Dan Johnson takes you through his preview, prediction, and pick for NFL Week 12’s game between the New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons.
New Orleans staggers in at 2-8, trying to convince itself that a rookie quarterback and a feisty defense can still mean something in a year the standings already rejected. Atlanta arrives 3-7, dragging a four-game skid and handing the wheel back to Kirk Cousins while the rest of the division laughs from afar. It’s not a glamour NFC South chapter; it’s two teams trying to prove they’re more than their records say. In that kind of setting, ambition usually runs into fourth-and-short reality. Below is my prediction for NFL Week 12’s game between the New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons.
Here’s how I’ll play it. I’ll be pumping out these predictions for individual games all season, with plenty of coverage here on DraftKings Network. Follow my handle @dansby_edits for more betting plays.
The Saints’ offense is broken in ways one ascending quarterback cannot fully patch yet: over the last five games they sit around minus 0.23 EPA per play with a success rate in the mid-30s, only four passing touchdowns, three interceptions, 3.4 yards per rush and 0 rushing scores. The season-long ledger says the same thing quieter—15 total offensive touchdowns in 10 games, only three on the ground at 3.7 yards a carry. Tyler Shough’s personal arc is the exception inside that mess: completions walking from 56.7% to 62.5% to 70.4%, yards climbing from 128 to 176 to 282, and EPA per play stepping from deeply negative to roughly plus 0.20 in Carolina. He has three touchdowns, two picks, 7.1 yards per attempt and only five sacks on 83 dropbacks with a 2.57-second time to throw. That screams competent, on-schedule quarterbacking—but every number around him says he still lives inside a unit that stalls in the red zone and cannot run.
Across the field, Atlanta’s offense looks healthier until you drag it into the same recent lens. Season-long they give you an honest balance: about 223 passing yards, 120 rushing, 4.5 yards a carry and 12 rushing touchdowns, with only three interceptions all year. Over the last handful they are still underwater by EPA, around minus 0.05 per snap, even as they punch in six rushing scores at 4.2 yards a carry and avoid interceptions entirely. That is a functioning but not surging group, and now it runs back through Cousins without Drake London. Last year’s template with him is clear: 66.9% completions, 7.7 yards per attempt, 18 touchdowns, 16 interceptions and about 0.16 EPA per play behind Bijan Robinson’s 4.8 yards per carry and 14 rushing scores, plus London swallowing roughly 35% of the targets and more than 1,200 yards. Clean pockets, strong run game, alpha X receiver? The offense is functional. Take London out of the picture and drop Cousins in midseason, and the floor is still there—efficient when protected, fragile under pressure—but the ceiling that would scare an under almost certainly is not.
The defenses reinforce that shape. New Orleans quietly has turned into the more trustworthy side of the ball: about 4.0 yards per rush allowed on the season, roughly 3.5 over the last five, and a recent defensive EPA around minus 0.07 per play with opponent success rates in the low 40s. They still give up completions at a high clip, but they tackle and squeeze explosives, which matters more when you are facing a run-centric group with its best wideout in street clothes. Atlanta’s defense is the inverse story: strong season-long pass metrics and 30-plus sacks, but over the last month they have allowed more than 70% completions, more than 1,100 passing yards and 10 passing touchdowns with a positive EPA for opposing offenses despite 19 sacks. That is chaos, not dominance. The catch is that the Saints are exactly the kind of offense that can fail to punish that—minus 0.23 EPA per play, a dead run game, and a red-zone record that keeps their touchdown count stuck in the teens.
Falcons vs. Saints pick, best bet
If you want the over, you point to two quarterbacks who are better than the combined record suggests, a dome, and two defenses with at least one real leak. You imagine Shough’s Panthers tape—70.4% completions, 282 yards, plus EPA per play—porting straight into a matchup against a Falcons secondary that has been torched recently. You pair that with memories of Cousins’ 2024 efficiency, Bijan at more than 4.5 yards per carry with double-digit touchdowns, and assume those pieces overwhelm a New Orleans defense that still gives up plenty of completions. There is a version of this game where both sides land in the low 20s and quietly beat a number in the high 30s. The problem is that every aggregate we have says those spikes require both offenses to hit the top of their range at the same time. The Saints’ run game has shown no sign of life, Atlanta’s passing attack just lost its centerpiece, and league scoring has been drifting down, not up, over the last few weeks.
Game-flow wise, this still reads like long drives that fray instead of fireworks. New Orleans will try to protect Shough by leaning into quick game, shallow crossers to Chris Olave and outlet work for Alvin Kamara, but their run game profile screams 2nd-and-9 more than 2nd-and-4, which keeps them behind the chains and in field-goal world. Atlanta should ride Bijan and Tyler Allgeier into the teeth of a Saints front that has actually stiffened lately, then let Cousins work play-action and third-down option routes to Kyle Pitts and the secondary receivers rather than asking him to recreate Minnesota-era spacing without London. Both staffs are coaching from the bottom of the standings rather than the top, which usually nudges you toward don’t-lose-the-game decisions—punts in midfield, field goals in the fringe zone, conservative fourth-down calls. Wrap that in a low total sitting around the high 30s, and I still expect more slog than track meet.
I’m on Saints–Falcons under 40.5, with a scoreboard that looks more like Falcons 20, Saints 16 than some cathartic shootout.
Best bet: Saints vs. Falcons u40.5 total points (-115)
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For a prop lean, I’d rather ride Bijan Robinson’s workload than guess which quarterback finally cashes in. He owns 158 of Atlanta’s 269 carries this year—just under a 60% share—at 5.0 yards per rush with four scores, and over the last month the Falcons have stacked 90 team attempts and six rushing touchdowns while avoiding interceptions. With Kirk Cousins stepping in and Drake London sidelined, this sets up as a “protect the veteran, lean on the backs” game in a dome rather than a spread-it-out shootout. New Orleans has tightened to about 3.5 yards per rush allowed recently, but that kind of steady contact actually favors attempts: four- and five-yard gains keep Arthur Smith calling runs instead of turning Cousins loose without his alpha. If DraftKings is hanging Bijan at 17.5 rushing attempts around -105, I like the over—Falcons committed to the ground, Saints keeping it close, and Robinson finishing in the high teens for carries.
Best prop lean: Bijan Robinson o17.5 total rushing attempts (-105)
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