The New Orleans Saints will be watching Sunday night’s game between the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks just like the rest of the country, but a little more rides on this game for them than for everyone else. Playoff implications aside, whoever wins the NFC West will visit New Orleans in 2020, finalizing the Saints’ official list of future opponents.
A Seahawks victory would clinch a first-round bye week for the Saints, giving their battered secondary some much-needed time to rest and recover from injuries to starting defensive backs Vonn Bell, Marcus Williams, and Eli Apple.
However, a 49ers win would send the Saints right back into the film room on Monday. They would have to prepare for a game in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome against the Minnesota Vikings next weekend. The Vikings deactivated many starters and key contributors in Sunday’s loss to the Chicago Bears, and will be well-rested and ready for the wild card round.
New Orleans tried its hardest to clinch that first-round bye, but it’s ultimately out of their hands. If the Detroit Lions had held onto their lead over the Green Bay Packers, the Saints would be in the hunt to secure home-field advantage throughout the playoffs with the first seed. But the Lions failed, and the Saints have been impacted in a ripple effect.
In a case of extreme cosmic irony, the Saints risk being two of the three teams in NFL history to win 13 games and not clinch a top-two playoff seed (having done so previously in 2011; the only other team to do so was the 1999 Tennessee Titans). We’ll chalk that up to a botched voodoo spell. Get your gris-gris together, people.
