Week 7 of the NFL 2023 season begins in Louisiana on Thursday night when the New Orleans Saints welcome the Jacksonville Jaguars to the SuperDome to begin what looks like being another exciting week of action.
Both these teams are in reasonable shape going into this match with the Jaguars on top of the AFC South and the Saints only a game behind in the NFC South. Both will be looking to enhance their position with a win here.
New Orleans Saints
The New Orleans Saints had plenty of questions to answer going into the season with it being the first one in ages that Sean Payton wasn’t calling the plays. They were under a new quarterback as well and whenever that combination is brand new nobody truly knows how things are going to pan out. When that is the case a good start is a must and the Saints delivered that with successive wins to start with. Then came three straight losses before they got back to winning ways last week.
Injuries have been a bit of an issue for the Saints and even heading into this game there is the potential for Derek Carr to be a little limited. The big problem so far has been the inability to establish a run game. While the passing game has been improving and looked at its best last week, there is a need for the run game to come to the party. The other positive has been how well the defence has gone and if they continue to step up the Saints will fancy their chances here.
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Jacksonville Jaguars
This was a season which wasn’t really going anywhere for the Jacksonville Jaguars after a run to the playoffs last term. They won their opening game before they suffered a couple of losses. One of those defeats was to the Kansas City Chiefs which was fair enough but the other to the Houston Texans was a little worrying. London came at a good time for the Jaguars though and after picking up successive wins in their second home, they returned to America to dispatch the Indianapolis Colts and take control of the AFC South.
The win over the Colts could have come at a cost though as quarterback Trevor Lawrence picked up an injury in the match, one which has him rated as questionable for this game and even if he suits up it is suggested his movement will be heavily restricted. The good thing for the Jaguars is the front line of their defence has been very strong this season and could keep them in the game and if Travis Etienne has a night out Jacksonville could still come away with a short week road win.
Betting
I don’t think we can really go hard at betting on the money line or the spread in this match until we know the exact status of Trevor Lawrence, both whether he is going to play and just how limited he is going to be. You would imagine that either way he isn’t going to be 100% in which case the points might be at a premium but that has already been accounted for in a line which is no higher than 40 and I wouldn’t really want to smash into the under on a line so low on a short week.
The one bet that I do like though is for there to be over 4.5 sacks in the match. To be fair these two defences aren’t massively high up for sacks this season but both offensive lines have injuries heading into the match and both quarterbacks are likely to be restricted in movement. If the running backs get kept under control there could be a lot of quarterback hunting going on the longer the game goes on and with this being a short week and the offensive line players that are fit having had less recovery time I think eventually the dam will crack. I’ll play the over here.
Tips
Back Over 4.5 sacks for a 3/10 stake at 1.87 with Bet365
