess that whoever manages to win the NFC South gets about 9 wins, though its definitely possible someone wins it with 7-8 wins. The Panthers and Falcons are younger with young QBs and better salary cap positions and have the most potential to win 9 or more games if their QB works out. I would put the odds on the division something like 35% Panthers, 25% Falcons, 25% Saints, 15% Bucs. But I think whoever wins the division loses quickly in the playoffs. In general the NFC is weak and winning the NFC South could lead to a home playoff game against a beatable team and a trip to the divisional round, but I don't see the NFC South champ getting past that, and at the end of the gauntlet are teams like SF we could not even score on. I don't see us taking the QB we shut out and beating the team that shut us out with him. And if we did, then you get to the real juggernauts in the AFC with QBs like Maholmes, Allen, Rodgers, and Burrow. I just don't see some 9-8 team that squeaks out of the NFC South going to the big show and taking down the hot hand from that AFC group.

So, more anti-Saint points than actual answers.

If you want an exact answer I think the Panthers will win the NFC South and I think the Panthers will go 8-9. I think the NFC South looks something like this:

Carolina 8-9
Atlanta 7-10
New Orleans 7-10
Tampa Bay 6-11

There is a lot of parity so reasonably any of those teams could get +/- 2 or 3 wins and its anyone's game, and probably someone gets 9, but thats my prediction if you want an actual answer.

Carolina beat us twice this year, and separately the player who is now their backup QB won a 24-0 shutout win over the player who is now our starting QB. Our upgrade at QB was acquiring a QB we shut out with Lattimore inactive. Theirs was acquiring the #1 overall pick and getting our starter to back him up.

OK. What are the Saints 10 losses? For each of those losses, what do you see on the other team that makes you think that the Saints are going to lose?

Be an analyst, not just a pessimist. You can't just simply gauge this upcoming season on what happened last year. You can't project there being 4 QBs on the field, the #1 CB out for 10 weeks again, and MT13 lasting only a couple of weeks. What exactly do you project with the 90 man roster we have today that points to 10 losses?

Now shutting out Carr is true. However, Carr is on a new team with completely different scheme and weapons. And both the 24-0 shutout and the 13-0 loss are both testament to the fact that even injured, our defense can put it on people.

Little in the NFL projects from year to year. If that were the case then there would be no playoff team turnover year to year no would there be any worst to first stories. But both happen in the NFL with astonishing consistency.

Here are my projections:

Division 5-1: Sweep the falcaints and yuccs, split with the kitties. Raw QBs on each team will succumb to the defense while our offense delivers consistent points under Carr.
NFC North 2-2: Love is raw. Fields is dynamic. Lions are a tough out. Finally put Minnesota down
AFC South 3-1. Jacksonville has it together. The other 3 are trying to get it together.
Equal positions 1-1 (maybe 2-0): Giants will be tough. Rams not so much
Patriots 1-0: Mac Jones. Enough said.

12-5 division champs, #2 seed.

I just don't think you give this defense enough credit. And they have a fairly long history of defending tough. It's not something they will have to learn.

SFIAH


SFIAH

Let me ask you this bako. Who do you think wins the NFC South and do you think that team will win 9 games? In other words do you think every team in the division will be sub .500?