{"id":90428,"date":"2025-05-30T10:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T10:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/90428\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T10:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T10:55:11","slug":"espns-football-power-index-has-the-new-orleans-saints-ranked-dead-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/90428\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN&#8217;s Football Power Index has the New Orleans Saints ranked dead last"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hey, there&#8217;s nowhere to go but up. <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SethWalder\/status\/1927456929468518552\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:ESPN&#039;s Seth Walder shared a look;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">ESPN&#8217;s Seth Walder shared a look<\/a> at the first NFL Football Power Index (FPI) rankings ahead of the 2025 preseason, which has the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/new-orleans-saints\/350\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:New Orleans Saints;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">New Orleans Saints<\/a> at the very bottom &#8212; ranking at No. 32 among the league&#8217;s 32 teams.<\/p>\n<p>FPI, which is updated regularly in the offseason and daily during the regular season, is defined as &#8220;a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team&#8217;s performance going forward for the rest of the season. FPI represents <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/fpi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:how many points above or below average a team is;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">how many points above or below average a team is<\/a>. Projected results are based on 10,000 simulations of the rest of the season using FPI, results to date, and the remaining schedule.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s just the latest sign that the Saints have a lot of work to do in cleaning up their image. They need to prove their doubters (of which there are many) wrong and win a lot of games this year. But that&#8217;s easier said than done, especially with a new head coach and no sure thing at quarterback.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re curious about the rest of the NFC South, the Saints were joined in the bottom tier by the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/atlanta-falcons\/323\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Atlanta Falcons;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Atlanta Falcons<\/a> (at No. 26) and <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/carolina-panthers\/364\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Carolina Panthers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Carolina Panthers<\/a> (No. 28), but the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/tampa-bay-buccaneers\/362\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Tampa Bay Buccaneers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Tampa Bay Buccaneers<\/a> (No. 14) are expected to hold onto the division title.<\/p>\n<p>But did the FPI rankings get it right last year? They were too bullish on a <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/san-francisco-49ers\/359\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:San Francisco 49ers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">San Francisco 49ers<\/a> team that ranked first but suffered too many injuries and only won six games. Like everyone else, they ruled out the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/washington-commanders\/363\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Washington Commanders;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Washington Commanders<\/a> (at No. 28) who stunned the football world by reaching the NFC Championship Game. And in the NFC South specifically, they called down years for the Saints (No. 26) and Carolina Panthers (No. 32) while overrating the Atlanta Falcons (No. 15), who went into the year with a comfortable lead over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (No. 22). Maybe this year&#8217;s story plays out differently.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/saintswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/saints\/2025\/05\/30\/espn-football-power-index-rankings-new-orleans-saints-falcons-panthers-buccaneers\/83905605007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:ESPN: Football Power Index ranks the New Orleans Saints in last place;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">ESPN: Football Power Index ranks the New Orleans Saints in last place<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hey, there&#8217;s nowhere to go but up. ESPN&#8217;s Seth Walder shared a look at the first NFL Football&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[254,260,7,24291,896,55,2572,2571,6,498,397,252,250,23969,111],"class_list":{"0":"post-90428","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-saints","8":"tag-atlanta-falcons","9":"tag-carolina-panthers","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-fpi","12":"tag-new-orleans","13":"tag-new-orleans-saints","14":"tag-neworleans","15":"tag-neworleanssaints","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-nfl-football","18":"tag-saints","19":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","20":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","21":"tag-team-strength","22":"tag-washington-commanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114596421521324695","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90428","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=90428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}