Updating Saints’ playoff odds after beating the Buccaneers

How did beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers change the New Orleans Saints’ playoff odds? Here’s the outlook after Week 17:

The odds aren’t in their favor, but that isn’t going to cause the New Orleans Saints to keel over and give up. The New York Times Playoff Picture simulator tripled their odds of reaching the postseason after Sunday’s win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Now the Saints have a 37% shot at making the playoffs, largely due to their 27% chance of winning the NFC South. It’s technically possible the Saints could earn the seventh playoff seed as a wild card team in the NFC, but it’s very, very unlikely — this simulator gives them less than a 1% shot at it. They’ll need help from two or three other games to clinch it.

Still, the Saints don’t control their own destiny. The reason their chances of winning the division and reaching the playoffs are so low is because they’ll need the Buccaneers to lose again in Week 18 even if New Orleans defeats the Atlanta Falcons. They dug quite a hole for themselves and now they’ll need help getting out of it. They have a chance, and at this point it’s all fans can ask for.

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Packers’ playoff hopes take significant hit with big loss to Bucs

The Packers were once 6-6 and flying high. Back-to-back losses to the Giants and Bucs delivered a massive blow to the team’s playoff chances.

During the last two weeks, the Green Bay Packers had a chance to raise their chances of making the postseason to 80 percent or better. Instead, Matt LaFleur’s team played poorly and lost back-to-back games to the New York Giants and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, dealing a severe and potentially irreversible blow to the team’s chances of making the playoffs.

After Sunday’s 34-20 loss to the Buccaneers, the Packers’ chances of making the playoffs sit at only 25 percent, per the New York Times playoff simulator.

The loss was gigantic in impact. A win over the Bucs would have pushed the chances to 65 percent or better.

If the season ended today, the Packers — at 6-8 — would be out. In fact, Sunday’s loss dropped the Packers from the No. 7 seed, or the final wildcard spot, to No. 11 in the NFC.

Green Bay was once 6-6 and riding high after wins over the Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs in back-to-back weeks. Talks of getting to 10 wins and challenging for the NFC North title looked legitimate. But the rollercoaster ride hit an apex and came crashing down over the last two weeks.

The Packers are struggling but still hold some control. According to the simulator, if the Packers win out — in games against the Carolina Panthers, Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears to end the season — their playoff chances would still get close to 100 percent. Any loss — but especially to the Vikings in Week 17 — would be catastrophic to those chances.

“All I know is this…We’ve got three weeks left,” coach Matt LaFleur said Sunday. “We’ve got three games, and every game is a playoff mentality. Who knows what will happen? But we can’t get it all back at once, you’ve got to earn it every day. You’ve got to get back to practice and just give it our best shot from here on out.”

The path ahead is manageable but the Packers must get their season back on track next Sunday in Carolina against the 2-12 Panthers. The playoffs start now in Green Bay. Either the Packers close out the 2023 season with a three-game win streak or LaFleur’s team will likely miss the postseason for the second consecutive season.

Just like last year, 4-6 Packers still very much alive in NFC playoff race

The Packers just won a big game at Lambeau Field and are still alive at 4-6. It’s 2022 all over again in Green Bay.

The Green Bay Packers are 4-6 after a big win at Lambeau Field and still very much alive in the NFC playoff race.

This would describe the 2022 Packers but also the 2023 Packers after 10 games.

Last season, the Packers scored an overtime win over Mike McCarthy and the visiting Dallas Cowboys in Green Bay to improve to 4-6, lost two straight games to fall to 4-8, won four-straight games to get to 8-8 but then lost a win-and-in season finale.

The 2023 Packers got the first part of the equation done Sunday against the Los Angeles Chargers, coming from behind in the fourth quarter to steal a 23-20 win over Justin Herbert. Matt LaFleur’s team is now 4-6 and in eighth place in the NFC but also staring at a two-game stretch against the Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs.

According to the New York Times playoff simulator, the Packers’ playoff chances rose from 10 percent last week to 24 percent entering Week 12.

(Enter Undertaker meme.)

With a win over the Lions on Thanksgiving Day, the percentage would rise to around 45 percent.

Even with losses to the Lions and Chiefs, the 4-8 Packers wouldn’t be dead because of the schedule. Green Bay faces the New York Giants (3-8), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-6), Carolina Panthers (1-9), Minnesota Vikings (6-5) and Chicago Bears (3-8) over the final five. Falling to 4-8 but winning the final five to get to 9-8 would give the Packers a 91 percent chance of making the postseason.

Current NFC playoff standings

1. Eagles (8-1)
2. Lions (8-2)
3. 49ers (7-3)
4. Saints (5-5)
5. Cowboys (7-3)
6. Seahawks (6-4)
7. Vikings (6-5)
8. Packers (4-6)

Of course, last year’s run didn’t end in a postseason appearance. But rebounding from 4-6 and getting back into the playoff hunt in the first year with Jordan Love as the quarterback would be far different than doing so in the final year of the Aaron Rodgers era.

The Packers have won two of three games, avoided the rock bottom scenario and given themselves a chance to be in the hunt over the final seven games. There’s a long way to go, and it will be challenging to carry over built-up momentum against two terrific teams. There’s also no guaranteeing the Packers — who have lost to plenty of average teams already this season and still haven’t won two games in a row — will be capable of ripping off multiple wins during the stretch run, no matter the opponents.

