Betting odds: Los Angeles Rams at New Orleans Saints Spread: Saints -3 (-115) Over/Under: 56.5 Time: Sunday, 3:05 p.m. ET TV channel: FOX >> All odds as of Sunday morning. Download The Action Network App to get real-time NFL odds and track your bets Betting market This line opened at Saints -3.5, but with the Rams being a trendy pick throughout the week, bookmakers have moved it down to -3 across the board. LA is getting 56% of the money line bets at +158. The over/under moved from 56 to 57 very early on. It bumped back down to 56 before settling on a middle ground of 56.5 over the weekend. The tickets on the total are split almost exactly 50-50, but the over is almost getting 3x more money than the under. (You can check updated line moves and odds here) — Mark Gallant Trends to know, Part 1 Drew Brees is 6-0 straight up at home in the playoffs under Sean Payton. Only one other head coach has won at least six home playoff games straight up without a loss since 2003: Pete Carroll. If the spread on Sunday closes under -4 for New Orleans, it will be the lowest spread for Brees at home in the playoffs. — Evan Abrams The spread tickets are split almost exactly 50-50. If the Rams get some late action, that’d be a good sign for Brees & Co. Since coming to New Orleans, Brees is 16-7 ATS including 1-0 ATS in the playoffs when getting fewer than 50% of bets at home. — John Ewing In his career, Jared Goff has faced six different Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks over 12 games: He’s 6-6 straight up, but 3-9 against the spread. Since Goff’s first NFL start in 2016, he’s the least profitable quarterback against the spread vs. Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks. This season, he is 3-2 SU and 0-5 ATS in this spot, failing to cover the spread by 9.8 points per game. — Abrams The Rams and Saints entered the playoffs ranked No. 2 and 3, respectively, in points per game. Since arriving in New Orleans, Brees is 10-1 ATS when facing a team averaging at least 30 points per game, covering by an average of 8.9 points per game. Brees’ only ATS loss? Last season on the road against the Rams. — Abrams Biggest Mismatch When the Rams have the ball: WR Robert Woods vs. CB P.J. Williams The Saints have a receiver-friendly funnel defense that ranks third in rush DVOA but 22nd in pass DVOA (per Football Outsiders). Specifically, opposing receiving production has funneled into the slot, where cornerback P.J. Williams has played almost all of his snaps since the Saints acquired Eli Apple in Week 8. While Apple and Marshon Lattimore have respectively held receivers on the outside to 57.8% and 65.4% catch rates, Williams has been targeted a team-high 84 times and allowed receivers to haul in passes at a 72.6% clip. His 47.0 PFF coverage grade is the second-worst mark in the league among starting corners. Since Week 11, Robert Woods has been the primary slot receiver for the Rams in the absence of Cooper Kupp (knee, IR). During the regular season, Woods led the Rams with 130 targets, 86 receptions, 1,219 yards receiving and six receiving touchdowns. When the Rams faced the Saints in Week 9, they targeted Williams’ coverage a team-high 11 times. The Rams spread the ball around, so Woods is unlikely to have double-digit targets, but when he gets opportunities, he should be able to exploit Williams. — Matthew Freedman When Saints have the ball: WR Michael Thomas vs. CB Marcus Peters As a rookie in 2015, cornerback Marcus Peters (then with the Chiefs) led the NFL with eight interceptions. In his second season, he was a first-team All-Pro shutdown savant. Last season, he had a career-high 81.7 Pro Football Focus coverage grade. But since joining the Rams in the offseason, Peters has been an unmitigated liability. He owns a career-low 57.9 PFF coverage grade and has allowed a 69.5% catch rate this season. His quarterback rating allowed has nearly doubled. 2018: 112.6 112.6 2017: 60.9 60.9 2016: 65.6 65.6 2015: 67.1 Finish reading this entire article absolutely FREE in our app GET OUR FREE APP With cornerback Aqib Talib back from his ankle injury, Peters has been playing almost exclusively at right corner, which means he’s likely to face wide receiver Michael Thomas for much of the game. The first-team All-Pro receiver has lined up against right corners on 47.5% of his snaps this season, and it’s possible that the Saints could position him there even more this week to take advantage of his matchup. In Week 9, Thomas punished the Rams with a 12-211-1 receiving performance on 15 targets. Against Peters specifically, he went 7-146-1 on nine targets. In the regular season, Thomas had a league-high 125 receptions, and last week he had a slate-high 171 yards receiving. He’s been darn-near perfect this season, and Peters has struggled to defend almost everyone. Thomas vs. Peters is a classic case of an unstoppable force meeting a very movable object. — Freedman Who Has the Advantage in Key Areas Quarterback: Drew Brees Where do we even start with Brees? He threw 32 touchdowns to just five interceptions, also adding a career-high four on the ground. His 74.4% completion percentage broke the NFL record that he set just one season prior. For good measure, Brees also led the league in passer rating (115.7), fourth-quarter comebacks (6), and game-winning drives (7). Against the Rams in Week 9, Brees finished 25-of-36 for 346 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions or sacks. He was lethal when the Rams failed to pressure him, going 19-of-25 for 281 yards and three touchdowns, so