NFL Preseason Betting Preview

Buffalo Bills at New Orleans Saints

Friday, 8:00 pm Eastern – CBS

Opening Line: Saints -5.5, Total 37

The New Orleans Saints play their second preseason game of the season when they host the Buffalo Bills on Friday night.  The Saints looked poor in the Hall of Fame Game, losing to Pittsburgh 20-7.  The Saints will again play their starters sparingly but head coach Sean Payton will want a better effort than he got the first game. LTSF reports that early betting on this NFL preseason game has the public expecting a lot of points taking the Over 36.

The Bills open their preseason with J.P. Losman firmly established as the starting quarterback.  Fans will want to see first round pick, running back Marshawn Lynch who was selected No. 12 overall out of California.  He is expected to take over for the departed Willis McGahee who was traded to Baltimore in the off-season. The Bills will play Losman for a series or two and then turn things over to Craig Nall and rookie Trent Edwards out of Stanford.  It is also possible Kevin Eakin may play.  It is expected that Edwards will get most of the playing time on Friday.  Most of the starters for Buffalo are not expected to play more than a series or two.

al Current Line: Saints -6.5, Total 36

"Our first group, both sides of the ball will probably play somewhere between 12 and 15 plays," head coach Dick Jauron said. "It just depends on how it goes. If it goes real well that may just be one drive and you'd love it to be that way. If it goes real poorly it may be three drives. You just don't know. Then we'll get everybody in that we'll can. I would say that most of the guys will play."

"We just want to go out there and be crisp," said Losman. "We know it's our first game, but we want to try to avoid any kind of complications. The plays he'll be giving us I'm sure will be pretty vanilla so we just want to be sharp on those and keep the chains moving and have a good drive of 12 or 15 plays.”

New Orleans is expected to play quarterback Drew Brees for about a quarter. Jamie Martin will get the 2nd quarter with Jason Fife and Tyler Palko playing the second half. Running back Deuce McAllister is expected to play after sitting out the exhibition opener.  Coach Sean Payton had the Saints practice a little harder this week after the poor performance in the opening preseason game against the Steelers. "I just think we all felt as a whole that we needed a good week of practice this week," said Payton.

The all-time preseason series between the Bills and Saints is tied at three games each.  The teams have not met in the preseason since 1990.