You aren't going to find better competitors at the quarterback position than Drew Brees and Matt Stafford. Both men have had frustrating seasons this year both from a statistical standpoint and from the standpoint of wins and losses. You might think that a game between the 5-8 Detroit Lions and the 5-8 New Orleans Saints is a dog for Monday Night Football, but there's always a chance these two gunslingers get together to put on a show against the other one's horrible defense.
You can find weekly head-to-head fantasy matchup odds at BookMaker.eu.
Most people selfishly prefer seeing offensive showcases, and both the Lions and Saints have the ability to oblige for that. Sure, the Detroit defense deserves some credit for picking up a lacking offense at the start of the year as best as it could, but by and large, this unit isn't great.
Brees finally came back into his own last week against the Buccaneers, throwing for 312 yards and two touchdowns. The Saints have had moments this year where they've looked like the Saints of old, and Brees has been the reason for that.
We're still concerned from Brees' standpoint because he doesn't have Jimmy Graham and longer, and his receiving options aren't all that talented. That said, he's still got a 97.9 quarterback rating, is still going to throw for over 4,000 and probably over 4,500 yards, and this will almost surely be his eighth straight season with at least 30 TD passes.
So yes, averaging 24.9 fantasy points per game isn't fantastic by Brees' standards, but that potential is always there for a blowup thanks to the fact that his defense is so bad that it necessitates a lot more throwing. Remember that we're only a few weeks removed from Brees throwing seven TDs against the Giants and three in the first half the next week against Tennessee.
Stafford is the more interesting of the two prospects. If you watched him last week against the Rams, you couldn't help but cringe. Sure, he ended up throwing two touchdowns to Golden Tate, but he averaged just 5.3 yards per pass attempt and had to pick himself up off the turf at the Edward Jones Dome a ton. Calvin Johnson was made to wait until the fourth quarter to catch his first pass of the game as well.
Surely, Megatron is going to be let loose in this game. As an aside, we'd take our chances with Johnson against anyone else for the purposes of prop betting that New Orleans brought to the table outside of Brees due to the fact that we know the Saints haven't miraculously found anyone to cover a man with so much talent and size.
However, this is about Stafford, not Johnson. Stafford threw five touchdown passes three weeks ago against Philly, and in fairness to him, he's put up at least 25 fantasy points in three games in a row with a 9/1 TD/INT ratio.
Of course, this isn't the 2011 season when Stafford threw for 5,038 yards and 41 TDs, but he's not as far off from his 26.8 fantasy points per game from that season as you might think. He's posting 23.3 fantasy points per game this year, and he gets to go up against a defense which routinely allows quarterbacks to throw for multiple touchdowns in games.
Picking a winner between these two is tough, but we still ere more on the side of fading the New Orleans defense than backing Brees as has largely been the case for most of the season. As a slight underdog, Stafford is the proper of the two plays.
BookMaker offers play-by-play betting odds for live sporting events every day! The user-friendly wagering interface on your smartphone provides an easy way to place bets on the go. Mobile betting lines are updated by the minute, so click here to start gambling on thrilling live action at BookMaker Sportsbook! The matchup between the Detroit Lions and New Orleans Saints will take place Monday, December 21, 2015, at 8:30 p.m. ET at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. The game will be televised on ESPN.
