Seattle Seahawks @ Arizona Cardinals
Seattle Seahawks (3-5) on the road has been terrible, they don't produce anything on their offense and their defense is having a lot of troubles. The main reason why the Seahawks can't score is due to the protection the Seattle OL can't provide to their QB Matt Hasselbeck, who's indeed a good player, but is not yet 100% recovered from the injury he suffered earlier in the season and going with a deep ball against Arizona's secondary is not a good idea either.
Seahawks running game counts with RB Julius Jones and RB Edgerrin James and it doesn't scare anyone, there are a lot of plays when Seattle is in a 3rd down and short situation and the team goes much more by the air and on this game, I believe that is will happen very often, because the Cardinals have a very good rushing defense.
For Seattle to have some chance to win this game, they need to be very focused on their defense and since this is an important game for both teams, a divisional one, I believe that the Seahawks will give their best on their defense first and then trying to keep their offense focused and cooled, playing with calm and biding their time, using the clock in their favor.
Arizona Cardinals (5-3) curiously played much better on the road than at home this season, the complete opposite from their fantastic last season, when they where so strong at home and had some problems on their road games. This team is a very powerful one when the subject is called offense. QB Kurt Warner has excellent weapons like WR Larry Fitzgerald and WR Anquan Boldin, who are very strong on the passing game.
Cards running game despite the excellent rushing displayed last week, is quite weak. Arizona has RB Beanie Wells and RB Tim Hightower, but we know that Tim Hightower has played often by the air than by the ground, therefore, the core of this Cardinals offensive unit is really their passing game.
As I said earlier, the Cards defense has a good secondary and it will be hard for the Seahawks to score a lot of points against them and their running defense is also quite good and I believe that they will able to stop the Seahawks offense in both dimension, both their passing game and their rushing game as well.
If we take a good look at both teams schedule's for this season, only against the Texans who actually play much better on the road than in Houston, the Cards were able to score a win. We also noticed that after the 21-34 home loss against Carolina, a great 21-41 road win followed in the next game against Chicago, which explains a little bit why the opening line on the total was so high (47 points). We also remember that half of the games that Arizona has already played had 48 or more points scored...
Seattle has clearly lost all their road games, always by a two digits difference (13 points or more). They only won at home against very weak teams and they have 3 games where the total points scored where equal or higher than 51 points, which includes their last 2 games after their Bye Week on Week 7. With this in mind, we can understand why the total opening line was that high...
The reason why I'm not playing the Cardinals point spread is due to the Arizona's performances at home. They haven't convinced anyone yet and it is on these games that they feel more pressured and more mentally unstable. That has translated in a lot of errors and in bad home games and in the end, a few losses.
Despite the Seahawks have lost all their road games, I believe that they can take advantage of the Cards bad behaviour at home and play a slow game, controlling the clock, taking advantage of Arizona's mistakes and avoiding to commit their own mistakes. Knowing that this is a divisional game, we must not forget that the Seahawks were heavily defeat by Arizona at home on their previous encounter: 3-27.
After considering the possibilities for this game, there is another plausible scenario for this game, which also helps us on the total. Arizona simply snaps their bad home display and does indeed a good game, finishing the game with a 31-6 score for the Cardinals or even a 24-17, if they play their game like they have done in the road. If that happens, then the Seahawks will only be able to score some late points like they did against the Colts, for example.
Otherwise, Arizona will play very badly like in their previous home games and we can have a surprising Seahawks win, but I don't expect more than 41 points on that case. Right now, both teams can't make mistakes and the pressure on both teams is heavy, specially over Arizona's shoulders, a team that doesn't want to lose the opportunity to win a second game this season against these weak Seahawks.
Overall, I believe that defenses will play much better, the offenses will have difficulties in doing their job thanks to the pressure and fear of failure, minimizing the risks of doing mistakes in order to not favor their adversaries. In my opinion, without both teams last two games and the total line for this game should be around the 42 points, 43 tops. I believe that this Under line has the better odds so I'll take the extra value in this probabilities market.
