After today’s game with Carolina, the Saints will play five of their final eight on the road, but the first three games of that final eight look ominous, at least from a standings standpoint.
I’ll get back to the vital importance of this game with Carolina in a moment.
Still, after the Panthers, the Saints play at Chicago, at Cincinnati, and host the Green Bay Packers—the only three games of their final eight against teams that are better than .500. After that, it’s all NFC South Division games and the Arizona Cardinals.
For the Saints to be a factor in 2026, they have to do something they haven't done this season: stack success. Yes, stack wins, but before you can do that, you must stack success. They won in weeks two, six, and nine. Sandwiched in between those three wins are 5 losses.
With that in mind, I’m back to today’s tilt with Carolina, also 3-5 on the season, and the battle for first place in the division. The Saints need to win today to put two wins together in the books; if not, worse, they’ll fall to 0-2 in the division. After today, there will still be 8 weeks of football to play, so yes, a loss can be overcome, but why does everything have to be so hard? Just take care of business in Caesars Superdome, take the division lead, and play from a position of looking down, not always looking up.
That likely means getting off to a better start, especially against the Panthers. I mean, seriously, did you think a game-day story at this point couldn't involve starting faster?
When you have had eight opening-drive punts and one field goal, and scored 9 first-quarter points, it’s going to be an issue until it isn’t.
But why is it so important against a Carolina team that comes in riding a three-game losing streak? Because Carolina, under second-year Head Coach Dave Canales, is pretty good at opening drives. In 25 games, 17 last year and eight this year, Carolina has scored 14 times on opening drives: that’s tied for third-best in the NFL. Of those 14 scores, eight have been touchdowns, tied for fifth-best in the NFL.
The Saints have 2 touchdowns and 3 field goals in their last 25 opening drives, with the last field goal coming last week on the first drive against Cleveland.
So, hey, we are trending up. But it all goes back to the foundation of this story: stack drives, stack scores, and stack wins. If the Saints can do that, they’ll be a factor in the NFC South, without a doubt. And then who knows.
