Shedeur Sanders' 297 yards bust Saints -2.5 in a one-point overtime win

Saints 23, Browns 22 in overtime, which wins the game and loses us a point and a half. Our case was Cleveland's 29th-ranked offense handing the ball to a rookie making his first start. Shedeur Sanders threw for 297 and two scores, 272 of it after halftime, and found Harold Fannin Jr. for 39 with about a minute left in the extra period. Cleveland then went for two to win rather than kick to extend it, and Chase Young's pressure forced the incompletion. A genuine bad beat on a ranked play, and still a loss.

Cleveland's offense is 29th in scoring at 17.4, 31st in the red zone at 42.9%, and its quarterback has been sacked 33 times in eight games. Deshaun Watson is in the concussion protocol after symptoms surfaced Monday night, so Shedeur Sanders is in line for his first start of the season, and this pick doesn't need that to resolve: with Watson we make it Saints -3.5, with Sanders -5, and the market sits at -2.5 either way. New Orleans is second in the league at converting red-zone trips at 77.3% with Chris Olave at 636 yards and Tyler Shough at 13 touchdowns, and Chase Young's seven sacks go to work on a Browns line without Teven Jenkins. The case against laying anything is the Saints defense, 29th in points allowed and 30th on third down, plus a run game gone dead with Travis Etienne Jr. still on injured reserve, though he could be activated this week, and Alvin Kamara at 3.0 a carry, which means Quinshon Judkins and Harold Fannin Jr. can keep Cleveland within a score. The Browns defense is the real thing, 11th in yards per play and eighth in opponent red-zone rate, and that's why this number is small rather than six. We make it Saints -4.5; the market says -2.5, and getting to lay 2.5 instead of 3 is the reason this ranks.