Sean Payton’s return to New Orleans comes at a crucial time for both teams. The Broncos are 3-3, looking to maintain a stake in the wild card race in the AFC West.
The Saints have dropped four straight games and are looking for some Spencer Rattler magic on Thursday night at home. Let's get to the plays!
After Spencer Rattler’s home debut ended in a few highlights and a handful of low lights, this game on Thursday night against a tough Broncos secondary looks daunting. The Broncos defense allows under 200 pass yards per contest to opposing Quarterbacks and on the season has 5 interceptions thanks to star corner Pat Surtain II.
On top of this, Sean Payton’s defense has allowed just 96 total points on the year which ranks among the best in the league, while their 22 sacks rank 2nd only to the New York Giants. This defense gets after the quarterback and forces bad decisions.
After allowing less than 10 points to Baker Mayfield and Aaron Rodgers and then shutting down Aidan O’Connell and Gardner Minshew in Week 5, Spencer Rattler will have his hands full against the best defense he’s faced - in his illustrious football career.
Spencer Rattler’s best friend on Thursday night will be Alvin Kamara. As the premier receiving back in the NFL, Kamara has already nailed the over on 33 yards in four of six games.
The Broncos defense allows 32.5 receiving yards to opposing running backs on the number but hasn’t faced an RB of Kamara’s value, size, and speed just yet.
AK should be utilized in the short yard passing game even more this week as the Saints try to limit Rattler’s decision-making downfield to try and make things easy for him.
With Bo Nix quarterbacking the Broncos and the Saints defense allowing a near league-high 2.3 FGM per contest, this is a great matchup for Will Lutz of the Broncos.
Playing in a dome and kicking for a rookie quarterback that has already shown his red zone woes, Lutz should easily hit the 2 FG mark for the third time in the young season.
Playing against his former team, Sean Payton will most likely take all the points he can get in what is due to end up as a low-scoring affair, so bet on the safe play which is Lutz to hit a few 3-pointers en route to Denver hanging in this game before they try to deliver a knockout punch.
With Sutton having no previous experience against the Saints, this will most likely be his most difficult matchup of the season.
Facing Marshon Lattimore, the Broncos will most likely look for Nix to target other playmakers as Lattimore locked down Mike Evans last week and has experience in making the WR1 on the opposing team irrelevant.
However, after watching the rest of the Bucs' playmakers decimate this defense, look for a big play from Marvin Mims or one of the running backs to get this offense rolling.