Monday Night Football Best Sports Betting Picks and Predictions for New Orleans Saints vs. Kansas City Chiefs

New Orleans will look to snap a two-game losing streak when they take on the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday night.

However, cluster injuries on both sides of the ball could greatly impact the Saints’ ability to pick up wins.

Chiefs injuries occur primarily at the wide receiver position.But the team should have enough depth to overcome those issues.

Amazingly, the Chiefs have dropped to 5.5-point favorites after opening at -8. Has the market gone completely wrong with this line move? let’s take a look.

Chiefs need not panic

There was a time when the Chiefs were winning only games under their head coach Andy Reid but were not covering the point spread.

That hasn’t happened recently, as Kansas City has won its last 10 games (regular season and playoffs) while covering the spread in nine of them.

Kansas City has won the last two Super Bowls despite a lack of stellar play at the wide receiver position. The offense is still at a high level despite Rashee Rice and Hollywood Brown being on injured reserve.

Even when you look at its current depth chart, names like Xavier Worthy, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Justin Watson can still get the job done.

While Worthy is still a rookie, there’s a reason the Chiefs traded up to land the former Texas Longhorn in the 2024 NFL Draft.

One of the strengths of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is his ability to quickly make connections with his receivers. Last week, when Rice went down with a knee injury, Worthy stepped up and had the best game of his rookie campaign with 73 yards and a touchdown on three catches.

Tight end Travis Kelce had season highs in receptions (seven), targets (nine) and receiving yards (89).

If you take away Mahomes’ weapons, he’ll find new weapons and spread the ball around even more.

As for Watson, he has been with the Chiefs for the past three seasons, while Smith-Schuster was also on the 2022 Super Bowl-winning team. Thus, Mahomes is already quite familiar with those receivers and will not hesitate to throw the ball in their direction if the right situation presents itself.

Spotlight on Derek Carr as injuries pile up

Saints fans had plenty of reasons to be excited in Week 3 after seeing their team score 40 points in back-to-back games to start the season.

However, the mood is completely different after two consecutive losses, dropping their record to .500.

The reality is that those two wins came against ideal opponents for New Orleans: a Panthers team with an inept offense that couldn’t move the ball and a Cowboys defense that couldn’t stop the run.

New Orleans quarterback Derek Carr averaged only 19.5 pass attempts in those wins, and Week 4 was the first time he threw more than 30 passes this season.

It’s almost as if the Saints can keep Carr from taking on too big a role, they’ll take it. Unfortunately, they may be called into action early and often on Monday nights.

new Orleans Will be without two starting linebackersPete Werner and Willie Gay, against the Chiefs. On offense, starting center Shane Lemieux and right guard Cesar Ruiz are also out.

The impact of the linebackers being out could create a nightmare scenario of trying to stop Kelce in the middle of the field.

Losing two linemen will also impact the Saints’ pass protection and ability to run the ball with Alvin Kamara.

You need a special kind of quarterback who can overcome these injuries, and I expect Carr to have a very difficult task.

Best Bet: Chiefs -5 (-110 at ESPN Bet)