AZ CARDINALS vs DETROIT LIONS - WEEK 5
**UPDATE: double winner - big bet + 2nd half bet!!**
Just to recap what happened last week on why the Cards did NOT cover:
- It's hard to win turning the ball over. 3 turnovers.. 1 by David Johnson, 1 by Larry Fitz, 1 by Carson Palmer.
- That David Johnson fumble gave the Rams a very short field. TOO short of a field. Easy TD.
- David Johnson also dropped a TD pass on his mitts. Jermaine Gresham dropped an easy pass to extend a drive, too.
- Larry Fitz dropped a key pass.. and fumbled away the ball in the same game. He hasn't done that in YEARs.
- Janoris Jenkins made the INT of his life, basically duplicating the famous "David Tyree" catch in the SB.
- Despite the talk you hear about STL's vaunted defense creating 4 sacks, the fact is they still got lit up for 447 yards. Jenkins hits hard, but AZ picks on him for a reason. And so will other opponents.
- AZ played really good run D for 3 quarters, then Rashad Johnson (S) and Kevin Minter (LB) took horrible angles to tackle Todd Gurley.
You're lying if you thought that when AZ got the ball back for their final possession needing only 20 yards for a FG, the Rams would hold on to win. Live betting odds indicated against this, too.
Moral of the story: The Cards can play against any defense, but if they expect to beat GB and NE, they better stop dropping easy passes. Anyways, enough about the loss. That's so last week. As usual, intangibles come into play. Did you know..?
- Arizona has beat Detroit the last 6 times dating back to 2006? That said...
- I can guarantee you AZ fielded some pretty crappy teams against DET - and I'm sure for most of those matchups DET was favored.
- Jim Caldwell's coaching success is probably more of a product of Peyton Manning's skill than his own
- The Lions committed the 3rd *LEAST* amount of penalties in the league? In 2014, they were the 7th highest. Yet..
- They are the 4th lowest scoring team in the league, at 16.5 pts per game.
- Halogi Ngata is out - Detroit's stud line clogger.
OUTLOOK AND PREDICTION FOR WEEK 5:
Detroit is a desperate team, but their O-line and D-line is hurting right now. Despite this issues, on paper, Detroit looks really good offensively but in reality we all know they are running as smooth as a three-wheeled Gremlin. Arizona is simply looking for payback from the last game because they beat themselves. Detroit is simply looking for a way to win. They played their hearts out on Monday, but were stopped short of a victory by literally about 1 foot. Also, include the fact that Arians is a much better coach than Caldwell doesn't bode well for Detroit. If Detroit is going to win, they better find out where Jarraud Powers is lining up, because he gave up a few TDs to the Rams WRs last week. If Detroit doesn't exploit this matchup, they're in for a LONG LONG game.
PREDICTION #1: AZ -3 **BIG BET** (something like 23-13)
(For those wondering, do only standard bet for current line, which is -4, but I'm using -3 for my records since that's what I got.)