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Final score predictions for Saints vs. Giants in Week 15
We’re closing in on kickoff between the New Orleans Saints (6-7) and New York Giants (5-8) on Sunday, but how do you see this one turning out? Can the Saints hold their own against an opponent riding a three-game win streak? Or will they play down to their level of competition? Are these teams that far apart after all, despite their records?
Here are our staff picks and final score predictions going into Week 15’s game:
The Saints listed wide receiver Chris Olave (ankle) as questionable to play on Week 15’s final injury repot. Two rookies were ruled out against the Giants:
We’ve had a look at the final New Orleans Saints injury repot going into Week 15’s game with the New York Giants, and it’s a mixed bag: three players are questionable for Sunday’s game including star wide receiver Chris Olave (ankle), starting right tackle Ryan Ramczyk (knee), and veteran running back Jamaal Williams (groin). Olave is a game-time decision after not practicing all week.
A few other Saints players have been pre-emptively ruled out including rookie draft picks Isaiah Foskey (quadricep) and Kendre Miller (ankle), who have missed a lot of time as of late. So is defensive end Payton Turner (toe) who was designated to return from injured reserve after dislocating two toes in Week 1 and undergoing a lengthy recovery.
But three other Saints who received treatment this week are all getting the green light to play on Sunday: quarterback Taysom Hill (foot/left hand) and wider receiver Rashid Shaheed (thigh), both of whom were inactive a week ago, as well as defensive end Cameron Jordan (ankle).
Here’s the full injury report from each team:
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Chris Olave was absent again on the second Saints injury report for Week 15. The receiving corps might be shorthanded against the Giants:
There aren’t many changes to the New Orleans Saints injury report after Thursday’s practice, which is both good and bad, depending on how you look at it. Three players remain sidelined with injuries: rookies Isaiah Foskey (quadricep) and Kendre Miller (ankle), as well as star receiver Chris Olave (ankle).
Olave’s absence would be felt badly on Sunday against the New York Giants if he can’t play. He’s the team’s leading receiver and best threat in the passing game. It’s fortunate that Rashid Shaheed (thigh) is expected to play this week after missing some time, but Derek Carr’s receiving corps is going to be shorthanded with or without Olave; Michael Thomas (knee) is still on injured reserve, too.
But the good news is that no players suffered setbacks on Thursday. Left tackle Andrus Peat (illness) was a full participant after sitting out Wednesday’s practice session. Five other players were limited again, including quarterback Taysom Hill (foot/left hand). Overall the team is progressing well.
So will that be enough to take care of business against the Giants? We’ll just have to wait and see. Here’s the full injury report from Thursday:
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Darren Waller is making progress, but his status for Week 15 is still in the air. Who has led the tight end room in his absence?
Also, TE Darren Waller (hamstring/IR) is making progress. Doesn't sound as though it's enough for him to move off IR.
— Patricia Traina (@Patricia_Traina) December 13, 2023
There have been conversations around New York Giants tight end Darren Waller making his return from injured reserve this weekend against the New Orleans Saints, though he last played on Oct. 29 versus the New York Jets before missing the next five games with a hamstring injury.
Waller of course would like to play, but he’s yet to be activated from injured reserve, though his 21-day window opened on Thursday. He can return to practice but it’s too soon to say for certain whether he’ll play on Sunday. For right now, it seems the Saints will dodge Waller.
That’s welcome news for New Orleans. Waller only played in eight games this season but he still ranks second in receptions (36) and receiving yards (384) for Big Blue. And the Saints have not performed well against tight ends to say the least, so Waller’s potential return is one to watch. Look at some of these final receiving lines from recent matchups against pass-catching tight ends:
If he can go he would play a limited role, but he could still be dangerous with a small amount of snaps. If he can’t play, Daniel Bellinger has been the leading tight end since Waller’s injury. Bellinger has averaged 2.2 catches and 27.6 receiving yards per game over the last five games. Saints quarterback Derek Carr knows Waller’s strengths well from their time together on the Raiders, and he’s gashed New Orleans before. We’ll keep an eye out for his progress at Giants practice this week.
