Saints now have a chance to separate themselves from the pack
By Terry Kimble
The New Orleans Saints have an opportunity to grab a stronghold on the No. 1 seed in the NFC and potentially have home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.
The New Orleans Saints are right where they want to be.
They lead their division currently, are getting healthier every week, and have come off the season’s best performance after a drubbing of division rival Tampa Bay. In spite of this recent good fortune, even better news awaits them, their upcoming opponents.
Of the remaining 8 games the Saints have, only one team currently has a winning record.
That would be the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. The Saints will play that game in the Superdome in late December and after such a dominating performance on Sunday night, the Saints should be confident that they can beat anyone.
The significance of the win on Sunday night can’t be understated enough. It not only gave the Saints the division lead but also the potential tiebreaker if the teams were to finish with the same record.
That is important come playoff time as the 2nd place team in the division would be a wild card team that would potentially have to travel to a place like Philadelphia in January to play. Not ideal with those potential weather elements to deal with.
The Saints, however, have their eye on that number 1 overall seed.
They currently are tied record-wise with the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks at 6-2. The Packers have a tiebreaker by virtue of their Week 3 win against the Saints so the Saints would need to finish with a better overall record in order to overtake the Packers.
As it currently stands, the Packers have 4 games remaining against teams with winning records while the Seahawks have 3.
The path is clear for the New Orleans Saints. If they can duplicate the same effort and intensity they manifested on Sunday night, they will find themselves in the position they envisioned at the beginning of the season.
Next. Saints back in Top 5 Power Rankings. dark
A talented team playing their best football and heading into the playoffs on a roll. While they want a return trip to Tampa in February, they want all roads going through New Orleans to get there.