Atlanta at New Orleans

The Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Siants meet for the second time in less than a month. In the first meeting, the Falcons prevailed 34-20. The Saints lost and put up just 20 points despite Drew Brees throwing for 422 yards, and the offense posting 521 total yards. The Falcons contributed 361 yards, so the combined total offense here was just under 900 yards. These teams amazingly put up an additional 360 yards on returns as well, meaning the football moved over 1,200 yards in the game. You would think that this game went flying over the total, but that was hardly true. The total points scored of 54 was just 3 more than the total. However, despite the yardage numbers, it took a miracle to push it OVER. It took a 67-yard Matt Ryan pass to Jerious Norwood in the 4th quarter, a 95 yard interception return for a TD from Atlanta with just a minute to play, and then it still took a last second TD pass from Brees to send this one over! So, what looks on the surface to be a game that was destined to go over, it's just the opposite. The Falcons are a good offensive team at home producing 33 points per game, but they get only about half as miuch on the road where they produce just 15.6 ppg. At the same time they are allowing less than 20 ppg in their road games. That has resulted in five of six UNDERs on the road. In addition, 36 of their last 51 have gone UNDER when away from home. The Saints have played UNDER in 11 of their last 16 and allowed less than 150 passing yards their last game. I like this one to go UNDER the total.