Week 17 of the 2024-25 NFL season will contain the New Orleans Saints hosting the Las Vegas Raiders in the next-to-last regular season game for both teams. By this point of the year, the postseason fate of both teams should be all but decided.

Neither squad is favored by odds makers to make the 2025 playoffs. New Orleans is coming off a 9-8 season, their third straight year without a playoff berth. The Raiders, seemingly in an annual rebuild, are coming off an 8-9 finish after firing coach Josh McDaniels at mid-season. This franchise has just two postseason trips over the last 22 seasons.

It will be just the 16th all-time meeting between the Saints and a Raiders franchise that has had homes in Oakland (twice), Los Angeles, and now Las Vegas. These teams last met during the 2022 season. That game was in New Orleans, site of this year’s matchup.

• 7-7-1 all-time record
• 4-3 home

The first meeting between these teams took place one year after the AFL-NFL merger. New Orleans hosted the Oakland Raiders at mid-season at mid-season during the 1971 campaign in Tulane Stadium. The Saints actually outgained the Raiders on the day by over 130 yards. However, it took two fourth quarter touchdowns, with the last a touchdown pass from QB Edd Hargett to WR Dave Parks, for the Saints to salvage a 21-21 tie.

The next matchup between these teams was during the 1975 season. This time in Oakland, the Saints were destroyed by a 48-10 score on a day where the Raiders rolled up 523 total yards and 260 on the ground against only 140 yards from New Orleans. It was the first of three straight wins by the Raiders over the Saints in this series. The second of the three was one of the more infuriating losses in Saints franchise history.

Late in the 1979 season, the Saints hosted the Raiders in the Superdome on Monday Night Football. New Orleans exploded for four touchdowns in the second quarter to take a 28-7 lead. They’d extend that lead to 35-14 in the third quarter with an interception return for a touchdown from LB Ken Bordelon. After that, everything fell apart.

The Saints got 128 yards rushing and a score from RB Chuck Muncie along with 106 yards receiving and two scores from RB Tony Galbreath that night. It wasn’t enough. Raiders QB Ken Stabler threw for 295 yards and Cliff Branch accounted for 126 yards receiving as Oakland come roaring back in the fourth quarter for a 42-35 win. Eventually finishing the year at 8-8, the loss kept the Saints from their first winning record in franchise history.

That would be the last meeting between New Orleans and the Oakland Raiders for 15 years. When next these teams met, the Los Angeles Raiders beat New Orleans in L.A. by a 23-13 score in 1985. In 1988, New Orleans hosted those Los Angeles Raiders and dominated their way to a 20-6 win. The Saints got 109 rushing yards from RB Craig Heyward and 52 more from Dalton Hilliard in the victory.

New Orleans next hosted the Los Angeles Raiders in the next-to-last week of the 1991 season. The Saints took a decisive 27-0 win. New Orleans got 320 yards passing from QB Bobby Hebert and 127 yards receiving from WR Quinn Early. Meanwhile, the suffocating Saints defense held Los Angeles to just 117 yards of total offense while recording four sacks and returning an interception for a touchdown.

The last meeting between the Los Angeles Raiders and Saints took place in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1994. Raiders QB Jeff Hostetler outdueled Saints QB Jim Everett that afternoon for a 24-19 Los Angeles win. The Raiders would re-relocate to Oakland after that season. They’d next host the Saints in 1997, a 13-10 New Orleans win.

Oakland made their next appearance in New Orleans during the 2000 campaign. Both squads came into the contest with good records and would go on to win their division, but the Raiders took this one by a 31-22 score. The Saints lost QB Jeff Blake to a broken foot in the first quarter. Backup Aaron Brooks would guide the team for the rest of the year, leading New Orleans to their first playoff win in franchise history.

Brooks and WR Joe Horn led the Saints to a 31-26 win over the Raiders in Oakland in 2004. New Orleans next hosted the Raiders in 2008. Quarterback Drew Brees peppered the Oakland defense for 320 yards and three scores in a 34-3 dismantling.

Brees led his Saints to a 38-17 win in Oakland during the 2012 season, a three-game winning streak in the series that matched the Raiders for the longest by either team. The Raiders were coached that day by Dennis Allen, a former and future Saints defensive coach now in his third year as head coach of New Orleans.

Oakland next traveled to New Orleans for a showdown in the 2016 season opener. The game was a shootout, with both teams combining for 993 yards of total offense and 69 points. Drew Brees threw for yards 423 yards and four scores, including a 98-yard touchdown to WR Brandin Cooks that set a franchise record.

Cooks and WR Willie Snead combined for 15 catches and 315 of those yards. Not to be outdone, Raiders QB Derek Carr threw for 319 yards of his own. A touchdown pass by Carr in the final minute of the game propelled the Raiders to a 35-34 shootout victory.

After the 2019 season, the Raiders would relocate again, this time to Las Vegas. For their first game in their new building, Las Vegas would host the Saints on Monday Night Football in the second game of the 2020 season. While Brees threw for 312 yards, Carr countered with 284 yards and three scores of his own in a 34-24 win for the Raiders.

These teams last met during the 2022 season in New Orleans, Dennis Allen’s first year as head coach since being fired by Oakland in 2014. The Saints defense dominated the game in a 24-0 win, holding the Raiders to just 183 total yards while sacking Derek Carr four times. New Orleans RB Alvin Kamara provided all the offense the team would need, rushing for 62 yards and catching nine passes for 96 yards while scoring all three of the game’s touchdowns.

After nine years as quarterback of the Raiders, Derek Carr is now in his second season with the Saints. Undoubtedly, Carr and Dennis Allen will want to show their former team that they made a mistake when moving on from them. More importantly for the Saints, Allen and Carr need to cement their futures with their current franchise.