Week 6 NFL Free Pick Article
By Adam Barone—This week the exhaustingly boring Carolina Panthers travel to Arizona to meet the upstart-ish Cardinals. The Cardinals are favored by 3.5 points and should have little trouble covering.
Last week Arizona fell short of covering a 3.5
point spread as the favorites in St. Louis when the football gods played
a dirty little trick on us.
The Cards were covering, but went into some sort of prevent-yourself-from-winning
defense. They allowed the Rams to march down the field, put the ball
in the end zone, AND tack on a two point conversion, pulling within
a field goal. Arizona still won, but fell short of covering by .5 points,
winning 34-31, causing who-knows-how-many bettors to put their fist
through the nearest wall.
This week the Cardinals are at home looking to cover the same spread. They’re 4-1 ATS in their last five home games and 5-1 ATS in their last 6 against a team with a winning record. As if that weren’t enough, they’re 6-1 ATS in their last 7 games overall.
On top of that, starting QB Matt Leinart is out
for the season. What? Why is that good? Because, moron. Pay attention.
He’s bad. And he whines too much. Plus, Kurt Warner is a lot better
than him. Evidence: Kurt Warner’s QB rating on the season is 102.3,
while Leinart’s is 61.9. That’s good for Arizona.
The Panthers come in with a 3-2 record, but have lost starting QB Jake
Delhomme for the season as well. His arm hurts. Carolina’s situation,
however, is not as positive as Arizona’s.
New starter David Carr has a QB rating on the season
of 64.6, plus he has a track record of being bad and standing around
in the pocket until some giant guy slams him to the turf. Delhomme’s
QB record was 111.4 on the year--slight difference.
Carolina will have to count more on their running game, which somehow
ranks 12th in the league. Their defense, on the other hand, is 25th
overall.
The Panthers are 0-6 in their last 6 games on grass. They are, however,
5-1 ATS in their last 6 against the NFC and 11-2 ATS in their last 13
games as a road underdog of 3.5-10.0.
These numbers may seem a bit scary, but fear not. The Panthers are not a “public team.” They’re not the Cowboys, Packers, Colts, Steelers, Bears or Patriots. They don’t have a humongous fan base. Vegas sets the line to draw attention to both sides, otherwise not enough people would bet on Carolina.
Also, and more importantly, David Carr hurt his
back in last week’s game and some guy named Matt Moore came in
to replace him. Carr is listed as day-to-day and the team signed 67
year old QB Vinny Testaverde to back him up (assuming his pace maker
holds up.)
Zona rolls.
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