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Rashid Shaheed missed the last two games with a thigh injury. After returning to practice, Shaheed says he should be ‘good to go’ Sunday:
New Orleans Saints wide receiver Rashid Shaheed returned to practice Wednesday for the first time since injuring his thigh against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 12. If you ask Shaheed, he doesn’t need much practice to know he’ll play this weekend.
Shaheed didn’t suffer any setbacks in practice and said Wednesday he “feels good and prepared.” In addition to his physical health, Shaheed also pulled back the curtains on his mindset towards playing. There was a point where he may have been hesitant to go full speed on an injured leg, but he’s beyond that.
We’ve heard players from different sports highlight the mental aspect when coming off an injury. Part of coming back from injury is trusting your body to hold up during the game without aggravating it again. The mental and physical is positively aligning for Shaheed as he is ready to make his return to action, and the Saints could use his help in putting down an upstart Giants squad.
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Podcast: Derek Carr’s attitude is doing him no favors with the Saints, does he have it in him to restore confidence against the Giants?
This week’s Saints Wire podcast is live with managing editor John Sigler (@john_siglerr) and our host Ryan O’Leary (@RyanOLearySMG). You can subscribe for new episodes released each week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your podcast service of choice.
Derek Carr’s attitude is doing him no favors with the Saints. Between playing poorly and lashing out at teammates, it’s getting hard to root for the guy. But the quarterback has a big opportunity to restore confidence in his abilities to lead the team on Sunday against the New York Giants. Let’s see if he has it in him. Tap in.
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The Seattle Seahawks gave up a lot to obtain defensive end Leonard Williams from the New York Giants.
The Seattle Seahawks gave up a lot to obtain defensive end Leonard Williams from the New York Giants. As part of the deal, they sent their 2024 second-round draft pick, plus a fifth-round pick in 2025.
Williams is a special player, though. One can argue whether or not Seattle gave up too much draft capital to land him, but now that they have him it would probably be the wrong move to let him go. Williams will be on the wrong side of 30 years old next season. However, he’s also been the team’s best defender and most-consistent performer overall since the trade went down.
In the six games that Williams has played in a Seahawks uniform, they’ve gone 1-5. Williams has balled out, though – racking up 18 total tackles, three sacks, four tackles for a loss, eight quarterback hits and 10 pressures. The numbers themselves are impressive, but given the context they are magnificent, as Williams has faced a high rate of double teams since arriving in Seattle.
Williams’ impact is the single biggest reason why the pass rush has performed relatively well despite the team’s recent losing streak. There are major problems on defense, but they’re related to scheme, poor tackling and bad coverage on the back end.
The #Seahawks in the NFC are:
– 2nd in Pressure% (22.9)
– 3rd in Pressures (122)
– 3rd in Sacks (39)all while being 14th in Blitz% (22.9)
The defensive problems aren't within the pass rush. pic.twitter.com/fxQfBO5RpV
— Seahawks Today (@TodaySeahawks) December 13, 2023
Seattle can still get a high comp pick if they let Williams go, but at this point we’d prefer to re-sign him rather than try to find the next Leonard Williams in the draft. The defensive line is where they should be spending their resources, anyway.
Jarran Reed and Dre’Mont Jones have also played at a respectable level this season. However, in order to get past teams with great pass rushers like the 49ers the bar has to be set extraordinarily high. John Schneider may have to be more aggressive than ever to match the defensive lines this team needs to beat to get back to the Super Bowl.
More Seahawks Wire stories
Taysom Hill, Rashid Shaheed return to practice on Week 15 Saints injury report
The initial New Orleans Saints injury report for Week 15 is a little shorter than what we saw last week, but not by much. The good news is that several playmakers returned to practice after missing time with injuries — namely wide receiver Rashid Shaheed and quarterback Taysom Hill. They’re both on track to play against the New York Giants this Sunday.
Now the bad news. Star wideout Chris Olave was unable to practice Wednesday due to an ankle injury. The severity of it is unknown so we’ll have to watch his progress closely in the days ahead. On top of that, left tackle Andrus Peat missed practice with an illness. It’s too soon to say whether it will impact his availability come kickoff.
