{"id":17294,"date":"2011-08-27T13:28:47","date_gmt":"2011-08-27T18:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=17294"},"modified":"2011-08-27T13:28:47","modified_gmt":"2011-08-27T18:28:47","slug":"san-diego-chargers-at-arizona-cardinals-2011-nfl-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/san-diego-chargers-at-arizona-cardinals-2011-nfl-predictions-17294\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego Chargers at Arizona Cardinals 2011 NFL Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Diego Chargers at Arizona Cardinals
\nSaturday, 8\/27\/11, 10:00 PM EST
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 San Diego -3
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 San Diego -3
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 39
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 41.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Arizona Cardinals QB Kevin Kolb will make his 2011 season debut in front of the home faithful tonight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

San Diego is coming off a 20-7 road win over the Dallas Cowboys last week as one-point underdogs and now will be favored for the first time on the road tonight.\u00a0 The Chargers have been out-gained in both of their contest thus far, including by 74 yards in Week 2 by the Cowboys.\u00a0 Head coach Norv Turner intends to play his starters for an extended period of time Saturday night, possibly into the third quarter.\u00a0 \u201cThe offensive starters last week got 37 plays before the end of the second quarter,\u201d commented Turner.\u00a0 \u201cYou look for the most continuity in the third game.\u00a0 The starters play more.\u201d\u00a0 San Diego is 20-13 ATS on the road during the preseason.<\/p>\n

The Chargers defense will be tested in this contest by a strong opposing offense, as the secondary is eager to face Cardinals quarterback Kevin Kolb and wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald.\u00a0 San Diego was the No. 1 pass defense in the NFL during the 2010 season.\u00a0 Offensively, the team has been working on throwing the ball more early in games as well as in the red zone.\u00a0 The offensive starters have done the following on five possessions thus far:\u00a0 touchdown, punt, field goal, touchdown, touchdown.\u00a0 Another key to avoiding another slow start to the 2011 season is turnovers, as the team didn\u2019t turn the ball over last week against the Cowboys.<\/p>\n

Arizona has played consecutive games on the road to start the 2011 preseason and now comes home to University of Phoenix Stadium to host San Diego and Denver before hosting Carolina in the season opener on Sept. 11.\u00a0 The Cardinals have certainly made some noise during the offseason, especially with acquiring quarterback Kevin Kolb from Philadelphia, who is glad to be in the desert.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m, glad I\u2019m stepping into a team like that rather than a team that won maybe 12 football games last year,\u201d he commented.\u00a0 \u201cThe intensity of this camp is better than I\u2019ve been in before.\u201d\u00a0 Arizona is 2-2 ATS in preseason home games the last two years.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals have definitely noticed a different between this year\u2019s camp and ones of the past, as head coach Ken Whisenhunt has preached to his players to focus.\u00a0 \u201cOur guys worked hard last year in camp,\u201d Whisenhunt stated.\u00a0 \u201cWe had some things that didn\u2019t go the way we wanted them to.\u201d\u00a0 A key concern for the team in tonight\u2019s contest and moving forward is depth at the running back position.\u00a0 Rookie Ryan Williams suffered a torn patellar tendon in his right knee during last week\u2019s 28-20 loss to Green Bay.\u00a0 He was in line to back up starter Beanie Wells, which is now being handed to LaRod Stephens-Howling.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Cardinals due to their 1-0 ATS mark as a home underdog of three points or less, while the Chargers are 2-3 ATS as a favorite.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on an incredible year and let the NFL handicappers at Maddux Sports go to work for you.\u00a0 Get in the game today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Diego Chargers at Arizona Cardinals Saturday, 8\/27\/11, 10:00 PM EST Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 San Diego -3 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 San Diego -3 Opening Total:\u00a0 39 Current Total:\u00a0 41.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker San Diego is coming off a 20-7 road win over the Dallas Cowboys last week as one-point underdogs and now will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":17230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[646,3702,3005,3574,1114,298],"class_list":["post-17294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-arizona-cardinals","tag-ken-whisenhunt","tag-kevin-kolb","tag-larry-fitzgerald","tag-norv-turner","tag-san-diego-chargers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17295,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17294\/revisions\/17295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}