One of the most entertaining and high scoring weeks in the NFL concludes with the Monday Night Football which sees football being played in Las Vegas for the first time when the Las Vegas Raiders host the New Orleans Saints in a tasty looking encounter.
Both teams picked up good wins last week so one of these will go 2-0 for their campaign and immediately have a platform from which to launch a charge if not for their division title then certainly for a playoff campaign.
Las Vegas Raiders
This is a big night for sport in Nevada. They have wanted a football team for a while and finally they have it. This is a chance for the Raiders to show what they can deliver this season and heading into their home opener off the back of a very good win away to the Carolina Panthers last week their confidence should be sky high. They will need their best stuff here but inspired by the surroundings there is no reason why we won’t get that from the Silver and Black.
One thing Las Vegas could do with improving on is getting to the quarterback. It is a dangerous game to play if they can’t get at Drew Brees and let him stand in the pocket and pick out his receivers at will do they will need to work out a way of getting pressure on him, something they were unable to do in Carolina last week. On the flip side the Raiders running game could be a very potent weapon both in point scoring and taking time off the clock.
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New Orleans Saints
Given the profile of the match last week, the New Orleans Saints got the job done nicely. They weren’t affected by the fanfare around it being the first game away from New England for Tom Brady and got stuck into their work nicely. They looked decent enough on both sides of the ball and managed to keep a potentially very dangerous offense relatively quiet. If they do that here then they will be well on their way to victory.
The big issue for the Saints going into this match is that they will be without their number one receiver in Michael Thomas and while they have adequate backups to him they lack might lack a receiver that stretches the field and creates the space for the short passing game that Brees was so successful with last week. Brees is getting no younger so if the Raiders stop the short passing game it will be interesting if he is still a threat with the deep ball.
Betting
For all that though I’m expecting something of an offensive shootout. I don’t think these high scoring matches we’ve been treated to are a coincidence. I made plenty of reference to tired defences last week and clearly we are seeing similar here. It is the nature of the beast with preparations for the season so clearly hampered. As it happens the Raiders secondary, particularly the corners, are very inexperienced and you’d expect the Saints to take advantage of that with or without Thomas.
The Raiders do have a nice balance on their own offense though and a running game that can cause problems for most teams in the league let alone defences that will tire quicker so I’m expecting this to be a match where the offenses will be on top. The point line for this one is 48.5 which is perfectly acceptable based on what we’ve seen so far and the offensive game I’m expecting to see here. I’ll take the over in this one.
Tips
WON – Back Over 48.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with 888sport
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