By Cole Mingledorff
Photo by Cole Mingledorff
The Saints came off of a 5-12 season in 2024, and fans were disappointed. They hate to see their favorite team lose. As the 2025-2026 season plays out, we ask ourselves, “What can we expect from the Saints this year?” To answer this question, we turned to football experts across the nation and the members of our school’s football staff and team.
Fox Sports bookmakers set the bar at over/under 4.5 games won this season, a number that is considerably low compared to other teams. Analysts projected the odds for the Saints winning the Super Bowl is +40000, which are the worst odds of the league, so winning it all is practically out of the question. The projected odds for the Saints to win the NFC South are +1500, which are also the worst odds in that division. The Saints this year are only playing one team that had over 12 wins, and only 5 teams that went over .500. Based on the opponents combined win total last season, the Saints have the second easiest schedule for this season, which is good, but even with this easy schedule, experts remain doubtful in the Saints’ possibility of success.
Despite the luck shown in the Saints schedule, sports analysts for the Saints Wire still believe that they won’t be able to accomplish much this year.
“Whether the New Orleans Saints win three games in 2025 or five, the experts at NFL.com are predicting the black and gold finish in last place in the NFC South, despite the Saints having the second-easiest schedule based on last year’s standings,” John Sigler, journalist for the Saints Wire said. This agrees with what Fox News had to say. Sigler tells us that despite the Saints having an easy schedule, it is hard to believe in our team’s success. Part of this doubt comes from major roster changes, and the most notable change the Saints’ had over the summer was the change in the quarterback roster.
This offseason, Saints quarterback Derek Carr announced his retirement. Fans celebrated his retirement with parades in the French Quarter, but people don’t know that last season, the Saints went 0-7 without Derek Carr. The Saints’ current starting quarterback is Spencer Rattler, who isn’t necessarily popular in the world of football. Last season, CBS Sports ranked the Saints’ quarterback roster the seventh worst in the league with Derek Carr, and now this year without him, most sport broadcasts think the Saints have the absolute worst quarterback roster in the coming season. The changes in the quarterback roster are strongly reflected in national projections, which sets the bar painfully low for the Saints this season.
The New York Times, The Athletic, predicted that New Orleans will win 5.2 games this season. Football analysts said that this verdict was just right. “I’m old enough to remember when the Saints’ projected win total could’ve been 5.2 … by mid-October. When you have a quarterback room consisting of three players with zero NFL wins as a starter under their belts, there’s a reason why you have a Saints team with the lowest projected win total in the NFC. Honestly 5.2 wins might be too high until either Spencer Rattler (0–6 as a starter last season) or Tyler Shough prove they can guide an NFL team to win at least one game,” New York Times sports journalist Larry Holder said. Holder says that it is hard to expect a team with an inexperienced and unreliable quarterback to win many games. He says despite being a Saints fan, it is hard to have faith in his own team, and this unfortunately is the harsh reality of being a Saints fan. While national sports outlets predict a rough season, we turned to the Willow School’s football pros to see how their expectations compare.
The Willow football team and coaching staff were asked to give their predictions on how well they think the Saints will do in the upcoming season. When asked, they undoubtedly showed a wide range of answers, many showing faith, but others showing doubt in their home team.
The predictions were all over the place. The highest prediction was 16, and the lowest prediction was zero. The bar set by Fox News was under/over 4.5, and 23 players said a number higher, while 16 players said a number lower. The most common answer was three, which is below the bar, but the overall average was 5.4, which is above the bar.
The players’ answers were scattered, but the coaches told a much more confident and faithful story in their answers. Coaches’ predictions were all relatively similar. The average estimate was eight wins, which is much higher than what both the players and any sports broadcasts projected. The highest estimation was nine wins, and the lowest was seven, only a two-game difference. Every coach said a number over 4.5 wins, which shows how much faith and/or bias they have in their city’s NFL team.
Overall, sports broadcasts and analysts project that the New Orleans Saints will win around four to five games, and have given them some of the lowest postseason odds. Our school’s football team thinks that the Saints will win around three to five games, but the coaches think that they’ll win around seven to eight games. None of this is for sure, but as the 2025-2026 season plays out, we will be able to see whose predictions were the closest. Stay tuned!
