It's an NFC South battle as the Atlanta Falcons host the New Orleans Saints in Thursday Night Football. We talk to Michael Stewart, an oddsmaker with XXXX about the action coming in on this primetime matchup and where the odds could end up come kickoff Thursday night.
New Orleans Saints at Atlanta Falcons - Open: +8, Move: +10
This week's Thursday night game is all about two teams on opposite ends of the spectrum. The rivals opened the season against one another with the Saints winning 23-17 at home and covering as 3.5-point faves.
Depending on the wagering outlet, the Saints opened anywhere from -7 to -9.5 and action had come flooding in on the road fave.
According to Stewart, even saying "flooding in" is a bit of an understatement.
"Literally every single bet wrote at 8 was on the Saints and we quickly went to 8.5, which really didn't stop the bleeding so early Monday morning we went to Saints -9," Stewart told xxxxxxx "At that price we started to see a bit of Falcons money but certainly not enough to overcome our liability on the Saints."
Sharps have come in to take the points at the current number, but according to Stewart, 70 percent of the action coming in is on the Saints.
"There's no way we'll go to 10.5 in this game as we'd really open ourselves up to being middled," Stewart says. "I'm sure our sharper bettors are waiting for that but it's not going to happen."
Stewart and his book opened the total at 53.5, which has produced solid two-way action.
"We literally can't lose money on the total at this point," Stewart said. "We've written a ton of Saints to over parlays, so if that's the result tonight then we're going to get crushed. But as it stands this morning, we're going to be rooting hard for the Falcons to stay within a TD of the Saints tonight."
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