Welcome everyone to the latest game preview for the New Orleans Saints! This week, we break down their Thursday night matchup against the Atlanta Falcons.
Last Week: The Atlanta Falcons offense was kept in check on Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings, falling 14-9. The Saints were able to finish the season series against the Carolina Panthers with a win on Sunday afternoon by the score of 31-21.
Last Meeting: The last time these two faced off, the Falcons wrapped up their regular season with a 38-32 victory over the Saints. Atlanta leads the overall series 51-45 and have won two out of the last three series.
Storylines to Watch:
Will Marshon be Back? The last two weeks, there’s been something missing when it comes to the Saints defense and that’s Marshon Lattimore. Just look at the loss to the Los Angeles Rams and tell me that not having the star rookie hurt the team.
Ken Crawley and the rest of the secondary stepped up on Sunday against Carolina, but still had some moments that made you wonder when you’ll see Marshon back on the field. According to reports, he wasn’t quite 100% for this game, so the hope is that he is back for Thursday night. It’s a game that means a lot when it comes to locking down the NFC South crown and having Lattimore back guarding Julio Jones would be huge.
Falcons Up and Down Offense: The Falcons offense has been up and down all season long. Just look at two weeks ago and they were scoring at will and breaking out the trick plays in a big win. However, the Falcons offense was just below 300 total yards of offense against the Vikings.
The Saints production offensively will force the Falcons offense to keep up with them throughout and that’s easier said than done based off of performances during the season by Atlanta. This should help the Saints defense keep the Falcons grounded even with it being a short week.
Kamara Minus Ingram? Some early reports are coming out saying that the Saints could be without running back Mark Ingram, who is down with a toe injury. While that doesn’t mean much when you consider that Antonio Brown had a similar injury but played on Monday night, you have to realize that this is coming off of four days rest.
Without Ingram, that means we’ll get a glimpse at the Saints offense with Alvin Kamara as the workhorse in the backfield. As a person who owns him in fantasy, consider me excited but having to focus in on just one running back could make things easier for the Falcons defense to defend against a player that has been able to be pretty elusive on some plays.
New Orleans Will Win If:
The Saints can get the win against their NFC South rivals if the defense can force some turnovers. It’s strange to say that about this team, but last week there was only one takeaway and that was on special teams late in the ballgame. There needs to be a sense of urgency on this defense to force errors and capitalize on them if they want to embarrass the Falcons on their home turf.
Atlanta Will Win If:
Atlanta can get a huge win if Matt Ryan can exploit the secondary’s weaknesses. Again, Marshon Lattimore might not play on Thursday and if he’s not playing, it’ll be a long day for the secondary with the weapons Ryan has in Jones and Sanu.
-Clint Domingue