NFL Playoff Preview: NFC Championship — Minnesota vs. New Orleans

Let’s take a look at the two survivors of the NFC— the Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints — as they prepare to do battle at Superdome this Sunday. Please note that all NFL betting lines come courtesy Sports Interaction’s online sportsbook.

The Numbers: The Saints are -3.5 point favourites at home in Louisiana, to the surprise of nobody. The Saints came out last weekend in the NFC divisional round and laid a home-field whipping on the Arizona Cardinals 45-14, using the intense crowd noise to fuel one of the biggest playoff blowouts in recent memory.  The Over/Under for this one is at 53.5 points, another number that’s not surprising given how explosive these two offenses are. The two combined for 79 points last weekend.

The Matchup: Vikings pass-rush vs. Drew Brees. Make no mistake about it — this is where the game will either be won or lost for Minnesota. The Vikings led the NFL in team sacks this year (with 48) and harassed Cowboys QB Tony Romo throughout the game last weekend, dropping him six times. But there’s the catch — Minnesota does it’s best pass-rushing under the Metrodome, where crowd noise is at a high. Romo even went so far to say that the Vikings pass-rush is built upon intense crowd noise; DEs Jared Allen and Ray Edwards love getting good jumps off the ball, so any noise that can mess with the snap count is to their advantage.  What happens where there is no noise? You can bet the New Orleans crowd will fall silent when Brees is under center, meaning the noise that the Vikings feed off will be non-existent.

The Intangible: Reggie Bush. His dynamic performance against Arizona (217 all-purpose yards, two TDs) was either one of two things: the start of something big, or another flash in the pan. With Bush, it’s always hard to tell. He seems to be a yearly league-leader in breakout games, but always has trouble sustaining that momentum. The Vikings are quite familiar with Bush’s big-game ability; in a 30-27 Minnesota win over New Orleans last season, Bush became just the 12th player in NFL history to return two punts for TDs in a single game. He also carried the ball 12 times and hauled in a game-high seven passes for 64 yards. But what did he do after that? Racked up a mere 75 all-purpose yards against the Raiders, with no scores.

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(Click here for the AFC Championship preview)