The National Football League serves up a Monday Night Football game tonight that promises to be a classic. Two of the best offenses in football guided by Drew Brees of the homestanding New Orleans Saints, and Tom Brady, who will lead the New England Patriots charge. Not only do we have two explosive offenses with top notch quarterbacks, we don’t have a dominating defense on the field to get in their way.

In the world of over/unders … this is a game the books probably can’t put up a number high enough to prevent a winning “over” play.

Casinos fear the favorite and over combination on Monday night, and to combat that this week they have tacked the highest total line of the season on this matchup, and that line his risen to 57 points since it opened last Sunday night at 54½. At some point a line gets too high to wager on going over … this one isn’t there yet.

As for the game itself, the New Orleans Saints opened as a 3-point favorite, a spread that was bet down throughout most of the week and bottomed at New Orleans giving only 1-point for a couple hours yesterday afternoon. It started today at the most common line since Thursday, the Patriots getting 1½ points. That is the same number they were getting at Indianapolis a couple Sunday nights ago, and it was enough for their backers that night when Peyton Manning led the Colts to a 35-34 straight-up win, with the Patriots winning the wager by a half-point.

This afternoon the line has climbed back up on New Orleans, and they are currently a 2½ point favorite.

What we have here tonight is talent versus physics.

The talent belongs to the New Orleans Saints, who are having their year and enjoying their first ever franchise 10-0 season start. New Orleans has won most of their games by virtue of their explosive offense and the fabulous season Drew Brees is enjoying at quarterback. But, the Saints defense has been great at collecting turnovers and scoring by way of interception and fumble returns in addition to often setting up Brees’ offense is prime field position.

While it is the Saints year, it is not necessarily an outstanding year for Bill Belichick’s Patriots. Their 7-3 record is evidence that they are beatable, and while Brady has shown signs of improvement over the past eleven weeks since his shaky first few weeks back from last year’s season-ending injury, the Patriots defense is down right average.

Before this season began the Patriots made an investment in their future that cost their best defensive player this year. They traded Richard Seymour, their top sacker and most impressive run stopper in recent years, to the Oakland Raiders in the week leading up to opening day, receiving in exchange Oakland’s first round draft choice next April.

There is a reason for this trade, and it is mostly business.

Seymour is in the last year of his contract, and New England knew they would not offer him the kind of money some other team looking to pick up his skills in the free agent market was going to be willing to spend. In other words, the Patriots could have kept Seymour, but when this season ended, so too would have his career in New England and the Patriots would have got nothing for him.

This way, the Patriots weaken their 2009 defense, but, they will probably utilize the Raiders first pick next April, a selection that promises to be early in the draft, to pick up a blue-chip athlete that will likely contribute to the Patriots success for the coming decade.

Fine, fine, fine. Great plan to keep the future bright for the Patriots and their fans … but wouldn’t you like Seymour on your line tonight to try and slow the Saints explosive offense? Might he have made the difference in protecting the lead two weeks ago that New England surrendered to the Colts?

In the game of talent … tonight it is the Saints.

But, physics comes into play here.

An NFL season is a balancing act, and most results are headed towards the center. If a team does too well, they have both motivational factors and bloated point spreads to push them back towards the center. If a team does poorly, they benefit from huge point spread line advantages and the edge gained when opponents take games against them for granted … fertile ground for bad performances and better than expected results from the weaker squads.

Tonight, here is the math that has my enthusiasm for the Saints tempered. They come into this game 10-0, while their opponent, the Patriots, are 7-3. In others words, for the Saints to win tonight, and they still need to do it by more than two-points, they would need to pull four games ahead of the Patriots after this game, ending the night 11-0 versus dropping New England to 7-4.

On my charts, the Saints just don’t pull four games ahead of the Patriots this year, and it is much more likely from a purely statistical perspective to expect the evening to end with the Saints two games better than New England on season records, 10-1 versus 8-3.

Talent versus physics … it is a question of balance.