One reason for Saints fans to maintain hope is because the team hasn't totally lost esteem in the eyes of Vegas. Companies like the Las Vegas Sports Consultants use detailed methods of evaluation on each player, coaches' tendencies and several other factors, to come up with a hyperaccurate power rankings. While power rankings will be perpetually mocked for their worthlessness, these rankings are used to determine the spread for a particular matchup. This explains why some matchups appear to have a spread disparate from the common perception of the teams.

This season the Saints are 1-4 against the spread, their only win coming against Seattle, who was favored by 5.5 points. Yet the Saints continue to receive favored status, indicating that Vegas sees them as a powerful team, even if their record indicates otherwise.

All of this is a roundabout way of pointing out that the Saints are favored by eight points today. Which seems like a lot.

• Lost in the controversy over Mike Holmgren's play card being shown on national TV is that the NBC crew showed Sean Payton's card about thirty seconds before Holmgren's. Yet no mentions are made of this. Just throwing that out there.
• I would highly recommend SBN's Falcons blog The Falcoholic. Dave does an awesome job blogging about the Falcons over there.

Crumpler is doubtful, Horn is probable, as are Coleman and Babineaux. Meanwhile, for the Saints, Jason David has returned to practice but is clearly still out.

Believe it or not, the Falcons offense is actually more inept than the Saints. Their defense is same-level mediocre.

The Saints ... the Falcons ... the NFL is on Fox.