(Photo: Michael Bacigalupi)
NEW ORLEANS – It was easy to pinpoint exactly what was at stake for the Carolina Panthers on Sunday in the Caesars Superdome.
They entered the game against the New Orleans Saints with a 7-6 record, knowing that a victory would give them sole possession of first place in the NFC South.
The stakes for the home team weren’t so clear – beyond the weekly motivation provided by the pride of world-class competitors and their desire to try and win because that’s what they’re paid handsomely to do.
The added motivation provided by a chance to win a division or otherwise make the playoffs vanished for the Saints – mathematically last month and well before that as a practical matter.
But NFL players and coaches often find significant motivation from stuff that doesn’t automatically show up on the radar of outsiders.
Such was the case in the 4-10 Saints’ 20-17 victory against the Panthers as it has been for most of the last month and a half.
Saints head coach Kellen Moore talked Wednesday about how games against divisional opponents are important because every season you compete against them for tangible benefits and face them at least twice.
There is value in showing your division rivals that they had better be at their best each time you face each other and thereby breeding confidence in yourselves for each subsequent time you meet them.
The Saints have won three times in their last five games and all three victories have come against NFC South rivals. This surge (relatively speaking) started with an unexpected but nonetheless impressive 17-7 victory over the Panthers on November 9 in Charlotte.
After a bye and losses to division rival Atlanta as well as Miami it resumed with a division win at Tampa Bay last week and Sunday’s victory, in which New Orleans scored the final 13 points, which produced not only a season sweep against the most upwardly mobile division rival, but also the first winning “streak” of the season.
Moore also noted this week the importance of playing well, preferably your best, in the final weeks of any season.
NFL teams start preparing for each season in March and toil through the summer with the goal of being ascending as they enter the final stages of a 17-game grind. Teams that are trending upward in December tend to be successful in January and have the best chance of playing in the Super Bowl in February.
That desire to peak late doesn’t change just because you know you won’t be playing in February or even beyond the first week of January.
Moore is a first-year head coach building a program with a core of mostly young players. The road to success for his Saints ultimately will require frequent stops for games against the Panthers, Buccaneers and Falcons.
Carolina has had a losing record in seven consecutive seasons, but already it has two more wins than it had last season. The Panthers’ rebuilding is a bit ahead of the Saints’, but the head-to-head meetings this season suggest these two teams are living in the same neighborhood.
The Buccaneers, whose quest for a fifth consecutive division title will be determined by two games against the Panthers in the final three weeks, have come back to the pack to a large degree.
We’ll know more about the 5-9 Falcons after they host the Saints in the season finale. We know that after a 1-8 start, New Orleans’ franchise is looking more like one that is on the rise, even if it’s a gradual ascension.
Moore has demonstrated an appreciation for the value of building important habits even when the tangible rewards won’t be reaped in the immediate future.
“It’s just been awesome resiliency for our guys,” Moore said of the late-season improvement. “Obviously we are not going to be able to go to the playoffs this year, but we are building something really special and doing it the right way. Every single guy in that locker room, the way they prepare and compete and stay together through every experience – the last two weeks have been an awesome example of these guys.”