See, this ain’t wild card weekend no more. After going 4-0 SU(!) last week, the much-touted Indianapolis Colts and Dallas Cowboys went down SU/ATS despite rather generous point spreads. After all, many have taken for granted the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Rams’ appearances in at least their prospective conference championship games.
In this divisional round, chalk is talking once again. Updating a stat from yesterday, the home team – in all cases the favorite – is on a 12-3 SU (11-4 ATS) run in conference championship games. Put it down to the weather, the continued travel (we’ll see how the Chargers look today after having gone Los Angeles to Denver to L.A. to Baltimore to L.A. to Boston) or the inherent advantages of a bye week, this is one trend NFLbets believes won’t regress yet and certainly not for
Before NFLbets starts anything, we’re throwing away the concept of “Foles Magic.” Concepts which cannot be quantified have little purpose in the serious NFL bettor’s analytic tools. And even believers have got to admit that the dude have the tiniest amount of fairy dust last weekend: Sure, Foles and the Eagles offense looked solid on the game-winning fourth quarter drive, but the game wouldn’t have been on the line at all if the Jolly Blonde Reaper hadn’t been handed a TD drive by a defense who’d briefly morphed into the Jacksonville Jaguars’. (Twelve men on the field? Who gets called for that in the playoffs?)
So let’s talk the numbers, in which we may find truth.
The Saints haven't exactly been dominant lately, going a mere 1-4 ATS (3-2 SU) since Thanksgiving. NFLbets isn't going to take this too seriously, as the win over the Falcons on the holiday put New Orleans at 10-1 and essentially had all but clinched the NFC South title. The mark also includes the week 17 loss against the Panthers in which second-stringers played.
Instead let’s remember that, after the win over Atlanta, the Saints had gone 9-2 ATS and 5-1 ATS at home. Not only this, this first half of New Orleans’s season was actually more difficult and included a 3-0 SU/ATS mark against playoff teams. One of those wins was the 48-7 pasting of these same Eagles (sorry, with mere mortal Carson Wentz at QB) in week 11.
As for the Saints offense vs the Eagles defense, well, this may be a mismatch. Drew Brees has once again driven New Orleans into the top 10 in most offensive statistical categories, and this offense’s efficiency can defy measure or description for stretches. Brees brings his ridiculous 74.4% completion rate against an Eagles defense ranked 30th in completions and passing yardage.
Eagles backers may point to Philly’s run defense, which ranks no. 1 in attempts, is top-10 in most rushing stats and gets the no. 9 in Football Outsiders’ DVOA metric. But geez, the Eagles have proven just as susceptible to stud halfbacks relying on either power or evasiveness as any other team: They gave up 100+ to Saquon Barkley and Ezekiel Elliott twice each.
While doing a decent job stuffing Christian McCaffrey and Cam Newton in week 7, Saints RBs Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram went for a combined 174 yards and two TDs on the ground alone in the aforementioned win over the Eagles – and certainly not even the most ardent Foles supporter could blame this on Wentz.
The truth is that Sean Payton is certain to vary up the playbook from his Saints’ last meeting with the Eagles, but by how much will he need to? The only teams which have been able to stop New Orleans scoring at will have been the Cowboys (in week 13) and the Panthers (in week 15), both superior defenses to Philadelphia’s.
As uninteresting as it sounds, go chalk to close out the weekend: Take the New Orleans Saints -8 against Philadelphia.
(Come on, we’ve known it was going to be Rams/Saints in the NFC Conference Championship Game for a while now…)
NFLbets Best Bets record in 2018-19: 38-30-2.
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