It’s never too early to look ahead into the future when it comes to Saints football. The Saints 2022 opponents have been “released” and have been out since the final regular season game. The Saints will play eight teams who are currently in the playoffs, and another team who was one to two games away from a playoff appearance.
The Saints will have the added 17th game in the Superdome this upcoming year after playing in Tennessee this past season.
For those who don’t know how the NFL scheduling works here a basic idea of how it works every year.
The easiest thing to understand is that six of the seventeen games are divisional games. Three home division games and three road division games. In case you don’t know those three teams include the Bucs, Panthers, and Falcons.
The next concept to understand is that every three years the Saints play the NFC division they played three years prior. For example the Saints will play the NFC division they played three seasons ago in 2019, which was the NFC West. Those four teams include the Rams, Cardinals, 49ers, and Seahawks. The way it’s determined who plays at home and on the road is based on the last cycle. In 2019, the Saints played the Seahawks in Seattle, so this time around they will play in New Orleans.
That has determined ten of the seventeen games.
The next NFL scheduling concept is division ranking. A team must play one team from the other two divisions in their conference. The Saints finished the year in second place of the NFC South behind the Bucs, so the Saints will play the second place team in the NFC North and NFC East which includes the Eagles and the Vikings.
Those are 12 of 17 games.
The finals five games will all be from the AFC. The Saints will play the AFC division that they played four years ago. In 2018 the Saints played the NFC North, so the Saints will play all the teams in that division. The games the Saints played on the road in 2018 against the AFC North, will be home games this upcoming season, and vice versa. In 2018 the Saints played the Bengals in Cincinnati, so this upcoming season they will play in New Orleans.
The final game is the added 17th game. It’s a team from the other conference who has the same ranking in their division as that team. So, the Saints would play the 2nd place AFC team in one of the other three divisions. The division that the Saints play is different each season, this year the Saints play the 2nd place team in the AFC West.
That’s how the NFL schedule is set every year. Here is a look at the Saints home and away opponents for the 2022 regular season.
Home
Falcons, Bucs, Panthers, Ravens , Bengals, Vikings, Rams, Seahawks, Raiders
Away
Falcons, Bucs, Panthers, Browns; Steelers, Eagles, Cardinals, 49ers
The Saints 2022 schedule will be announced before May.
Written By Kadin Janisch
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