Looking Ahead To Week 8: Saints at Broncos

Now that the Denver Broncos schedule has been released, we are going to take a game-by-game look at the regular season that the Broncos have in front of them.

The Broncos’ schedule before their bye week has them facing four playoff teams in six weeks. The other two games are division games against the Raiders and Chargers. Needless to say their bye at week seven couldn’t come at a better time.

Fresh off their bye, the Broncos host another primetime game on Sunday night against the New Orleans Saints.  The Saints have their bye in week six, and they take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in week seven.

The Saints went  13-3 last season and won their last eight games of the regular season. They beat Lions in the wildcard round before losing to the 49ers in the divisional round.

Drew Brees led the league in passing last year and completed an astounding 71.2% of his passes. He also threw the second most passes out of any quarterback in the league.  The Saints’ offense was 2nd in points (34.2 per game), 6th in rushing, and 1st in passing.

The team’s defense was ranked 13th in points allowed, 12th in rush defense, and 30th in pass defense. If their defense was half as good as their offense, there’s no way anybody could have stopped them.

The Saints still haven’t re-signed Drew Brees, but that’s not too much of a concern. They were able to keep Marques Colston. They did lose guard Carl Nicks, but they signed Ben Grubbs. Other key additions include linebackers Curtis Lofton and David Hawthorne.

Early Prediction: Broncos – 33 Saints – 28. This is another offensive battle between Manning and Brees, but the Broncos’ defense prevails.

Saints Leaders in 2011:

Drew Brees – 468-for-657 (71.2%), 5,476 passing yards, 46 TDs, 14 INTs

Darren Sproles – 603 yards (37.7 per game), 2 TDs, Pierre Thomas and Mark Ingram with 5 TDs each.

Jimmy Graham- 99 receptions, 1,310 yards, 11 TDs

Roman Harper – 95 tackles, 7.5 sacks

Patrick Robinson – 4 INTs

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