Saints open up as 10.5-point road underdogs in Week 15 vs. Buccaneers

Saints open up as 10.5-point road underdogs in Week 15 vs. Buccaneers

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Tipico Sportsbook has released its opening lines for Week 15’s slate of NFL games, and they aren’t feeling optimistic about the New Orleans Saints. The oddsmakers at Tipico have the Buccaneers favored by 10.5 points at Raymond James Stadium.

Take that with the over/under of 46.5 points and you’ve got a suggested final score close to Buccaneers 29, Saints 18. That tracks with the low scoring outputs New Orleans has seen over the last month — they’ve averaged just 20.6 points per game in their last five contests. The Buccaneers offense is scoring 30 points per game across those same five weeks.

We’ll see if the Saints can repeat their 36-27 performance earlier this season. They may have put up 30 points against the New York Jets this week, powered by two Taysom Hill touchdown runs, but there’s a wide gulf between the New York defense and the Buccaneers unit the Saints will see this week.

New Orleans needs to continue getting healthy if they’re going to have a real shot at an upset. Getting All-Pro right tackle Ryan Ramczyk back in the lineup would do a lot to help. So would welcoming running back Mark Ingram and wide receiver Ty Montgomery back from the COVID-19 reserve list, to say nothing of standout defensive end Cameron Jordan. If more reinforcements are on the way this one might end up less lopsided than the betting lines forecast.

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