Your New Orleans Saints are on bye for Week 11, but which games should Saints fans tune in to this week? We’ve got one matchup on Thursday night worth watching, at least if you’re concerned about the 2026 NFL draft. The New York Jets (2-7) are visiting the New England Patriots (8-2) for an AFC East rivalry game, and this could have big draft order implications.
The Jets, of course, are one of the teams competing with the Saints for the first pick in the 2026 draft. An upset win would give New Orleans just a little more breathing room once they come out of their bye week, while a loss would muddy the picture that much more. So root for the Jets to show up their rivals on the road at Gillette Stadium.
What: New York Jets (2-8) at New England Patriots (8-2)When: 7:15 p.m. CT/8:15 p.m. ET on Thursday, Nov. 13Where: Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass.TV and Streaming: Thursday Night Football is broadcast exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.
Because these are both AFC teams, the result doesn’t impact the playoff picture in the NFC. Any interest Saints fans should have in the game purely come from a tank-for-the-draft perspective. Unless you’re holding Aaron Glenn’s decision to take the Jets job over the Saints’ offer against him and want to root for him to fail. But that would be weird, right?
It might be too soon to totally write off the Saints in a still-bad NFC South, especially if they really found something in rookie quarterback Tyler Shough (who just beat the division’s second-best team). But realistically, we’ve got to keep an eye on draft positioning. And the Saints will play five games against teams projected to pick top-10 if the draft started today:
Those head-to-head results are going to make a big impact on tiebreaking procedures in the 2026 draft, to say nothing of how they impact each team’s standings. It’s just one more factor to be aware of when the Saints come out of their bye week.