NFL analytics expert predicts New Orleans Saints win total for 2024 season

The biggest question in the Big Easy — will the Saints continue their recent trend and miss the playoffs. Again. Or will the offense perk up and move New Orleans to a division title and perhaps beyond?

One analytics expert believes New Orleans won’t be a factor this year. Cynthia Frelund, who works with NFL Network, is predicting a third-place finish in the NFC South. Ouch.

However, Derek Carr still is in charge, with the quarterback kicking off his second year with the Saints. He was a high-dollar acquisition a year and he’s feeling more comfortable with a new offense being coordinated by Klint Kubiak.

“We’re so far ahead of where we were last year, just as a team, just as a group of guys,” Carr told reporters last month.

However, Frelund predicts 7.4 wins. She recently broke down projected win totals for all 32 teams. Frelund didn’t have great news for the Saints, based on her formula that’s a mixture of stats, history and trends. Numbers can be so cold.

“Using the projected 53-man rosters as of May 14, I ran 150,000 simulations for all 272 regular-season games,” she wrote.

She also noted “remember, these simulations account for many contextualized data points that have been proven to correlate to wins and losses based on historical football games that were actually played.”

New Orleans Saints odds for 2024

• Win Total: under 7.5 (+100)
• Make Playoffs: +190
• Win Division: +350
• Win Conference: +4000
• Win Super Bowl: +8000

Frelund wrote of the Saints:

“Chase Young and Willie Gay Jr. shift the defensive forecast for a team that finished in the bottom five in sacks and pressures (per Pro Football Reference’s count). Following a Week 1 divisional matchup against the Panthers, the Saints immediately encounter their toughest four-game stretch of the season, with three contests coming on the road: at Dallas, vs. Philadelphia, at Atlanta, at Kansas City (MNF).”

Young got his start in the NFL in 2020 when the Commanders made him the second pick of the draft. Washington traded him last year to the 49ers.

And speaking of San Francisco, that’s where the Saints got their new offensive coordinator. Kubiak was the passing game coordinator for the NFC champions. He held similar roles with the Broncos and Vikings. If his name sounds familiar, he’s the son of Gary Kubiak, who led the Broncos to the Super Bowl and was the head coach of the Texans.

Overall, Frelund placed the 49ers as the top team in the NFC with a projection of 11.2 wins. San Fran is a hair ahead of the Eagles, with 11.1 wins. She then projects the Lions third with 10.6 wins and the Falcons fourth with 9.9. After all, they have a new head coach (Raheem Morris) and new quarterback Kirk Cousins. Saints fans will have a new quarterback to boo. Coincidentally, their new coordinator used to coach Cousins.

Meanwhile, the final three playoff teams predicted in this early look at 2024 are the Packers at 9.8 wins, Rams at 9.2 and the Cowboys at 9.1. In the South, Frelund believes the Buccaneers also will finish ahead of the Saints.

You can check out all of Frelund’s predictions here. And check out On3.com’s NFL coverage here.