Wade Phillips may opt to blitz more this time around. According to data from Pro Football Focus, Brees is averaging just 6.6 yards per attempt with five touchdowns and four interceptions against pressure this season, but he has dominated when kept clean to the tune of 8.6 yards per attempt and a 29-to-2 touchdown-to-interception ratio. Goff, meanwhile, has been uneven since Kupp went down with a season-ending ACL injury in Week 10. The third-year passer shredded the Chiefs for 413 yards and four touchdowns in Week 11, but since then he’s averaged 6.6 yards per attempt with six touchdowns and six picks. The absence of Saints defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins (Achilles, IR) could loom large: Goff dropped from an 80.8% completion percentage and 11.2 yards per attempt when kept clean in the first meeting to 50% and 7.1 yards per attempt when pressured, and it was Rankins who led the Saints with four hurries in that game. And while Goff benefits from the absence of a key defender, Brees’ life will be made more difficult by the presence of someone who didn’t take part in the first matchup in Talib, formerly of Michael Crabtree chain-snatching fame (infamy? ). Talib allowed a passer rating of just 77.0 this season, and without his services in the first matchup, his fellow starting corner, Peters, got torched. Still, Goff has to prove he can leave his stamp on a postseason game. Through two postseason starts, the 2016 No. 1 overall pick is completing just 53.4% of his passes for 6.1 yards per attempt and one touchdown. That simply won’t get it done against Brees, who has averaged 305.0 yards per game with a 14-to-2 touchdown-to-interception ratio in six career postseason starts in the Superdome — all of which the Saints have won. — Chris Raybon Coaching: Rams I had to give Brees his due. There’s a chance this could be the last time we get to see the 40-year-old future Hall of Famer in a game of this magnitude, so I’ll be brief with Sean McVay, who I suspect we’ll see back here for years to come.<doc-sep>With the NFC championship game being played at the Superdome, it was expected that the New Orleans Saints would open as the favorites over the Los Angeles Rams. That’s exactly what happened with the Saints being favored by 3.5 points on Sunday. Nothing has changed on the injury front for either team, but the spread has moved slightly in the Rams’ direction. According to USA TODAY odds, the Saints are now favored by three points – down half a point from the start of the week. That could be due to the fact that so many people are betting on the Rams to cover the spread, which has caused oddsmakers to narrow the margin slightly. The over/under is also set at 56.5, which is down one point from earlier in the week. It’s one point higher than Patriots-Chiefs while the three-point spread is exactly the same. This is the first time the Rams are underdogs all season, so it’s uncharted territory. In Week 9 against the Saints, they were 1.5-point favorites after opening that week as underdogs. The two teams look very different now than they did in November, though, so the result could be different, as well. The Saints won the first meeting 45-35 at the Superdome.<doc-sep>New Orleans has gone 12-3 agaInst the spread since the start of the 2016 season when facing an opponent that’s averaging at least 24 points per game. Los Angeles Rams at New Orleans Saints (-3.5) Sun. 1/20, 3:05 p.m. ET Five things you need to know before betting on Rams-Saints: 1. Although the Rams and Saints enter the NFC Championship Game with identical 14-3 records, Los Angeles failed to cover the spread in any of the final seven regular season games the team played against teams that finished (or will finish) with a winning record. The Rams went 4-1 against the spread over their five road games in which they faced opponents that ended the season with a losing record—all five had 10 or more losses and combined to win less than 30% of their games with a 23-57 record. In the three 2018 road games it played against opponents that will end the season with winning records, L.A. went 0-3 against the spread. 2. One of the Rams’ three aforementioned against-the-spread road losses to teams that ended 2018 with a winning record was a double-digit defeat as a small favorite in New Orleans in early November. Both quarterbacks were effective in the Saints’ 45-35 victory, with Drew Brees completing 26 of 35 passes for 346 yards and four touchdowns while L.A.’s Jared Goff passed for 391 yards and three touchdowns. If there was a key to the victory for New Orleans, it was the play of the team’s offensive line. The Saints used a variety of blocking schemes to hold star Rams defensive tackles Aaron Donald and Ndamukong Suh to a combined three tackles and no sacks. Super Bowl Odds, Best Bets Before Conference Championships 3. New Orleans outrushed Los Angeles by a relatively wide margin in the November meeting between these teams, gaining 141 yards on the ground compared to 92 for the Rams. Todd Gurley, who had entered the game as the NFL's leading rusher, was held to 68 yards on 13 carries. The Saints’ Alvin Kamara, meanwhile, racked up 116 yards from scrimmage on 23 touches and scored three first-half touchdowns as New Orleans raced to a 35-17 lead before the break. The strength of the Saints’ defense is a front seven that allowed an average of only 80.2 rushing yards per game during the 2018 regular season, which ranked second only to Chicago’s 80.0. 