Bet on the Jaguars vs Saints to be a low scoring prime-time affair

My first gut instinct when looking at this game was that the Jacksonville Jaguars would defeat the New Orleans Saints in a low scoring primetime affair. But Trevor Lawrence is a true game time decision, making me unwilling to commit to picking a Jaguars win on the road.

That said, I had full confidence in this being a low scoring game before Lawrence was ruled a game time decision. If C.J. Beathard ends up quarterbacking Jacksonville, I’m even more confident in this being a defensive and potentially ugly game to watch offensively.

The NFL betting site I’m looking at is FanDuel, whose 39.5 totals projection has odds of -105.

(Thursday, 8:15 p.m. EST, Amazon Prime Video)

While you can find worst offenses in the NFL than the Saints, you won’t find many more offenses that play like they’re stuck in mud. Excluding their 34-0 mopping of the lowly New England Patriots, they’ve scored just 20 points in one of their five other games.

It’s surprising to see that based on their skill position players. Michael Thomas has been healthy and solid while Chris Olave remains one of the most talented players at his position. Alvin Kamara is back from suspension as well and is getting a heavy workload. Although he does appear a step slower in his age 28 season.

Their biggest issue is in the red zone, where they rank fifth worst at scoring touchdowns in that part of the field. Another area they can improve in is third down conversion percentage, where they rank 20th.

Derek Carr is off the injury report but played through an AC joint injury the last three weeks. Color me skeptical that he’s already fully healthy, as we just saw Indianapolis Colts star Anthony Richardson suffer season ending surgery to repair that same injury. Carr is the eighth most sacked quarterback in the league.

The reason New Orleans are 3-3 and still in the thick of it is their defense. They allow just 16 points per game and rank fifth in yards allowed per game. They’re an opportunistic defense who have continuity, are healthy, and are well coached.

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Jacksonville’s been a curious team to study at 4-2. They rank tenth in scoring but haven’t always been the smoothest operation. With the addition of Calvin Ridley, it’s been as if the offense struggles figuring out how to balance throwing to him, Evan Engram, and Christian Kirk while maintaining balance in the ground game.

If there’s been a bright spot for the Jaguars it’s been Travis Etienne, who has been as dynamic a runner as anyone in football this year. Etienne is the league’s sixth leading rusher.

Despite his emergence, the Jaguars can’t figure it out in the red zone, similarly to New Orleans. Jacksonville is 20th in red zone touchdown percentage and 24th in third down percentage.

Jacksonville is much better than the Saints at moving the ball. But how balanced an attack they have trying to feed all the mouths of their offense is a question to be answered seemingly every week.

Their defense also remains a peculiar thing to analyze. After being a big reason they went on last year’s run, they rank 26th in sacks, 20th in scoring and 13th in yards. But they lead the NFL in takeaways, making this a confusing unit to figure out.

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