{"id":20481,"date":"2011-12-23T22:30:17","date_gmt":"2011-12-24T03:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20481"},"modified":"2011-12-22T19:34:20","modified_gmt":"2011-12-23T00:34:20","slug":"nfl-week-16-picks-arizona-cardinals-vs-cincinnati-bengals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nfl-week-16-picks-arizona-cardinals-vs-cincinnati-bengals-20481\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Week 16 Picks: Arizona Cardinals vs. Cincinnati Bengals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arizona Cardinals at Cincinnati Bengals
\nSaturday, 12\/24\/11, 1:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 FOX
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Cincinnati -5.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Cincinnati -4
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 40
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 41
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Cincinnati Bengals still have a great opportunity to get into the playoffs with two games left<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Arizona enters on a four-game win streak and picked up a 20-17 come-from-behind victory over the Cleveland Browns as six-point home favorites last week.\u00a0 The Cardinals will be looking to win five games in a row for the first time since the 1977 campaign, as the franchise has bounced back nicely from a 1-6 start to the 2011 season.\u00a0 Offensively, the story has been the quarterback position, as Kevin Kolb and John Skelton have shared time under center.\u00a0 Head coach Ken Whisenhunt isn\u2019t sure who will lead his offense on Saturday at this time.\u00a0 Arizona is 7-8 ATS as an underdog of 3.5 to 9.5 points the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals have really relied on their defense to keep them in games this season, allowing just 17.4 points over the last seven games, which is a dramatic improvement from surrendering 26.1 a contest in the first seven contests.\u00a0 Arizona rookie cornerback Patrick Peterson will get a chance to match up against Bengals first-year star A.J. Green on the outside, as both are enjoying tremendous starts to their NFL careers.<\/p>\n

Cincinnati is still in the thick of the AFC playoff race and comes into this week\u2019s contest tied with the New York Jets for the second Wild Card spot.\u00a0 The Bengals finished their road schedule with a 5-3 record, which has the locker room excited to play its final two games of the year inside Paul Brown Stadium.\u00a0 \u201cWe had to start with two on the road, and now we get the payback from the schedule,\u201d commented Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis.\u00a0 The youthful roster came away with a 20-13 win over the St. Louis Rams as seven-point road favorites last week that snapped a two-game losing streak.\u00a0 Cincinnati is 1-7 ATS as a favorite of 3.5 to 9.5 points the last two-plus years.<\/p>\n

The Bengals are looking for their first-ever win over the Cardinals under Lewis\u2019 direction, dropping games during the 2003 and 2007 seasons.\u00a0 Cincinnati rookie quarterback Andy Dalton has gone over the 3,000-yard passing mark this season, but some experts around the league are concerned that he\u2019s hit a wall, failing to throw for 200 in his last three games.\u00a0 The former TCU Horned Frogs star has tallied a 3-3 mark in front of the home fans, but has registered just six of his 18 touchdown passes inside Saturday\u2019s venue.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Bengals due to their 7-2 ATS mark following a straight-up win, while the Cardinals are 2-8 ATS as a road underdog of 3.5 to 10 points.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NFL handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arizona Cardinals at Cincinnati Bengals Saturday, 12\/24\/11, 1:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 FOX Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Cincinnati -5.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Cincinnati -4 Opening Total:\u00a0 40 Current Total:\u00a0 41 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Arizona enters on a four-game win streak and picked up a 20-17 come-from-behind victory over the Cleveland Browns as six-point home favorites last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":17254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[5197,414,3386,646,302,5795,3005,6224,5727],"class_list":["post-20481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-a-j-green","tag-afc","tag-andy-dalton","tag-arizona-cardinals","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-john-skelton","tag-kevin-kolb","tag-patrick-peterson","tag-paul-brown-stadium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20481","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=20481"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20483,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20481\/revisions\/20483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}