A pair of struggling team meet in the desert as the Arizona Cardinals play host to the Denver Broncos in Week 7 action of the 2018 NFL season at the State Farm Stadium on Thursday 10/18/18.
The Broncos opened the season at 2-0 but have not won since. The fans hope this won’t be a repeat of last season where Denver started 2-0 only to lose 11 of their next 14 games. With that in mind, The Broncos will try to snap a four game losing skid on Thursday against an equally struggling Arizona Cardinals team.
Case Keenum has thrown for 1,687 yards and is completing 63.1% of his passes. But the 30 year old only has 7 touchdowns and 8 interceptions on the season. Keenum has thrown at least one interception in each of the Broncos first six games of the season. As a consolation of sorts though, he’s thrown for a total of four touchdowns with two interceptions while amassing a total of 697 passing yards in his last two games.
Aside from Keenum’s inability to protect the football, Denver’s defense has also struggled. The Broncos are giving up an average of 26.2 points per game which is only 22nd in the entire NFL. Likewise, their pass rush hasn’t been up to the test as they only have a total of 11 sacks, good for 19th in the league.
While the Denver Broncos are searching for their first road win, the Arizona Cardinals are looking for their first home win. The 1-5 Cardinals got their first win of the season in Week 5 when they beat the 49ers but they went back to their losing ways after dropping a 17-27 contest to the Minnesota Vikings last week.
Rookie quarterback Josh Rosen has thrown for 626 yards with two touchdowns and two picks and is completing 55.6% of his passes. Last week, Rosen played well against the Vikings, throwing for 240 yards with one interception. But the Cardinals didn’t get much from their running game which only produced 61 yards on 20 carries with one score.
Running back David Johnson finished with only 55 rushing yards last week and has failed to rush for at least 100 yards in every game this season. Unless the Arizona running game starts putting up decent numbers, opposing defenses will simply continue to swarm their rookie quarterback and put the pressure on the Arizona passing game.
The Broncos are 1-4 SU in their last 5 games and 1-11 SU in their last 12 games on the road. On the other hand, the Cardinals are 1-5 SU in their last 6 games and 2-4 SU in their last 6 home games. Head to head though, it’s Denver who has Arizona’s number as the Broncos have won five out of the last six games between these two teams including two out of the last three.
Sure, Denver has lost four games in a row but note that their average margin of defeat in those four games is 9.5 and remember that those four losses came against teams with a combined record of 19-6 SU. So while the Broncos may be in a must-win situation, they haven’t had the easiest schedule either. That changes this week as they will play a Cardinals team that have scored not more than 17 points per game in their first six games of the season.
The home team is 5-1 SU in Thursday Night Football this season but It’s hard to back up the Cards with their running game and offense in general sputtering right now. Denver will finally get an “easy” opponent this week and I like the Broncos to snap their four game losing streak here. We’re picking the Denver Broncos to beat the Arizona Cardinals on 10/18/18.
The Broncos are 1-6 ATS in their last 7 games and 1-11 ATS in their last 12 games on the road. The Cardinals are 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games at home. Against Denver though, Arizona is 1-5 ATS in their last 6 games played. The trends seem to favor Arizona but between themselves, it’s Denver who has the numbers.
Although the Broncos’ two wins this season have been by an aggregate of four points only, Denver’s last four wins over the Cardinals have come by no fewer than 17 points. Again, we go back to Arizona’s paltry offensive production. I think the Broncos are going to win this game by at least a field goal. Prediction: Broncos -2.5
The under is 4-1 in the last 5 games played by the Denver Broncos. The under is also 4-2 in the Broncos last six games on the road. Over at Arizona, the total has gone under in seven out of the last 10 games of the Cardinals. The total has also gone under in each of the last five home games of Arizona. However, the total has gone over during the last five meetings between these two teams.
Arizona ranks second to the last in the NFL in scoring at 13.7 points per game while Denver is 26th at 20.0 points per game. The Cardinals have only scored more than 20 points once this season while the Broncos’ highest single game output of the season has been only 27 points. I don’t think the Broncos and Cardinals are going to score a combined 41 points on Thursday. Prediction: Under 40.5
The Under 40.5 comes in as the bet with the best value for me at -107. But if you’re not a fan of scores and totals, then bet the traditional way and pick the Denver Broncos to win straight up using their current moneyline of -137.
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