But the Packers have a chance. Love is playing his best football of the season. The rookie playmakers on offense have come alive in a big way. The defense got some lucky breaks but also stopped a top quarterback late on Sunday.

Can LaFleur’s team steal a game against the Lions or Chiefs and win a bunch of games against a favorable five-game schedule to finish the season? While still a long shot, the 4-6 Packers are still alive and have a path to the postseason.

This NFL playoff picture simulator doesn’t like the Saints’ chances

The New York Times’ NFL playoff picture simulator doesn’t like the New Orleans Saints’ chances:

The New York Times’ NFL playoff picture simulator doesn’t like the New Orleans Saints’ chances to go the distance. After Week 8’s games, the NYT gives the Saints a 55% shot at making the playoffs — and just a 33% chance of winning the NFC South.

That’s a little unusual given the circumstances. The Saints are tied with the Atlanta Falcons for the division lead right now with both teams limping to a 4-4 record. Atlanta just benched (but not really?) their struggling starting quarterback Desmond Ridder, and they’ve lost their best defensive lineman Grady Jarrett for the season.

But the NYT likes the Falcons better. Atlanta has a 71% chance at reaching the postseason and a 54% shot at winning the division. How they arrived at these conclusions is a mystery wrapped within a knot of advanced stats and various rating systems (which you can read more about here).

And the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are still in the mix, trailing the 4-4 Saints and Falcons with their 3-4 record. The NYT playoff picture simulator gives the Bucs a 29% shot at making the playoffs but just 13% odds of winning the NFC South. At the end of the day it’s too soon predict anything definitively. We’ll just have to let the games play out and see where everyone stands once the dust settles.

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Four new mock drafts following Packers trade of Aaron Rodgers

Three-round mock drafts from the Packers Wire staff following the Aaron Rodgers trade to the Jets.

The Green Bay Packers moved up two spots in the first round and acquired a second-round pick from the New York Jets as part of the trade that is sending Aaron Rodgers to New York.

The Packers now have three top-50 picks and four top-100 picks to use in the 2023 draft, which begins this week. Can Brian Gutekunst use the valuable picks to begin building up his team around Jordan Love?

Here are four new three-mock drafts for the Packers, one each from the staff at Packers Wire, all using the PFF simulator:

NFL draft simulator offers up 3 huge trades for Saints

This NFL draft simulator offered up three huge trades for the New Orleans Saints. Which one would you sign off on?

Could this be the year the New Orleans Saints finally trade down? There’s a precedent for teams trading into the final picks of the first round, hoping to secure a coveted fifth-year option for rookies taken in the first frame, and this might be their best shot to benefit from it and win back some of the future draft capital they sacrificed over the last year.

To get an idea of which trade offers might be out there, we ran a draft simulation on Pro Football Network which offered three different prompts for the No. 29 overall pick (and the updated Rich Hill draft pick valuation chart helps grade each of them). Which of these offers would you sign off on?

2020 NFL Draft: Comparing 5 Saints mock draft scenarios

The New Orleans Saints are likely to draft a wide receiver early and bulk up the offensive line, if 2020 NFL Draft mock-ups are accurate.

It’s one thing to come up with a mock-up of the 2020 NFL Draft out of thin air; it’s something else entirely to step over to The Draft Network and give their mock draft simulator a spin — five times. That’s what we’ve done, setting the board to be automatically filled by their algorithm, revealing five different scenarios for the Saints.

So to be clear: there was no input from us in the selections, just the program making decisions based off predetermined team needs and the prospects that were available. It was an interesting exercise. Here’s who ended up wearing black and gold in each of the five simulations:

Scenario 1

Round 1, Pick 24. Justin Jefferson, WR LSU
Round 3, Pick 88. Jake Fromm, QB Georgia
Round 4, Pick 120. Solomon Kindley, IOL Georgia
Round 5, Pick 151. David Woodward, LB Utah State
Round 6, Pick 183. D.J. Wonnum, EDGE South Carolina

Eat your heart out, SEC fans. The Saints ended up with an ideal number-two wide receiver, a potential quarterback of the future, and a starting-quality guard. Jefferson is almost tailor-made for the Saints offense and it’s encouraging that he was available in this first run. Fromm has been described as having some of the same strengths and weaknesses as Drew Brees (limited downfield passing ability but nice short-range accuracy), which is troubling considering he doesn’t have two decades of wear and tear in the NFL to explain his limitations. Kindley feels like a steal in the fourth round.

Woodward and Wonnum are nice depth, with Wonnum measuring out as one of the more-explosive linebackers at the combine (he recorded a 123-inch broad jump at 6-foot-5, 258 pounds), though he probably figures to play with his hand in the dirt as an undersized defensive end like Trey Hendrickson and Carl Granderson. Woodard is more of a marginal athlete, clocking the 40-yard dash in 4.79 seconds at 6-foot-2, 230 pounds, but that didn’t stop him from averaging 13-plus tackles the last two years at Utah State. He has a knack for finding the football, with six forced fumbles (and a recovery) and two interceptions in that same span.

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