New Orleans Saints @

Minnesota Vikings

Sun, Jan 14
1:40 PM Pacific
Rotation: 307
Odds: Minnesota Vikings -5, Total: 46.5

Game Analysis

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MINNESOTA (-5) vs New Orleans

The Saints have the 2nd-best offense according to my ratings as they’ve found success in a more balanced approach this season with a pass rate under 60% for the first time this decade (55.9%). The Saints’ offense that is good both running and throwing the football had an advantage over most teams because their balance allowed them to exploit each opponents’ defensive deficiency. However, that is not the case when facing good defensive teams that can defend the run and the pass and the Saints have struggled against good defensive teams this season. New Orleans only faced three top-10 defenses in the regular season and the Saints didn’t score more than 20 points against any of those three teams – the Vikings, Bears, and Rams. New Orleans scored just 19 points in their week 1 loss in Minnesota and there’s reason to believe they will struggle to score against the Vikings again this time around.

Not only does Minnesota’s defense have good balance with my 9th-rated rush defense and a pass defense that has allowed just 5.2 yards per pass play, which ranks 2nd in the league, but they are extremely capable of taking away what the Saints like to do the most on offense. New Orleans targeted their running backs more than any other team but the Vikings only surrender 4.3 yards per target to opposing running backs, which is best in the NFL. Minnesota’s defense also has a shutdown cornerback in Xavier Rhodes to line up across from Michael Thomas. Rhodes held Thomas to just 45 yards on 8 targets in week 1 and he did a good job against the other elite receivers that he faced this season, as he limited Thomas, Antonio Brown, Julio Jones, and A. J. Green to a combined 5.8 yards per target, which is 3 yards per target below their combined season averages.

First-time playoff quarterbacks are just 16-29-2 ATS since 2000 and the Vikings would be wise to take the game out of Case Keenum’s hands as much as possible against the Saints’ 7th-ranked pass defense. My numbers have New Orleans’ rush defense rated 20th and I expect Minnesota to use the ground game heavily. The Vikings will be without excellent guard Nick Easton who didn’t allow a sack all season. Minnesota has averaged just 5.1 yards per play in four games without Easton thus far compared to 5.7 yards per play with Easton in the lineup. However, I’m not sure the Saints will be able to take advantage of Easton’s absence as their interior lineman rank 27th in total pressures as they lack depth due to the David Parry and John Hughes injuries.

I do rate the Saints as the best team in the NFC and my ratings favor Minnesota by only 3 points even with the extra home-field advantage for this round of the playoffs (close to 5 points), but the match-ups favor the Vikings in this game and will have me on the sidelines. My model also leans towards the over (48 projected points) but the match-ups favor a lower scoring game than the numbers suggest and the Saints haven’t proven that they can score more than 20 points against a top defensive team – so I’m going to pass on the total as well.

  • Team Stats
  • Game Log
  • Saints
  • Vikings
NOR
Offense
Defense



Pass



  • Pass Plays 34.8 37.7
  • Succ Pass Plays 52.1% 42.7%
  • Sack Rate 4.0% 7.1%
  • Int Rate 1.6% 3.3%
  • Deep Pass Rate 17.5% 19.6%
  • Big Pass Yards 48.9% 40.7%
  • NYPP 7.7 6.0



Rush


  • Rush Plays 28.8 25.9
  • RB YPR 4.3 4.0
  • Stuff Rate 19.0% 24.4%
  • Succ Rush Plays 44.5% 47.4%
  • Big Rush Yards 48.5% 46.3%
  • Yards Per Rush 4.3 4.3




Game

  • All Snaps 63.5 63.6
  • Early Down Succ 53.3% 47.1%
  • Succ Rate 48.9% 44.8%
  • Big Yards Rate 50.1% 44.3%
  • Yards Per Play 6.2 5.3
  • Fumble Lost Rate 0.9% 0.5%
  • Time Per Play (sec) 27.7 26.2
  • Run Ratio 44.6% 40.8%
  • Starting Field Pos 28.9 25.6
  • Game Control 4.0 -4.0
 
  • Points 28.2 20.7
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