Ravens vs. Saints: FrontPageBets looks at best bets for Monday Night Football

The Baltimore Ravens have won consecutive games for the first time all season, in close affairs against the Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Can they keep it up against a New Orleans Saints group that got off the mat with a shutout victory last week?

Ahead of a quarterback matchup pitting Lamar Jackson against Andy Dalton, FrontPageBets is here to break down three picks and predictions for this Monday night matchup.

(Odds courtesy of DraftKings and subject to change.)

Saints (+2, -110)

It’s tricky to gauge just how good the 5-3 Ravens are this year.

They blew a healthy lead in all three of their losses to the Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills and New York Giants -- but does the eye test say this is a team a few plays away from 8-0? Not at all, especially considering the big defensive lapses that allowed those opponents’ comebacks.

More importantly, the Ravens enter this game extremely banged up. Receiver Rashod Bateman has been lost for the season with a foot injury, while star tight end Mark Andrews (shoulder, knee) and first-string running back Gus Edwards (hamstring) are doubtful. Among those questionable are cornerback Marcus Peters (quad, knee) and wide receiver Demarcus Robinson (groin).

Could the Ravens still have enough punch with Jackson, Kenyan Drake and Justice Hill in the running game? Perhaps. They are coming off their highest rushing total of the season, after all, with 231 yards against the Bucs.

But the Saints are the healthier team, and they’re playing at home in the Superdome, which can be a rowdy atmosphere for prime-time games. Dalton isn’t the quarterback of the future in New Orleans, but he’s proven that if nothing else, he can still air it out, which will keep this game close.

Over 47 points (-110)

The Saints must be glad they got to play host to the lowly Las Vegas Raiders last week. They might be 2-6 right now if they had faced a better opponent.

One week after New Orleans was hurt by Dalton’s two pick-sixes and lost, 42-34, to the Arizona Cardinals, the Saints’ defense blanked the Raiders 24-0, yielding just 183 total yards and 38 rushing.

Yet the Saints still rank fifth from the bottom in the NFL with 25 points allowed per game. Before the shutout, that average was 28.6! We’ve seen some historically bad Saints defenses in recent years, so it might slip under the radar how porous this year’s unit has been.

The Ravens are hardly the Raiders. They’ve scored in the upper 30s twice and usually fall in the 23-27 range, and as injured as the offense looks, Jackson is having a fantastic year both passing the ball and commanding the run game.

Baltimore broke a streak of Unders last week when it beat Tampa Bay 27-22, while the Saints have hit the over five times in eight games this year.

Alvin Kamara over 36.5 receiving yards (-115)

The Saints’ Alvin Kamara was having a ho-hum year -- plenty of yards, zero touchdowns -- before obliterating the Raiders for 158 yards from scrimmage, one rushing touchdown and two receiving scores, which surely allowed his fantasy owners to breathe a sigh of relief.

Kamara is second on the Saints in receptions (33), targets (45) and receiving yards (287) despite missing a game in September due to injury.

You can also weigh the Over/Under for Kamara’s rushing yards, set by DraftKings at over 60.5 (-115) and under 60.5 (-115). But there’s a reason we’re focusing on the receiving yards.

Under John Harbaugh, the Ravens play a traditional brand of football that prioritizes stopping the run as much as running the ball. Baltimore’s front is doing a fine job this year, ranking fifth in the league in rushing yards allowed at 97.5 per game.

But the Ravens have given up the fourth-most targets (63), the fifth-most receptions (50) and the seventh-most yards (365) to opposing running backs in the league -- a hole Kamara can surely exploit.

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