So, NFLbets supposes, either the league’s schedule makers envisioned a completely different matchup or the algorithm just plain did them wrong. As the NFL gets to thinking about how to flex Thursday Night Football games, NFL bettors get to contemplate the nuttiness of
New Orleans Saints +2½ at Arizona Cardinals, over/under 43½ points
With Andy Dalton starting for the Saints and piloting an offense that will go without WR Jarvis Landry, TE Adam Trautman. OG Andrus Peat and, inevitably, WR Michael Thomas. Granted, Dalton has ascended the New Orleans offense, getting the Saints from 17.0 points per game in the first three games of 2022 to 30.0 in the last three – though with more weaponry than available this week. Also, the Saints went an identical 1-2 SU/ATS with Jameis Winston and Dalton.
On the other side are the Cardinals, an absolutely maddening (so to speak) team on which to beat in 2022. NFLbets is fairly convinced that Kliff Kingsbury reached the last page of the playbook about three-quarters of a season ago, and thus far in ’22 have won two games either by dint of freakish occurrences stacking up (at Vegas in week 2) and Kyler Murray improvising the entire fourth quarter (at Carolina in week 4). The Cards are also on a 1-3 SU/2-2 ATS stretch in which they’ve scored 16.0 ppg (13.33 if we remove the 16-point fourth quarter against a really quite bad Pantehrs team) and four straight unders have hit.
On top of everything else, Kingsbury has got to be feeling the heat. Thanks to the 19-9 spanking taken at the hands of Seattle, the Cardinals are an early 0-2 SU/ATS against the NFC West and already feel pretty entrenched in last place there. How desperate can he be to get what is frankly a winnable game? And how desperately does Murray want Kingsbury out?
All things considered, then, NFLbets is going to zag from our more usual play: We’ll say take a 6-point tease with New Orleans +8½ and over 37½.
– written by Os Davis
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