The Green Bay Packers haven’t lost a non-divisional game since Week 1 against the Philadelphia Eagles. But due to such a tough NFC North division, it looks very likely they will be a Wild Card team in the playoffs. Fortunately, this hasn’t stopped past teams from greatness, and it doesn’t look to be too big of a factor now.
The New Orleans Saints started off this season with two 40+ point performances that had people crowning Klint Kubiak as the next stud offensive coordinator and coveted head coaching candidate. While that could still be true, a myriad of injuries completely axed any momentum the Saints’ offense had going forward. Now, sitting at 5-9 with another year of cap space purgatory on the way, the future doesn’t look bright.
New Orleans Saints vs. Green Bay Packers Betting Lines, Odds, Start Time, and More
- Spread
Packers -14 - Moneyline
Packers (-900); Saints (+600) - Over/Under
42 total points - Game Time
8:15 p.m ET - Location
Lambeau Field
Saints vs. Packers Preview and Prediction
Per TruMedia, Packers quarterback Jordan Love ranks first in EPA (expected points added) per dropback in December and January over the last two years. If you extend this all the way back to 2000, Peyton Manning is the only QB to have a higher EPA than Love in these two months.
Despite the small sample, whoever draws Green Bay in the playoffs should definitely be nervous.
With this being a 14-point game spread, I’m going to spare you the matchup details. The Saints are 17th in offensive EPA, 17th in defensive EPA, and much of their stats are skewed toward games in which Derek Carr played.
With Spencer Rattler in, the offense ranks 32nd and the defense 30th. This game should absolutely be a blowout so long as the Packers don’t toy with their food.
With that being said, what’s most important to analyze is how does Green Bay do in games as gigantic favorites, and how does this compare to the NFL as a whole when favored heavily?
Since 2000, there have been 186 total games with a spread of 14 points or worse. In those games, the favored team has covered 48.3% of the time. Covering spreads of two or more touchdowns is a difficult task in a league that prides itself on parity.
Next, I want to look at teams that have a similar skill difference. A great defense versus a bad offense lends itself to a different game script than a great offense versus a bad defense.
In the three Rattler games, the Saints have an offensive EPA per game of -17.76 and a defensive EPA per game of -5.08. Green Bay stands at 3.71 and 3.79 offensively and defensively, respectively (a 21.47 difference in offensive EPA and an 8.87 difference in defensive EPA between the two teams).
Unfortunately, because of how historically bad the Saints are in the three-game sample, we cannot find an exact match.
Lowering the difference for the offense to 15 EPA, we find eight games with a similar skill gap. The favorites went 2-6 ATS in those games. For some reason, teams let off the gas in these situations.
My pick: Saints +14