Jameis Winston's two picks and a fourth-quarter benching sink Giants -1.5

We said New Orleans had the worst defense in football and the Giants only had to be patient. They ran 20 times for 84 yards and their leading rusher was the backup quarterback. Jameis Winston threw two interceptions and got benched in the fourth, New Orleans scored 24 straight, and the Saints themselves ran for 175. J.J. McCarthy's late 243-yard relief job made the box score respectable and nothing else. Saints 34, Giants 27, seven points down and eight and a half from the number.

New Orleans has the worst defense in football by the measure that decides drives: opponents succeed on 50.3% of their plays against the Saints, the highest rate in the league, and they have allowed 744 rushing yards, also the most. That's the dominant unit on this field and it is facing a Giants offense that doesn't have to be good to take advantage, only patient. We are not going to pretend the Giants get home with the rush, because Brian Burns tore his ACL in Week 3 and New York's pass rush has been close to nonexistent since, which is a correction to how we would have written this game a month ago. Jameis Winston has started the last three games with Jaxson Dart out for the regular season, so he is priced in rather than news, and the three Giants who left the Washington tie, Jermaine Eluemunor, Colton Hood and Tyler Nubin, are day to day. The honest caution is that the Saints' efficiency numbers aren't schedule-adjusted and they already went into Baltimore and won, so the real gap is probably smaller than the raw figures say, which is why we shaded our number toward the market rather than away from it. We make it Giants -4; the market says -1.5.