{"id":415507,"date":"2025-10-03T00:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T00:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/415507\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T00:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T00:43:10","slug":"espn-saints-weak-strength-of-schedule-could-cost-them-2026-first-overall-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/415507\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN: Saints’ weak strength of schedule could cost them 2026 first overall pick"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Orleans Saints<\/a> are in the driver’s seat for the 2026 NFL draft — for now. After all, the draft doesn’t start tomorrow. The order of picks is going to change, and it’s very possible that a weak strength of schedule results in the Saints playing their way out of picking first overall.<\/p>\n

According to ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI)<\/a>, which simulates the remainder of the season based off team ratings and game locations, among other factors, the Saints only have a 17.5% chance of earning the first overall pick in 2026. Instead, it’s the Tennessee Titans who are most favored to pick first (doing so in 40.3% of simulations).<\/p>\n

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Now that doesn’t mean the model expects the Saints to turn things around and get back to the playoffs. An overwhelming 63.3% of FPI models have them picking top-five in 2026. There’s an even larger degree of certainty that New Orleans will end up inside the top 10 picks (88.4%). Their average draft position is 5.3, which suggests the fifth overall pick is likeliest.<\/p>\n

If you’re wondering why that is, just look at the latest standings. The Saints are scheduled to play five of their 13 remaining games against teams that are 1-3 or 0-4. Including their season-opening loss to the Arizona Cardinals, 11 of their 17 games are against teams with two wins or fewer going into Week 5. New Orleans has a strength of schedule at .485, one of the lowest in the league. Tennessee’s is .529, one of the highest. That helps the Saints in a tiebreaker, but the Titans are likelier to lose more games and avoid a tie in the first place.<\/p>\n

Maybe the model is right. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe Kellen Moore and his coaching staff can right this ship and get us to stop refreshing Tankathon<\/a>. We’ll just have to wait and see how this plays out.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: 2026 NFL draft: ESPN predicts Saints pick high, but not first overall<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Orleans Saints are in the driver’s seat for the 2026 NFL draft — for now. After…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[4955,390,7,23970,896,55,2572,2571,6,187,397,10736,394,494],"class_list":{"0":"post-415507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-saints","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-arizona-cardinals","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-football-power-index","12":"tag-new-orleans","13":"tag-new-orleans-saints","14":"tag-neworleans","15":"tag-neworleanssaints","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-pick","18":"tag-saints","19":"tag-strength-of-schedule","20":"tag-tennessee-titans","21":"tag-the-saints"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115307466214101117","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}