By Ross Jackson
It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to refer to a Week 9 divisional matchup as a “must-win” any season.
The New Orleans Saints will face that exact situation against the Carolina Panthers this weekend.
A mid-season, in-division victory being a “must” generally involves eventual playoff seeding.
Not for the 2-6 Saints and the 1-7 Panthers.
The focus for New Orleans isn’t a win for win’s sake. It’s about a win for loss’s sake. A seventh straight loss to the NFL’s worst team would bring about a loud and seemingly insurmountable impact, one that the Saints have to avoid.
It should be known that the Saints are very unlikely to make any in-season coaching moves. That is often where many minds jump when it comes to a team that has been off-balance for a few seasons now. Shifts like that are more likely to happen after the season concludes than during.
Perhaps that timeline advances if the loss plummets New Orleans into its longest losing streak since 1999 and comes at the hands of a team that it defeated handily just eight weeks ago.
Any extended losing streak can force a team’s chemistry and connective tissue to be challenged. As of now, that doesn’t seem like a big question mark for this locker room. Stopping the bleeding now will be key to locker room Maintenace.
Nothing heals like a win in the NFL. Nothing harms like losing. New Orleans is in need of some kind of a jolt, and no team offers those up quite like Carolina.
The Saints need to win this game, not because a win improves their situation, not because they are vying for postseason positioning, and not because it proves that the team is again a competitor.
A loss would be viewed as the franchise’s worst in recent history.
Starting quarterback Derek Carr is set to be back in the lineup after missing the last three contests. He draws a positive matchup against a struggling Panthers team that does not generate much pressure and is unlikely to force many mistakes.
However, the New Orleans defense has been shakier than their reputation and previous standard would indicate, and the run game has been either limited or abandoned because of scoring deficits. Neither of those would set the Saints up with what they desperately need in this game, and every game moving forward–complementary football.
The margin for error over the final nine games of the year is razor thin. The Saints cannot afford to give any further ground.
Translated, this is a must-win.
New Orleans won’t change many minds this weekend, win or lose. But lose, and some minds will be cemented.
