Short week, long trip as Saints try to continue winning ways vs. Rams

Greg Auman

NFC South Reporter

The 2023 season has been frustrating for the Saints and their fans. With that being said, New Orleans has already matched its win total from last year, is tied for first place in the NFC South and can win the division by winning their final three games.

Their 7-7 record reflects a middling team with an easy split to their success and failure — they’re 1-5 against teams currently .500 or better, 6-2 against teams currently with a losing record. Their final three opponents are in a similar ballpark — the 7-7 Rams, then two division opponents who have already beaten the Saints in the Buccaneers (7-7) and Falcons (6-8).

Win even two of those last three, and the Saints have at least an 86 percent chance of making the playoff according to the New York Times playoff simulator, salvaging a winning record and a first postseason appearance in the post-Drew Brees era.

The final sprint starts with a long trip on a short week, flying to Los Angeles to face the Rams on Thursday night. It’s their second quick turnaround this season, having lost to the Jaguars on a Thursday in Week 7, but a win is crucial to their playoff chances.

“Yeah, it’s tough, it’s challenging when you have to go on the road for a Thursday night game, particularly when you have to travel across the country,” coach Dennis Allen said Monday. “This is the first year they’ve had teams that have had two Thursday night games in a season and we happen to be one of those teams. It is what it is. We have to figure out a way to get ourselves prepared and healthy and healed up and ready to go Thursday night.”

Allowing players to physically recover with three fewer days of prep time is always difficult, and going across multiple time zones while doing so doesn’t help. It hasn’t yielded a huge difference on the scoreboard — road teams in the NFL this year win 43.8 percent of the time, but road teams on Thursday games win 41.2 percent…

Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/saints-fate-is-in-their-hands-as-last-3-games-come-against-fellow-bubble-teams

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Publish date : 2023-12-20 19:21:10

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