{"id":20984,"date":"2012-01-12T01:20:56","date_gmt":"2012-01-12T06:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20984"},"modified":"2012-01-12T01:25:18","modified_gmt":"2012-01-12T06:25:18","slug":"saturday-divisional-nfl-playoff-picks-49ers-host-saints-in-nfc-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/saturday-divisional-nfl-playoff-picks-49ers-host-saints-in-nfc-showdown-20984\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday Divisional NFL Playoff Picks: 49ers host Saints in NFC showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Orleans Saints at San Francisco 49ers
\nSaturday, 1\/14\/12, 4:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 FOX
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 New Orleans -3
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 New Orleans -3.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 47
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 47
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"49ers
San Francisco QB Alex Smith hopes to lead his team to a victory in his first playoff appearance.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The New Orleans Saints will go for their first-ever postseason road win when they visit the San Francisco 49ers on Saturday at Candlestick Park in the divisional round of the playoffs.\u00a0 The third-seeded Saints (14-3) are 0-4 all-time on the road in the playoffs and will face a San Francisco team that lost just once at home during the regular season.<\/p>\n

The second-seeded 49ers (13-3) suffered a 27-24 overtime loss to Dallas in Week 2 at home but have won six in a row there both straight-up and against the spread since then. \u00a0In fact, they are 7-0-1 ATS at home overall and covered a 25-22 loss to New Orleans at Candlestick last year as 4.5-point underdogs.<\/p>\n

The NFC West champion Saints (-3.5, O\/U 47) have won nine in a row both SU and ATS but could have a hard time keeping up their current scoring pace against a San Francisco defense that surrendered just 10.9 points per game at home during the regular season.\u00a0 They have scored six touchdowns in each of their last four games \u2013 all of which have gone OVER the total \u2013 including a 45-28 rout of Detroit last Saturday.<\/p>\n

New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees continued his torrid play of late, throwing for 466 yards against the Lions with three touchdowns while running backs Pierre Thomas, Darren Sproles and Chris Ivory combined for 164 rushing yards on 31 carries and scored three touchdowns.\u00a0 Brees has never lost to the 49ers, going 5-0 with 1,475 passing yards, 12 touchdowns and just two interceptions.\u00a0 He has thrown for 307 yards or more with at least two touchdowns in eight straight games, including last week\u2019s playoff victory.<\/p>\n

San Francisco is back in the postseason for the first time since winning the NFC West in 2002, and Jim Harbaugh should be a lock for NFL Coach of the Year honors after turning around a team that went 3-13 last year into a division champion again.\u00a0 Harbaugh believed in former No. 1 overall pick Alex Smith, who enjoyed his best year under center for the 49ers with 3,144 passing yards, 17 touchdowns and only five interceptions.<\/p>\n

Smith outdueled Brees through the air in the last meeting, throwing for 275 yards compared to 254 for the Saint, but he also threw two picks.\u00a0 San Francisco RB Frank Gore had 112 rushing yards on 20 carries against New Orleans and scored two touchdowns.\u00a0 The Saints may also have to rely even more on Brees because the 49ers own the league\u2019s top-ranked run defense, allowing just 77.3 yards per game and an NFL-low three touchdowns on the ground.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NFL handicappers<\/a> at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Orleans Saints at San Francisco 49ers Saturday, 1\/14\/12, 4:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 FOX Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 New Orleans -3 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 New Orleans -3.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 47 Current Total:\u00a0 47 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker The New Orleans Saints will go for their first-ever postseason road win when they visit the San Francisco 49ers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":4216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[6335,1034,2539,2839,427,4313,1772,1922,604,299],"class_list":["post-20984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-alexs-smith","tag-drew-brees","tag-football-betting","tag-football-picks","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-nfc-playoffs","tag-nfl-betting","tag-nfl-picks","tag-nfl-playoffs","tag-san-francisco-49ers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20984"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20986,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20984\/revisions\/20986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}