Chiefs vs. Saints Spread

Written by Jason Lowry

In week 11 action of the NFL the New Orleans Saints will look to bounce back from another loss on the road, as the Falcons cleaned house 34-20 last week, to keep the Saints winless on the road at 0-4. They will look to turn that around this weekend when they head to Kansas City to take on the 1-8 Chiefs. Now before you go picking the Saints to win this one, the Chiefs have really played some good football over the last few weeks, as they have had 4th quarter leads in all over their last 3 games. For those of you looking to bet on the NFL this weekend, the oddsmakers have the Saints 5.5 point favorites over the Chiefs.

The Saints are hoping to get Reggie Bush back in the lineup this weekend, as the star running back has missed the last 2 games with an injury. Even without Bush this offense has put up some monster yardage this season, and that was the case last week when Drew Brees threw for 422 yards and 2 scores, while a combo of backs ran for over a 100 yards. Now it wasn’t all good for this unit, as they trailed the whole game, and Brees had plenty of mistakes including 1 of 3 interceptions that was returned for a touchdown. Now the Chiefs have been pretty good against the pass, giving up just 171 yards a game, but have not been good at all against the run. With the Saints a very pass happy team, it will be interesting to see if they try and expose the Chiefs weakness or continue to air it out.

The Saints defense hasn’t really stopped anybody this season, and last week they let rookie Matt Ryan carve up their secondary for 248 yards and 2 scores including a 67 yard dump pass to Jerious Norwood that went for a score. The Saints weren’t much better against the run, as Michael Turner ran it 27 times for 96 yards and a score. With the Chiefs playing about as good as football as they have all season, and in front of their home crowd, this unit better come to play or its going to be a very close one in Kansas City.

The Chiefs continue to get excellent play out of quarterback Tyler Thigpen, and its hard to figure out just where its coming from, as this is the same quarterback that looked awful when he stepped in the lineup early in the season. Thigpen has thrown for 710 yards and 6 scores since taking over the starting job again, and last week he had 266 with 3 scores, but was unable to hook up with Tony Gonzalez for a 2pt conversion that would of gave the Chiefs the win. Gonzalez continues to play at such a high level, as he led the Chiefs with 10 catches for 113 yards and 2 scores last week. The running game did struggle last week, but star running back Larry Johnson is expected to be back in action this week, and that should really help get this team going on the ground.

The Chiefs defense played pretty well last week, considering the fact that LaDainian Tomlinson had just 78 yards on 22 carries, and was kept out of the endzone. Philip Rivers did throw for 316 yards and 2 scores, but the Chiefs were able to intercept two of Rivers passes to keep them from jumping ahead. This week the Chiefs face a passing attack that is capable of throwing for 500 yards, so if the offense isn’t able to put together some solid drives, this defense is going to ware down quick, and likely wind up losing this one in front of their home fans.

Comments

Got something to say?