New Orleans at San Francisco

The Saints grabbed a win vs. the Vikings last week while the Niners were completely out-played in a 31-6 loss to Seattle on the road. The Saints win lost a bit of luster yestrerday as Minnesota dropped to 0-2. Clearly Favre is paying for his decision to again sit out of camp. The Saints’ offense started off the regular season with a bang. Within five plays, Drew Brees had his team up 7-0. And then their offense stalled. However, I think their offense is going to get going this week. This team is better offensively than most, and we did see some good offenses find their way yesterday. Peyton Manning and the Colts put up 24 in the first half on way to 38. Green Bay scored 34, Atlanta 41, Philadelphia 35, San Diego 38 and Houston 30. While we scored heavily with UNDERs yesterday, we were more focused on games with average quarterbacks. Phillip Rivers, Peyton Manning, Matt Shaub and Aaron Rodgers all got it clicking yesterday and put up big-time points. I expect the same from Drew Brees tonight, especially with 11 days of prep and desire to atone for a lackluster week one outing. The Niners offense also has motivation here. They scored just 6 points last week. In the NFL, scoring less than 10 is embarrassing and putting up less than 7 is downright awful - and motivating. You can bet they have been busting butt this week and will have much more success at home. Under Sean Payton, the Saints are 33-19 OVER vs. conference opponents, 26-15 OVER after a win and 16-5 OVER when coming off a home win. Last season New Orleans averaged 32 points per game and San Francisco averaged 21 per game, reaching 20+ eleven times. If both of these teams can get to 20 points tonight (feasible), we should see this one go OVER. Over the past couple of seasons, the Saints are 18-4 OVER and the Niners 10-0 OVER when both teams score 20 or more.