The NFL announced Monday that the New Orleans Saints are among five teams scheduled to play home games abroad during the 2022 regular season, with the black and gold kicking off from London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. And while their opponent will be shared at a later date, the NFL amended its international series scheduling rules last summer so that these matchups will always pit an NFC team against an AFC team.
That means the Saints will face either the Cincinnati Bengals, the Las Vegas Raiders, or the Baltimore Ravens in London this year. Teams can protect certain matchups from being moved away from home, but it may be in New Orleans’ best interest to see the Bengals overseas. Fun as that would be for fans in Louisiana, the Saints probably wouldn’t enjoy seeing a swath of orange jerseys crowding the Superdome with LSU fans cheering on Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase.
As for the other hosts in the NFL international series this year: the Arizona Cardinals will play a home game in Mexico, while the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are going to Germany. The Green Bay Packers and Jacksonville Jaguars, like the Saints, will kick off from the United Kingdom. Teams only have to play one international game each season now, it’s worth noting.
But let’s be real for a second: it hurts to see the Saints lose a home game to the international series just one year after they lost a home game to Hurricane Ida. That’s a tough blow for the city economically and for local fans who only have limited opportunities to catch a game in New Orleans. If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that the new scheduling rules will force teams to move a home game abroad only once every eight years, so the Saints won’t have to do this again until 2030.
[listicle id=109732]