Saints odds: New Orleans still favored to make playoffs

The morale in and around New Orleans isn't great right now after the Saints blew a 17-0 lead in Green Bay on Sunday. Once Derek Carr suffered a shoulder injury early in the second half, the visitors looked like a completely different team. The eventual 18-17 defeat was the Saints' first of the season but you wouldn't know that listening to the discourse around the fanbase.

Fortunately, it's not all bad for the New Orleans faithful.

While many fans have been quick to write the Saints off seeing as Carr will be out for the foreseeable future, oddsmakers aren't displaying any knee-jerk reactions following the injury.

New Orleans remains -180 to make the playoffs this season at Caesars Sportsbook, the official odds partner of Bet.NOLA.com. The Atlanta Falcons are also -180 to make the playoffs, so which one of these teams should bettors fade going forward? Easy — the latter, even with the injury to Carr.

The Saints have what many believe to be the easiest schedule in the entire league. They're also well-suited to handle a short stint without their starting signal caller. New Orleans has a plethora of weapons on offense and Jameis Winston is widely considered to be one of the best backups in the league. All of this — added to a top-tier defense — means there's no reason to panic in NOLA.

The Falcons, on the other hand, are incredibly one-dimensional on offense, and they showed their vulnerabilities in their 20-6 defeat to the Detroit Lions in Week 3. Atlanta was held to just 44 yards on the ground across 20 carries, which meant the offense needed to rely on Desmond Ridder's arm to win games. This was clearly not a successful strategy.

It goes without saying Detroit is not the only team that will look to exploit this glaring weakness in Atlanta's offensive game plan.

Meanwhile, even though the Saints will start a second-string quarterback for the next few weeks, they don't have to change the way they play. Dennis Allen's team is built for success and the sportsbooks have taken note.

The only notable change in New Orleans' lines comes in the division race.

The Saints were the clear favorite to win the NFC South before Carr's injury (+110) last week. Now, they're +125 to win the division for the first time since 2020. The Falcons saw their odds favorably shift from +175 to +150, despite a poor performance against the Lions. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers also saw a slight boost to their odds of winning the division (+400 to +370), but as we stated this time last week, the NFC South remains a two-horse race.

These odds will likely shift again shortly with Tampa Bay coming to the Caesars Superdome on Sunday afternoon. The Saints are 3-point home favorites as of Wednesday evening.