Payton plays down Saints’ wins over Panthers

NEW ORLEANS — Saints coach Sean Payton takes a small measure of comfort in New Orleans’ regular-season sweep of Carolina. It means the Saints (11-5) play the Panthers (11-5) in the Superdome, where New Orleans hasn’t lost a playoff game since 1992 and is 4-0 in the post-season under Payton.

Beyond that, however, the Saints coach asserts that teams evolve over the course of a season as they develop chemistry and adjust to roster or positional changes brought on by injuries.

Today, there will be a different psychology to performing in the post-season, when losing brings the season to a sudden end.

“Each game’s different,” said Payton, whose team took its first NFC South crown since 2011 by virtue of a head-to-head tiebreaker over Carolina.

“From the midpoint of the season, when Carolina got on a roll, you can see the confidence grow with that team. And you’re also talking about a team that [two years ago] was in the Super Bowl,” Payton said. “The prior two games don’t matter.”

Payton pointed out that the Panthers not only defeated two of the top teams in the NFL this season, New England and Minnesota, but beat the Patriots on the road.

Carolina coach Ron Rivera doesn’t play down the significance of those victories.

“I don’t think that is overplayed. I think that is a reality. But at the same time, we are playing against a team that has beat us twice,” Rivera said. “We have to figure out what went well and improve on that, and what went wrong and correct that.”

When the Saints pounded the Panthers by 21 in Carolina in Week 3, it began an eight-game winning streak that vaulted New Orleans to the top of the division for good. When New Orleans topped Carolina by 10 in the dome in Week 13, it ended a Panthers four-game winning streak and was one of only two losses in Carolina’s past nine games.