NEW ORLEANS SAINTS @ ATLANTA FALCONS 
Vegas Line: Falcons + 0.5
Rob’s Line: Saints + 0.5
The Georgia Dome will reserve a special welcome for unpopular divisional foe the Saints when they waltz into town on Sunday for what is a fascinating NFC South matchup. New Orleans sits half a game up on Atlanta, but the Falcons are the form team of the two and a win would see them leapfrog the Saints in to first place.
This is not a scenario anybody really envisioned after Green Bay stunned the home crowd with 25 unanswered points in Week 5 that left the Falcons staring at a 2-3 record and dreams of the Super Bowl in tatters. In addition, rookie wide receiver Julio Jones left that game injured and their season was unravelling fast. However, some teams, when faced with adversity and almost nothing to lose, are the ones to fear the most and that defeat to the Packers galvanised them and tough games against the Panthers and Lions were turned into victories (without the injured Jones).
Then, last week, Jones finally showed us what he’s truly capable of with touchdown receptions of 50 and 80 yards against the Colts, the first of which he caught in triple coverage. All those draft picks traded to Cleveland to acquire the right to pick Jones sixth overall this year didn’t seem too heavy a price to pay all of a sudden and the rest of the league would’ve sat up and taken notice. The person who benefits the most from this is the Falcons’ leading receiver Roddy White, who may, finally, see a little less coverage himself; he should be hosting his own party in honour of Jones’ coming out party.
New Orleans took solid revenge last week on the Buccaneers while also exorcising the demons from the shocking 31-21 reversal to the Rams two weeks ago and this is a team with a ton of talent, particularly on offense. They rank in the top ten in both rushing and passing, but face an Atlanta defense good against the run so quarterback Drew Brees may be forced to try to win it through the air. That said, the Saints’ triple headed monster at running back (Darren Sproles, Mark Ingram and Pierre Thomas) have almost a thousand yards rushing between them so they’ll really test the resolve of Atlanta’s defensive front seven.
When Brees does drop back in the pocket, he can look to second year tight end receiving sensation Jimmy Graham and with Sproles already amassing 56 catches this year, he’s about as dependable a release valve as there is in the league and a wonderful all round threat; Brees must love seeing him in the huddle.
As we can see from the spread at the top of the page, this is so close to call and it could be a humdinger of a shootout and probably will be. I’m going to side with the home team, just because they’re the home team so take the Falcons and the narrowest of margins there is to offer.
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