Hello CSRs,

It was a rough game on the road last week, easily one to forget, for fans at least. Let's get right to it.

NO @ CAR

Our line: Carolina by 20

New Orleans is going to get a small taste of what Carolina went through last week: traveling to play a tough division opponent on the road one week after trouncing a meager team at home. But this game goes a little deeper than that. First, while Win Grade (team fundamentals) shows Carolina as over playing itself a little, Real Points (strength of schedule) is very confident that Carolina belongs in the top five teams in the NFL, which really hurts New Orleans' chances of an upset. Looking at New Orleans' side of things we see that both rankings agree with where New Orleans stands, which unfortunately for them is far below Carolina. Specifically we see the Carolina defense as the dominant factor in this matchup. Despite all the hoopla about New Orleans' offense, they really struggle to run the football effectively, and they aren't going to figure out how to solve their ground game woes against Carolina, who has had some great success at limiting opposing RBs. New Orleans' continued struggles on the ground is going to put a lot of pressure on their passing game to perform, and this is something Carolina will not only be prepared for, but is quite capable of handling. Look for Carolina to frustrate the New Orleans offense while Delhomme gets back on track to lead Carolina to a nice methodical victory over their division opponents.

ITN rankings:

- Carolina #8 - The loss at Tampa was no surprise; we hinted in last week's rankings that trouncing a horrible team can actually make it harder to win your next game. So while everyone is drooling over the other teams in the NFC South, we expect the Panthers to get right back to churning out strong victories.

- New Orleans #21 - Now that the home stand against so-so opponents is over, we have to ask again: can New Orleans win football games relying solely on their passing game? We don't think they can, but they may have an answer for that with a healthy McCallister.