This looks to be a very interesting football game in the Bayou.  The 49ers have won two games in a row while the Saints have lost two in a row on the road.  The 49ers will likely look to get the ball into RB Frank Gore’s hands as much as possible in this game as he has 412 combined rushing and receiving yards already this season.  The Saints linebackers will have issues in dealing with Gore as the Saints are allowing 133.3 yards rushing per game and 5.3 ypc this season.  If QB J.T. O’Sullivan gets time to throw the ball (he has been sacked 13 times this season) against the Saints the Niners should be able to move the ball well against a Saints’ defense that is allowing 258.7 yards passing per game this season.

The Saints will come out throwing the ball as they always do but who will be catching the passes from Drew Brees this week?  With Marques Colston and Jeremy Shockey out for this week and the next couple look for Reggie Bush to even be more involved in the passing game if that’s possible seeing how he has already caught 26 passes this season.  Bush has accounted for 412 combined rushing and receiving yards this season but the Niners have a pretty good linebacking corps to deal with him.  The Niners will be blitzing a lot (they have 8 sacks) to try to pressure Drew Brees into rushing into some mistakes.

PREDICTION:  SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS 34, NEW ORLEANS SAINTS 30

Drew Brees has been awesome this season especially when you consider that the Saints are only averaging 81.3 yards rushing per game and 3.4 ypc this year.  Brees has completed 84 of 113 passes (74.3%) for 980 yards with 5 TD passes and 3 interceptions (103.9 QB Rating).  It will be interesting to see if Brees’ can keep up the solid passing with his receivers falling down like flies. 

Offensive guard Jamar Nesbit has been suspended for the next four games by the NFL for steroids abuse.  This will likely hurt the Saints’ offfense some as he is a pretty good guard.  The Saints quickly went out and signed 29-year old veteran guard Matt Lehr.  Lehr played in all 16 games (0 starts) for the Buccaneers last season.  In his 7-year NFL career, Lehr has played in 85 games (48 starts).  The Saints were lucky to find a player as good as Lehr sitting at home on his couch at this point of the season.

The Saints have signed 28-year old TE Sean Ryan to a 1-year contract.  Ryan was cut at the end of the preseason but the Dolphins and that should tell you a little something about him.  He played in 10 games with the Jets last season and he caught 3 passes for 46 yards (15.3 avg).  Ryan has now played in 26 games in his NFL career and he has caught 9 passes for 90 yards (10.0 avg).  Don’t expect miracles out of Ryan as he’s just not that good of a football player.

The Saints have lost starting TE Jeremy Shockey for the next 3-6 weeks due to surgery he had to repair a sports hernia.  This will hurt the Saints offense as he has caught 16 passes for 151 yards this season (9.4 avg).  Billy Miller will take over as the Saints’ starting TE until Shockey is ready to return to action.  Miller has caught 2 passes for 41 yards (20.5 avg) this season and he has decent skills as a receiver so look for him to catch a lot of passes while Shockey is out.  Still, going from Shockey to Miller is a huge dropoff for the Saints’ offense.