If one were to simply go by last year’s final records, the New Orleans Saints will have the second-easiest slate of games in the NFL for the 2026 season . In fact, only the Cleveland Browns, who will play the Saints in Paris in late October, have a schedule that will feature teams that had a worse winning percentage last year.

Opponents of the Saints finished .434 last year, and that’s far behind the third-easiest schedule – Bengals at .450 – and fourth-easiest in the Colts at .465.

However, there’s more to it than simply going by last year’s records.

The past three seasons in a row, the Saints have been in a similar situation with bottom-5 toughest schedules.…