Saints: 4 things that must happen in order to win the NFC South in 2021

The New Orleans Saints are coming off their fourth straight NFC South title and while a fifth straight division title isn’t out of the question, it’ll definitely be tougher this year for a multitude of reasons.

Firstly, the Saints lost Drew Brees this offseason to retirement, giving them a new starting quarterback for Week 1 for the first time since Brees took over in 2006. It’ll be a strange transition but it could be much worse (RE: Texans).

Second off, the Buccaneers are coming off a Super Bowl title and brought back their entire team. That doesn’t bode well for the rest of the NFL and certainly not the Saints, who have to face them twice a year.

If the Saints want to be crowned the NFC South champions for the fifth straight time, here are four things that need to happen.

In order for the Saints to win the NFC South, the Buccaneers need to have a Super Bowl hangover.

Super Bowl hangovers happen all the time in the NFL. Hey, it’s hard to win a Super Bowl, so when a team does so, they deserve to celebrate their accomplishment.

Sometimes, however, they celebrate too much and when the follow-up season arrives, they greatly disappoint. There’s a reason a team hasn’t won back-to-back Super Bowl titles since the Patriots did it in 2003/2004 and that’s because it’s a tough task.

Saints fans are hoping the Bucs read their own headlines and have the classic Super Bowl hangover that we’ve seen so many teams fall into. The Eagles had one just a few years ago and failed to even make the playoffs the following season.

While I won’t hold my breath on the Bucs missing out on the postseason, perhaps they won’t be the ‘unstoppable’ team that everyone has them pegged as.