2. Defense won’t mirror Week 10 showing
A few weeks ago in New Orleans, the Falcons took down the Saints on their home field in an impressive showing that resulted in Atlanta coming away with a 26-9 road victory.
In that game, Atlanta’s defense put on a strong outing and basically shut down the high-powered New Orleans offense while holding the Saints out of the end zone in the contest and to just three field goals en route to the win.
While outscoring New Orleans 13-6 in the first half and 13-3 in the second half of the game in Week 10, Atlanta held Brees and company in check while the Saints managed to tally 304 yards passing through the air while tallying just 52 yards rushing on the ground.
With the exception of Saints wide receiver Michael Thomas going off for 152 yards on 13 receptions, no other New Orleans player was able to record more than 75 yards receiving or 25 yards rushing in totality in the contest.
For a Falcons team that struggled defensively up to that point in the 2019 campaign, the dominant performance on the defensive side of the field was somewhat surprising and something not many people expected would happen going into the NFC South showdown.
On Thursday night in Week 13 in Atlanta, I wouldn’t expect the same type of showing out fo the Atlanta defense in a rematch against New Orleans on Thanksgiving Day. There is a reason that the Saints are 9-2 and still hold one of the top offenses throughout the entire NFL up to this point in the year.
The defense could perform well in the Week 13 game as it has over the course of really the last three weeks, but don’t expect the same type of dominant performance that we say out of the Falcons defensive unit that ultimately allowed them to pull out the win on the road in Week 10.