Ben Burns

THE PLAY: New Orleans Saints +14.0 (-119)

This is the largest spread of any of the Sunday NFL games. I believe it's a little too high. The Bucs will clinch the NFC South with a win. The Saints have nothing to play for. I don't expect them to just roll over for a divisional opponent though. The Bucs beat the Saints 51-27 in the first meeting. (The Saints were up 27-24 at half.) That was the only divisional game all season that the Saints weren't competitive in though. They were 2-2 in their other four divisional games but both the losses came by two points or less. They've actually outscored NFC South opponents overall, even including the Tampa loss. 

Both Carr and Kamara remain questionable, as of this writing. However, both want to play and that says something about the Saints overall mindset for this game. They're coming to play. Saints interim head coach Darren Rizzi said this: "I know there's probably some fans out there, why the heck would you play Alvin Kamara? Why the heck would you play Derek Carr? These guys want to play and it's my job to respect their wishes. Both these guys are captains, are leaders. They've been unbelievable for our locker room. And the fact of the matter is you know, we're 5-5 this year with Derek Carr as our starting quarterback. We're 0-5 without him and that's just it. We can slice and dice however many ways we want, the bottom line is we've won five games with Derek at quarterback. We've lost five and three of those five games that we lost were by three points or less, because he gives us the best chance to win." *Good at +13 or better

BEN BURNS WAS WAGERTALK'S #1 OVERALL FOOTBALL HANDICAPPER IN 2024. HIS FIRST NFL PLAY OF 2025 GOES SATURDAY