Loomis has no problem with Saints’ early-season schedule

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The Saints got the short straw at the start of the season, with games out of the gates against the Texans on Monday night, at the Rams on a short week, at the Seahawks a week later, and at home against the Cowboys. G.M. Mickey Loomis has no problem with a challenging opening quarter of the season.

“I kind of like the schedule, I’ll be honest with you,” Loomis told reporters on Monday. “Our opponents are predetermined. It’s just a matter of when we play them. We received our bye week right in the middle of the season. I liked that. Those first four weeks are tough opponents, but we’re going to have to play them anyway during the course of the year. It is not like you can avoid playing teams you perceive as being pretty good. I think in the first half, we’re playing five of the eight, I think are playoff teams from a year ago. That is just the way it goes. We’re looking forward to it. We’re looking forward to playing the guys on the schedule that we have and we’ve got four prime-time games, three of those are at home. I like that too. I think we like our schedule.”

Those first four opponents were all playoff teams a year ago, and the Saints have started slowly in recent years, losing five straight season openers.

“I did not realize that until you reminded me,” Loomis said when the topic of the Week One losing streak came up. “I think we are always focused on starting fast and we have had some teams that have played good games against us, as much as anything. We get a home game against a really tough opponent [on] Monday Night Football and we’ve had success in those [home] prime time games. Hopefully we’ll have success this year.”

The Saints have had plenty of success over the past two years, but they’ve had heartbreaking postseason exits. It will be a challenge to go back to 0-0 and climb again, especially after the way the NFC title game ended.