The Saints are being deprived.

The next team to get short-changed out of a regular season home game? The New Orleans Saints.

While this is only the second game that the league is playing outside of North America, it's already interesting that a home game is being taken away from one of the lesser-market teams. If one thing is for sure though, it's the fact that the league chose two teams with more potential to play in Europe this season than they did last season.

When the league announced that the Miami Dolphins would host the New York Giants last year, the game didn't seem like a great way to showcase the league's best talent. Prior to last season, the Dolphins were a team hoping to improve under new head coach Cam Cameron, and the Giants were coming off of a season that many considered a joke due to all of the heat among players.

When the Giants beat the Dolphins 13-10 in London, the conditions weren't the greatest and the Giants didn't play like an elite team. Little did we know, that Giants team went on a tear to close out the season and now find themselves in the Super Bowl.

Next year, the Saints and the Chargers are two teams that will have playoff expectations. The Chargers' expectations will be particularly high after making the AFC Championship in Norv Turner's first year -- including a stretch of games that saw the maturity of quarterback Philip Rivers.

Meanwhile, the Saints will have had an offseason's worth of time to get back to the path they were on two years ago. The lack of a home game wasn't made a significant issue this year for the Dolphins because quite frankly, it didn't seem like it would've made a difference with how bad they were. Again this season, it'll be interesting to see how disappointed some of the die-hard Saints fans are knowing they'll be with one less "true" home game.