Sports Illustrated predicts the Saints will finish with their most losses since 1980
Here's why Orr has the Saints trailing the Cleveland Browns (at 2-15) for one of the worst records in football:
This could end up as dicey as the time this exercise brought the column a national appeal when the GM of the Buccaneers confronted me about it. Three wins is a difficult mark to place on any team, especially one with a developing offensive line and a Rolodex of veteran talent. I am falling into a similar trap with the Saints—assuming they will sell off some assets and prepare for a regenerative draft in 2026, as I did with the Buccaneers a few years back. We all saw where that got me. The three wins are the product of being unseen and unknown in Week 1, and being able to outpace opponents—the Patriots and Panthers—in later weeks with defenses that I feel could be susceptible to Kellen Moore's quick-huddle approach.
Now, let's cut him some slack. No one is going to accurately predict the records for 32 teams. Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht reminded him of that after they finished at 9-8 and won the NFC South in a year Orr said they'd be lucky to go 2-15. A lot of analysts drive themselves nuts just trying to get one schedule nailed down. But here's how Orr has done making his predictions for the Saints in the last few years:
For the most part, he's had a good read on the team. The Saints were a couple of coin flips away from back-to-back 7-win seasons in 2022 and 2023, and they might have gone the distance last year if not for injuries and an aging roster piling up. We'll never know if what we saw from Klint Kubiak's offense in the first two weeks was real or not given how few games the Saints had Chris Olave, Rashid Shaheed, Erik McCoy, and Alvin Kamara together on the field at the same time.
So it's concerning that Orr isn't buying in on the Saints this time. A 3-14 finish would be their worst record since the infamous 2005 season. That year, of course, was impacted heavily by Hurricane Katrina and ended at 3-13 after playing "home" games at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, the Alamo Dome in San Antonio (three times), and LSU's Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge (four times).
It's partly due to the expansion of the regular season to 17 games, but New Orleans hasn't lost more than 13 games in a single year since 1980, when they went 1-15. That wouldn't be an encouraging start for Kellen Moore, but let's not forget Dan Campbell went 3-13-1 in his first year as Detroit Lions head coach. Just because this could be the start of the story doesn't mean it's how that tale ends. And, hey: Orr's been wrong before.
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