Week 5 of the 2025 NFL season is here!
There are great matchups throughout the slate, but let's focus on the Saints taking on the Giants and the Colts hosting the Raiders.
Week 5 Best Bet Prediction: New Orleans Saints Under 21.5 Points (-110)
The Saints are home favorites this week, and I’m not entirely comfortable backing Jaxson Dart pulling an upset in his first road start without Malik Nabers.
I’m quite comfortable betting and suggesting readers bet on Big Blue’s defense keeping the Saints under 21.5 points.
According to Pro Football Reference, the Giants are tied for the sixth-most yards allowed per play (5.7) this season, and their defense has permitted the 10th-most points per game (25.3).
Those aren’t eye-catching numbers, but facing Jayden Daniels and Dak Prescott on the road in the first two weeks before hosting Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert in the following two weeks is a rather brutal runout.
Their surface-level defensive stats were also significantly impacted by coughing up 40 points and 478 yards of offense to the Cowboys in an overtime shootout loss.
They’ve since buckled down, holding the Chiefs and Chargers to 306 and 338 yards and 22 and 18 points, respectively.
Allowing 21 points to the Commanders in Week 1 wasn’t damning, either.
The G-Men have their softest matchup of the year, coming off a nifty defensive showing at home against the Chargers.
Moreover, there’s one specific matchup that I expect to cause the New Orleans offense to unravel.
Pro Football Focus (PFF) ranks the Saints 21st in pass blocking this season.
Conversely, they grade the Giants as the fifth-best in pass rushing.
New York revved up their pass rush against the Chargers last week. Per PFF, Herbert was under pressure on 20 of his 44 dropbacks (45.5%) last week.
PFF also credits Spencer Rattler with the sixth-most dropbacks under pressure (60) this year.
Among 36 quarterbacks with at least 20 dropbacks under pressure this year, Rattler is their 20th-graded passer and 25th in yards per attempt (4.7).
Rattler also hasn’t provided any reason to believe he can hang over 21.5 points against a competent defense.
The 27 points the Saints scored against the Buccaneers in Week 6 last season are the most they’ve scored in Rattler’s 10 career starts, and it’s the only instance of them exceeding 21.5 points.
They also scored 21 points at home against the 49ers in Week 2 this year, but those are the only instances of the Saints clearing 20 points in Rattler’s starts.
On the flip side, the Giants might chew up clock on the ground.
According to RotoViz’s pace app, the Giants had a 60% situation-neutral rush rate last week, even incorporating Dart’s rushing ability in their play-calling.
Still, New York’s play-calling tendencies in Dart’s first start are the cherry on top for betting against Rattler leading the Saints to over 21.5 points this week.
The G-Men should get in his grill, and I wouldn’t count on Rattler bucking his trend of falling short of 21.5 points in this week’s contest.
Week 5 Best Bet Prediction: Indianapolis Colts Team Total Over 27.5 Points (-108)
Daniel Jones has balled out in Shane Steichen’s offense this year.
According to Sumer Sports, Danny Dimes is fourth in total expected points added (EPA) and fourth in EPA per play, when excluding Andy Dalton’s 7 plays and Dillon Gabriel’s 4 plays.
Jonathan Taylor has also run roughshod over the competition.
Taylor is the NFL’s leading rusher (414 yards at 103.5 per game).
According to the data suite at Fantasy Points, among 43 running backs with at least 25 rush attempts this year, Taylor is tied for fourth in missed tackles forced per attempt (0.27), 19th in yards before contact per attempt (2.14), third in yards after contact per attempt (3.23), and first in success rate (73.0%) on man/gap concepts.
Jones and Taylor have been a handful, and the Indianapolis offense has thrived.
The Colts are second in EPA per play (0.16), first in success rate (50.0%), first in yards per play (6.5), and fourth in scoring offense (30.8 points per game).
The Colts have scored 33, 29, 41, and 20 points in their four contests this year.
Last week’s 20-point effort was against a talented Rams defense, and it also didn’t include a walk-in touchdown by Adonai Mitchell because he made a mind-numbing decision to attempt to shift hands with the ball at the goal line, seemingly in preparation for a touchdown celebration, only to fumble it out of the end zone for a back-breaking touchback.
The Raiders have an unimposing defense, which makes for a nice bounce-back opportunity for the Colts.
Las Vegas has allowed the 12th-most yards per play (5.5) and the 11th-most points per game (24.8) despite facing Drake Maye in his first start in Josh McDaniels’ offense in Week 1, opposing Marcus Mariota in Week 3, and squaring off with Caleb Williams in Week 4.
The Raiders coughed up 41 points to the Commanders in Week 3 and 25 to the Bears last week, their two worst efforts of the season.
Additionally, after playing at home last week, this will be their third game playing in the 1:00 p.m. ET window.
Again, the Commanders drilled them for 41 points in their last contest in that time slot.
Las Vegas is ill-equipped to slow down the Colts, and playing in the early time slot and indoors won’t do them any favors.
PFF grades the Raiders 26th in total defense, 23rd in run defense, 22nd in pressure, and 27th in coverage.
Indy should be able to impose its will and hang points on the ground and through the air against the Raiders this week.
Geno Smith might also hang the defense out to dry.
Among 33 quarterbacks with at least 75 dropbacks this year, Smith has the third-highest turnover-worthy play rate (5.3%), the fourth-longest time to throw (3.06 seconds), and the eighth-highest pressure-to-sack rate (20.7%).
Finally, Raiders left tackle Kolton Miller was placed on injured reserve this week, which removes their best offensive lineman from the fold.
Smith hasn’t needed help putting the ball in harm’s way or taking sacks, but missing his blindside protector could lead to more mistakes that help the Colts get the ball with favorable field position this week, making their life easier to exceed 27.5 points.