Pick: Under 46.5 -105 (1.95) Bet Jamaica
Seattle Seahawks (3-5) on the road has been terrible, they don't produce anything on their offense and their defense is having a lot of troubles. The main reason why the Seahawks can't score is due to the protection the Seattle OL can't provide to their QB Matt Hasselbeck, who's indeed a good player, but is not yet 100% recovered from the injury he suffered earlier in the season and going with a deep ball against Arizona's secondary is not a good idea either.
Seahawks running game counts with RB Julius Jones and RB Edgerrin James and it doesn't scare anyone, there are a lot of plays when Seattle is in a 3rd down and short situation and the team goes much more by the air and on this game, I believe that is will happen very often, because the Cardinals have a very good rushing defense.
For Seattle to have some chance to win this game, they need to be very focused on their defense and since this is an important game for both teams, a divisional one, I believe that the Seahawks will give their best on their defense first and then trying to keep their offense focused and cooled, playing with calm and biding their time, using the clock in their favor.
Arizona Cardinals (5-3) curiously played much better on the road than at home this season, the complete opposite from their fantastic last season, when they where so strong at home and had some problems on their road games. This team is a very powerful one when the subject is called offense. QB Kurt Warner has excellent weapons like WR Larry Fitzgerald and WR Anquan Boldin, who are very strong on the passing game.
Cards running game despite the excellent rushing displayed last week, is quite weak. Arizona has RB Beanie Wells and RB Tim Hightower, but we know that Tim Hightower has played often by the air than by the ground, therefore, the core of this Cardinals offensive unit is really their passing game.
As I said earlier, the Cards defense has a good secondary and it will be hard for the Seahawks to score a lot of points against them and their running defense is also quite good and I believe that they will able to stop the Seahawks offense in both dimension, both their passing game and their rushing game as well.
If we take a good look at both teams schedule's for this season, only against the Texans who actually play much better on the road than in Houston, the Cards were able to score a win. We also noticed that after the 21-34 home loss against Carolina, a great 21-41 road win followed in the next game against Chicago, which explains a little bit why the opening line on the total was so high (47 points). We also remember that half of the games that Arizona has already played had 48 or more points scored...
Seattle has clearly lost all their road games, always by a two digits difference (13 points or more). They only won at home against very weak teams and they have 3 games where the total points scored where equal or higher than 51 points, which includes their last 2 games after their Bye Week on Week 7. With this in mind, we can understand why the total opening line was that high...
The reason why I'm not playing the Cardinals point spread is due to the Arizona's performances at home. They haven't convinced anyone yet and it is on these games that they feel more pressured and more mentally unstable. That has translated in a lot of errors and in bad home games and in the end, a few losses.
Despite the Seahawks have lost all their road games, I believe that they can take advantage of the Cards bad behaviour at home and play a slow game, controlling the clock, taking advantage of Arizona's mistakes and avoiding to commit their own mistakes. Knowing that this is a divisional game, we must not forget that the Seahawks were heavily defeat by Arizona at home on their previous encounter: 3-27.
After considering the possibilities for this game, there is another plausible scenario for this game, which also helps us on the total. Arizona simply snaps their bad home display and does indeed a good game, finishing the game with a 31-6 score for the Cardinals or even a 24-17, if they play their game like they have done in the road. If that happens, then the Seahawks will only be able to score some late points like they did against the Colts, for example.
Otherwise, Arizona will play very badly like in their previous home games and we can have a surprising Seahawks win, but I don't expect more than 41 points on that case. Right now, both teams can't make mistakes and the pressure on both teams is heavy, specially over Arizona's shoulders, a team that doesn't want to lose the opportunity to win a second game this season against these weak Seahawks.
Overall, I believe that defenses will play much better, the offenses will have difficulties in doing their job thanks to the pressure and fear of failure, minimizing the risks of doing mistakes in order to not favor their adversaries. In my opinion, without both teams last two games and the total line for this game should be around the 42 points, 43 tops. I believe that this Under line has the better odds so I'll take the extra value in this probabilities market.
Pick: Under 46.5 -105 (1.95) Bet Jamaica
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