Betting Picks

Falcons at Saints: TNF NFL Week 12 Betting Preview and Pick

On Turkey Thursday, it’s an NFC South matchup with the Atlanta Falcons visiting the New Orleans Saints. It’s the first time the teams have played each other on the holiday and the first time New Orleans has hosted a Thanksgiving game. Furthermore, the Falcons vs Saints odds are certainly enticing.

It’s usually a back-and-forth game when Matt Ryan and Drew Brees face off, which was certainly the case Week 3 in Atlanta when the Saints were 43-37 overtime winners as 1.5-point underdogs. That the Saints were underdogs seems laughable now with how good they have become.

Brees will hold every NFL passing record when he retires and isn’t exactly the most mobile QB, but he rushed for two TDs in that first meeting, a 7-yarder with 1:15 to play to tie it at 37-all (after the PAT) and then the winning 1-yard run with 2:55 left in overtime. Atlanta never got possession in the extra session.

The Falcons vs Saints odds have New Orleans as a 13-point favorite Thursday. That’s the biggest on the Week 12 board, but Atlanta will be our against the spread pick. The total is 59 points.

Why Atlanta will cover the Falcons vs Saints odds

We can’t give you any great statistical facts to back Atlanta because the Falcons clearly aren’t as good as the Saints. That is certainly what the Falcons vs Saints odds say. However, these are division rivals who know each other intimately and they tend to play very close games as evidenced by their first meeting of 2018. Plus, the Saints simply can’t keep rolling at this type of record-setting pace. They are almost due a bit of a down game after a gauntlet of Baltimore, Minnesota, Rams, Cincinnati and Philadelphia. We aren’t saying the Falcons win this game, but they can hang within 10.

The Falcons know they pretty much have to win out to have any shot at a wild-card spot at 4-6. They were 22-19 upset losers at home on Sunday to Dallas. Atlanta at least did show some fight in rallying from down 10 in the fourth quarter, only to allow the game-winning field goal as time expired. Julio Jones is on a roll with a fifth straight game of at least 100 yards receiving and third in a row with a TD.

New Orleans betting notes for Thursday

What more can be said about this team right now? Somehow, it lost at home to a bad Tampa Bay club in Week 1, but hasn’t lost since. Sunday, the Saints laid down the biggest beating of a defending Super Bowl champion ever, 48-7 over the Eagles. Brees is 39 years old and having arguably his best season in leading the NFL rating by far with 25 touchdown passes to just one interception.

New Orleans’ 144 points the past three weeks are a franchise record in any three-game stretch. The Saints are just the fourth team in NFL history to score 45-plus points in three straight games. They are averaging 4.4 offensive touchdowns per game. That record-setting 2007 New England Patriots offense averaged 4.0 per game. The Saints are just 1-5 ATS in their past six in Week 12, though.

New Orleans vs. Atlanta line movement

The NFL odds for this game opened with the spread as low as New Orleans -10, but after what it did to the Eagles that has shot up. The total has been steady.

New Orleans vs. Atlanta matchup trends

• The Falcons are 7-2 ATS in their past nine Thursday games.
• The underdog has covered eight of the past 10 in the series.
• Atlanta is 5-0 ATS in its past five as a double-digit ‘dog.