Season preview – Betting Arizona Cardinals over/under 8½ wins

O, the Arizona Cardinals – forever the most difficult team to best in proposition bets such as “Over/Under Totals Wins.” Common wisdom – which likely has little to do with rational mathematics – believes Arizona’s rise stops in 2022 and the sportsbooks are reflecting this:

Arizona Cardinals, Over/Under Total Wins: 8½ (Even, -130)

With head coach Kliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray as starting quarterback, the team has gone from 4th place to 3rd to 2nd in the AFC West, progressing from 5 to 8 to 11 wins.

In 2021, the Cardinals ranked 11th in both points scored and points allowed; turnover differential was +12 in the regular season; the offensive line ranked 15th in Football Outsiders’ DVOA metric as well as in the more subjective Pro Football Focus year-end rankings. Kyler Murray took 31 sacks (including 14 in the four games he played against NFC West teams) but otherwise did well enough.

This offseason, WR Christian Kirk departed but A.J. Green re-signed, as did RB James Connor and TE Zach Ertz. LBs Chandler Jones and Jordan Hicks left in free agency. In all, perhaps a slight net negative in the offseason but probably not 2½ wins’ worth of downturn.

With an 11-6 finish in 2021, the Cardinals earned themselves a second-place schedule and thus games vs Philadelphia Eagles, at Minnesota Vikings and vs New England Partiots atop six games of the presumed-tough NFC West and four against the AFC West. In fact, Arizona opens with three West teams: vs Kansas City Chiels, at Las Vegas Raiders, vs L.A. Rams. A lot of tough outs on this schedule…

But then, there are those year-end swoons. In 2020, the Cardinals’ investment in Murray looked great, as the team got out to a 5-2 start with wins at San Francisco and versus Seattle – only to go 3-6 after the bye week and miss the playoffs altogether. In ’21, a red-hot 7-0 Arizona team turned into a 9-2 squad in November while Murray was out due to injury, hit the bye week, closed the season 2-4 to limp into the playoffs, and got egregiously smoked by the Rams in a wildcard game.

This season, the Cardinals get a bye in week 13. Does this mean that they’ll be good for, likesay, a 9-3 start? Should we take Murray running out of gas for granted? Or should we be a bit more scientific?

You know how NFLbets is going to answer that last one. The serious NFL bettor has no space for abstraction. The Cardinals, by roster at least, are an 11-win team rolling back most of their starters and returning an exciting playmaker at quarterback. Sure, the schedule looks daunting now, but NFLbets figures at least a couple of those teams won’t be as quality as expected. Likesay, the San Francisco 49ers. But that’s a whole other column… Take the Arizona Cardinals over 8½ total wins.