Things are even less certain for the Giants, who only held a half-speed walkthrough on Wednesday after beating the Green Bay Packers on Monday night. They’re playing an away game on a short week so we won’t get an accurate reading on their injury outlook until Thursday’s practice report drops. But for now, here’s what we know:
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Veteran referee Carl Cheffers has been assigned to Week 15’s Saints-Giants game. New Orleans has more wins with him on the field than any other referee:
Veteran referee Carl Cheffers has been assigned to Week 15’s game between the New Orleans Saints and New York Giants, which should be good news for Saints fans. The black and gold have more wins with Cheffers on the field than any other referee, having gone 14-4 since 2008.
That’s not to say Cheffers is playing favorites; the infractions he and his crew look for may just happen to be things the Saints do a good job avoiding. Or, more likely, most of his games with New Orleans fell during the winningest era in franchise history with Drew Brees and Sean Payton calling the shots.
At any rate: this year, Cheffers’ crew is averaging the seventh-fewest penalty flags per game (11.5) with a near-even split between home teams and visitors. They’ve fouled teams more often for false starts (28 of them) and offensive holding (24) than anything else, but the handsy Saints secondary must watch out — Cheffers’ crew has thrown 11 penalty flags for defensive pass interference in as many games.
New York averages just 5.4 penalties for 44.6 yards per game each week, which ranks in the bottom-10 in the league in both areas. New Orleans is averaging 6.1 fouls (which is 18th) and 55.5 yards per game (9th-most, troublingly), largely due to those defensive pass interference infractions. No team averages more yards lost per game to DPI penalties than the Saints (16.8). They’ll need to be careful in coverage and keep it clean.
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The NFL is targeting Brazil for a 2024 International Series game. Which stadium could play host? Would you want the Saints to make the trip?
Now this is interesting. Multiple reports from NFL ownership meetings in Dallas say the league’s decision-makers will be voting on a potential 2024 regular season game to be played in Brazil, with a verdict coming as soon as Wednesday afternoon.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has made the league’s International Series a point of emphasis on his annual agenda — we may never see a Super Bowl played overseas or have an NFL team headquartered outside America, but Goodell clearly sees room for expansion in international markets. After kicking off games in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Mexico, he’s looking to Brazil as the next hotspot in 2024 (plus Spain in 2025, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports).
So where could that game be played? Venues used for recent international NFL games include London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (seating over 60,000) and Wembley Stadium (seating more than 85,000), Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca (capacity for 78,000 seats) as well as Germany’s stadiums in Munich (the 69,000-seat Allianz Arena) and Frankfurt (Deutsche Bank Park, seating about 51,000).
That’s an average capacity of about 68,600 seats. If that’s in the ballpark of what the NFL is looking for in a venue, São Paulo has one clear option: the Estadio do Morumbi (which opened in 1960, easily seating 66,000). The city is also home to the Arena Corinthians (opened in 2014, seating 49,000) and Estádio Prudentão (built in 1982, seating 45,000) as alternative sites.
Now, what you’re really here for: could the Saints be involved? The answer to that is a soft “maybe.” New Orleans will not lose another home game to an international game in 2024 after doing so in 2022’s matchup with the Minnesota Vikings in London. NFL ownership previously agreed that every team would play a “home” game overseas once every eight years, but they’re voting soon on whether to shorten that to a four-year gap, so the Saints could make the trip as visitors.
An NFC team is expected to host the game in Brazil (if approved by league ownership), per Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, and the Saints have away games scheduled in 2024 with the following opponents in their conference:
We can rule out the Packers, Falcons, and Buccaneers because they have “hosted” international games in recent years, leaving the Panthers, Cowboys, and Giants as options to host. We should acknowledge the Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings, and Chicago Bears are eligible to host the game in Brazil if the Saints end up playing a difference NFC North team in 2024, depending on how the final divisional standings shake out.
But there’s another factor to consider: the NFL’s international marketing rights for Brazil have been awarded to just one team, the Miami Dolphins. It’s likely they would want the Dolphins to be involved because of that (or at least, the Dolphins would want to be involved), even if they’re playing as visitors. Miami has made a number of overseas appearances including a game in Frankfurt this year. They’re a likelier fit than the Saints.
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