Take the Rams covering as home favorites vs Saints Thursday

In a Thursday Night Football clash that pits two of the NFC’s 7-7 teams against one another, the best NFL betting sites have the Los Angeles Rams as 4.5 point home favorites against the visiting New Orleans Saints.

I’m backing the Rams covering with no concern. The best odds for this bet come from FanDuel, where the odds are -105.

(Thursday, 8:15 p.m. ET, Amazon Prime Video)

While both teams are 7-7, I’ve been more impressed watching the Rams than the Saints this year. While both teams rank top 12 in points per game, offense has come easier to Los Angeles than New Orleans in Derek Carr’s debut season.

Despite a TD-INT ratio of 16 to seven and decent team statistics offensively, there’s a nonexistent element to their downfield passing game. Most of their yardage comes from checkdowns and relying on yards after the catch.

To their credit, they’ve won seven games playing this way. Alvin Kamara may not be the athlete he once was, but he’s remained a valuable weapon. Taysom Hill is having arguably his best season. Chris Olave is on pace to surpass his rookie season numbers too.

Defensively, New Orleans are an interesting unit. They rank sixth in scoring and 11th in yards. But we’ve seen them surrender 33, 31, 27, and 26 points to offenses like the Lions, Jaguars, Colts, Vikings, and Buccaneers, respectively.

Sean McVay’s Rams are a fantastic offense. It’s almost impossible to stop them when Matthew Stafford, Kyren Williams, Cooper Kupp, and Puka Nacua are healthy together as they’ve been the last two weeks.

As much of a revelation as Nacua has been, Kupp and Stafford’s connection is the catalyst of the offense. Kupp has a touchdown in three straight games on 265 yards, and Stafford’s been as good as any player in the NFL the last four games.

Williams is as electrifying as they come at the running back position. He has eight rushing scored and a 5.1 yard average in 186 attempts. He’ll stress a New Orleans run defense that surrenders the 24th most yards on the ground.

On defense, the Rams’ identity remains Aaron Donald having a quietly stellar season. While his numbers don’t reflect it, he and the defense as a whole have shown some good tape. While inconsistency plagues them at times, they’re a top ten scoring defense.

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Los Angeles might not have the biggest home field advantage, but there’s always more concern over a dome team traveling on the road as New Orleans are. My pick in the Rams covering is more due to their quartet of offensive stars.

With no injuries amidst their four offensive jenga pieces, the Rams are a team nobody is going to want to draw in the playoffs. The contrast between their downfield attack vs the Saints dink and dunk attack will make a big difference in this game.

If Los Angeles gets ahead early by a couple of scores, the Saints aren’t a team built to come back from deficits and won’t be able to catch up.

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