SaintNik

From Mike Detillier's Football World collumn in the Houma Courier by way of saintsreport.com. For the complete article http://www.houmatoday.com/apps/pbcs..../1103/SPORTS02

The football insiders at the Imperial Palace Casino in Las Vegas recently put up their NFL over/under team win totals for the upcoming season, and their prediction for the New Orleans Saints, 7 1/2 wins, is basically no change from what we all have seen on the field for the past three seasons.

If you scoff at what many may say are "so-called" experts, just consider that last season the Vegas insiders hit right on the button or within one game on 24 of the 32 totals for NFL teams three months before the regular season started.

Last season the "insiders" predicted the Saints to finish 8-8, and they hit that mark right on the nose. In 2002, those same experts had the Saints over/under total at 8 ½ wins, and the Saints finished the season with a 9-7 mark.

In the 2001 offseason, virtually everyone was excited after the Saints had won their first playoff game following the 2000 season, but the Vegas insiders had them with a win total of 7 ½. The Saints finished the 2001 season with a 7-9 mark.

Not bad, right? Here are the over/ under totals for all 32 NFL clubs:

New England Patriots, 10½

Philadelphia Eagles, 10½

Indianapolis Colts, 10½

Kansas City Chiefs, 10

Tennessee Titans, 10

St. Louis Rams, 9½

Green Bay Packers, 9½

Dallas Cowboys, 9

Miami Dolphins, 9

Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 9

Denver Broncos, 9

Washington Redskins, 9

Atlanta Falcons, 9

Baltimore Ravens, 9

Seattle Seahawks, 9

New York Jets, 9

Minnesota Vikings, 8½

Carolina Panthers, 8½

Cincinnati Bengals, 7½

Jacksonville Jaguars, 7½

Buffalo Bills, 7½

Oakland Raiders, 7½

Pittsburgh Steelers, 7½

New Orleans Saints, 7½

Cleveland Browns, 7 ½

Chicago Bears, 7

San Francisco 49ers, n/a*

Detroit Lions, 6½

New York Giants, 6½

Houston Texans, 6½

Arizona Cardinals, 5½

San Diego Chargers, 4½

* The San Francisco 49ers were not given a betting number due to the injury to starting quarterback Tim Rattay, who recently underwent groin surgery.
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I must begin with saying nobody is perfect and let's hope this is the year they have it wrong where the Saints are concerned. The first thing that sticks out at me here is that the top three teams in this over/under betting line are only at 10 1/2 wins and they only have two teams with 10 wins. They expect plenty of parity this year. The next thing is that based on this the Saints would finish last in the division without a winning record. This also has the Saints finishing the season as one of the worst 10 teams in the league.

They may have been dead on where that Saints are concerned the past 3 years but surely they have been dead wrong on several other teams. I do think we will have a better team this year and I doubt we will be hit by the injury bug so severe in back to back years but I also feel like we have a tougher schedule than we had last year. I'll go on record now as saying that the Saints will have a winning record this year.

We could all cut the neighbors grass this summer, pony up a $100 each and collectively break the Imperial Palace Casino bank, buy the team from Benson, keep the team here in that new state of the art stadium and forgive the states debt to the team. Oh, my bad, there aren't quite enough TRUE saints fans to accomplish such a feat. Still it is quite tempting to take the over bet with our boys.