4. Due largely to an offense that’s been difficult to contain inside the Superdome, New Orleans has won 15 of its last 16 home games, including playoffs, if you discount the meaningless 2018 season finale that Brees and several other key New Orleans players sat out after the team had locked up home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. In these 16 contests, New Orleans has averaged 33.2 points per game with 12 games of 30 or more points. The last time the Saints hosted the Rams prior to the November meeting was in 2016, when Brees completed 78% of his passes for 310 yards and four touchdowns in a 49-21 blowout. Los Angeles has struggled against accurate quarterbacks, going 4-13-3 against the spread since the start of the 2016 season when facing an opponent that’s completing at least 64% of its pass attempts. 5. The Saints possess the ability to outscore the high-powered Rams, as New Orleans has gone 12-3 agaInst the spread since the start of the 2016 season when facing an opponent that’s averaging at least 24 points per game. And since Sean Payton became the Saints’ head coach in 2006, New Orleans has gone 18-4 against the spread when facing a team that’s scoring an average of at least 27 PPG. Payton’s Saints have also enjoyed success against formidable opponents, as New Orleans has gone 16-5 against the spread under its current head coach when facing a team with a winning percentage of at least .750. Pick: New Orleans -3.5 Confidence Level: High (on a scale of Low/Moderate/High/Very High/Extremely High)<doc-sep>
Despite the half-decade trend of home teams dominating in conference championship games, both straight up and against the spread, the Los Angeles Rams are a more popular ticket than the New Orleans Saints for the NFC Championship Game. It's likely a combination of things, including the recency bias of seeing the Saints struggle with the Eagles and the Rams exert their will on the Cowboys, not to mention the spread (Saints -3.5) having an extra half point (the "hook" as it's known) to make the Rams particularly attractive. Let's dive into some of the trends for the spread and the over/under to look at and see what we can find. Saints (-3.5) vs. Rams Before New Orleans failed to cover against the Eagles, it was easy to stump for Drew Brees and Sean Payton in this spot, since they were 10-1 against the spread in spots where they had two weeks to prepare since 2009. The Saints probably should have covered -- if Payton throws on third down late in the game instead of running the ball, the Saints are probably close enough for Wil Lutz to make his field goal. The resulting run opened the door for more Nick Foles' playoff magic, but New Orleans was able to hold him off. The Saints still moved to 6-0 straight up in the playoffs at home, making them a potentially nice moneyline value if you're into that sort of thing. New Orleans was surprisingly bad as a home favorite in 2018, going just 3-5 against the spread. Oddly enough, they won their only game as a home underdog by beating the Rams, who were a 2.5-point favorite in New Orleans for some reason. The Rams were not great on the road, going 4-4 against the spread. Their road wins aren't that impressive: at Seattle and maybe at Denver are the only good ones. Otherwise they picked up wins at Oakland, at San Francisco, at Arizona and at Detroit. They lost on the road to the Bears and Saints in the regular season. The Rams are 2-1 as a road dog since Sean McVay started in 2017, which is pretty remarkable, considering they've played 16 games on the road and have only been a dog three times. McVay only has two games in the playoffs under his belt, going 1-1 straight up and 1-1 against the spread. Since 2009, the Saints are 7-4 against the spread in the playoffs and 43-34 overall as a home favorite. Who wins Rams vs. Saints? And which side of the spread cashes well over 50 percent of the time? Visit SportsLine now to see which side of the Saints vs. Rams spread you need to jump on Sunday, all from the computer model that has returned nearly $4,000 to $100 bettors over the past two seasons. Over/Under 56.5 This was the real dagger: the over was 5-0 in Saints home playoff games under Brees and Payton, who usually come out and go full Hank Scorpio on everyone when they host a playoff game. But the Saints looked rusty in this game and Brees missed two early, wide open deep touchdown passes. Missing open touchdown passes isn't really his "thing" but it happened anyway. The Saints also orchestrated an 11-minute drive in the third quarter. By the time it ended they had a touchdown, but it was kind of obvious the over wouldn't hit. ANYWAY, no need to linger on that game. It's over. It happened. No one's bitter. Let's move on. Taking a peak at conference championship matchups from 2000 (arbitrary, whatever) on played in domed stadiums with an over/under of 35 points or more, the over is 6-0 in those situations. Tack on the Cardinals-Eagles game from the 2009 playoffs (retractable roof in Arizona) and the over is 7-0. For comparison's sake, championship games played outdoors in the same span are 13-13-2 to the over. In each of those years with the domed teams, we are also talking about at least one top tier offense: 2016 Falcons, 2012 Falcons (7th, lowest on this list), 2009 Colts, 2009 Saints, 2006 Colts (vs 2006 Patriots) and the 2001 Rams. Most of the time it was a matchup of two top-tier offenses or at least two top-half offenses. This isn't even the highest total we've seen compared to the rest of the games -- Falcons/Packers from 2016 was set at 59.5 and still managed to cover.