NFL Betting Preview: New Orleans Saints at Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Added on Oct 17, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

Busy day of NFL betting action on Sunday and we’ll take a look at a game between the defending Superbowl Champion New Orleans Saints and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Tampa has already matched their 3 win total of a year ago, while the Saints have lost two of their last three games to drop to 3-2 on the season.

New Orleans Saints at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
October 17, 2010 10:00 AM Pacific

There’s no bigger ‘public’ team in sports than the defending Superbowl Champion. Obviously going against the ‘public’ is a winning strategy longterm but it’s been incredibly successful with regards to this New Orleans Saints team. New Orleans is 1 point away from being 0-5 against the spread this year–their only victory was a 5 point win as -4′ favorites in their season opener against Minnesota. With the struggles of the Vikings since then, that’s not particularly impressive. The 5 point win over Minnesota is New Orleans’ widest margin of victory this season–their other wins were by 3 points at San Francisco and 2 points at home against Carolina. In other words, they’ve won their three games by an average of 3.33 points per game–less than the pointspread here.

Tampa Bay still has work to do before they’re a serious postseason contender but they’re definitely headed in the right direction. Josh Freeman is becoming a competent and steady, if not spectacular, NFL quarterback. He catches a break here as the Saints are without cornerback Tracy Porter who is out with a torn MCL. The Saints have plenty of other injuries on both sides of the ball as well. The Bucs’ aren’t particularly strong against the run, but with New Orleans’ running backs Reggie Bush and Pierre Thomas out the Saints’ rushing attack is downgraded.

The Bucs ‘win ugly’ and that’s the perfect gameplan to beat the Saints. Getting more than a FG with the home team is huge in light of New Orleans’ narrow margins of victory this year and there’s just no way you can lay points with them. Even giving them the benefit of the doubt and grading their Minnesota win as an ATS victory (there were plenty of people who pushed the game at 5) they’re 5-13 ATS in their last 18 games. If Tampa can turn the game into their preferred style they’ve got a legit shot at the outright upset. We’ll also go Under the total here–3 of the last 4 head to head meetings have gone Under.

Bet Tampa Bay +4′ over New Orleans
Bet Tampa Bay/New Orleans Under 44′