{"id":7497,"date":"2010-09-11T17:35:55","date_gmt":"2010-09-11T22:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=7497"},"modified":"2010-09-11T17:35:55","modified_gmt":"2010-09-11T22:35:55","slug":"nfl-handicapping-cardinals-vs-rams-betting-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nfl-handicapping-cardinals-vs-rams-betting-preview-7497\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Handicapping: Cardinals Vs Rams Betting Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
The Sam Bradford era begins today and the Rams are only 3.5 point home underdogs<\/figcaption><\/figure>The Arizona Cardinals will have a newer look than even they probably anticipated heading into their regular-season opener on Sunday when they visit the young St. Louis Rams.\u00a0 The Cardinals are 3.5-point road favorites on the current NFL point spread and tabbed free-agent acquisition Derek Anderson as their starting quarterback over Matt Leinart while the Rams will go with rookie Sam Bradford.<\/p>\n

Anderson won the QB battle over Leinart in training camp after coming over from Cleveland in the offseason and worked hard on his fundamentals with the Cardinals to win the job.\u00a0 Leinart was expected to take over for Kurt Warner but failed in his efforts despite being the team\u2019s top pick in the 2006 draft.\u00a0 Arizona wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald is expected to play after he was nursing a knee injury, and he totaled 13 catches for 135 yards and two touchdowns against the Rams in two games last year.\u00a0 Fitzgerald did not play in the team\u2019s last three preseason games.<\/p>\n

Cardinals second-year running back Beanie Wells may miss the game though with a sore knee, meaning Tim Hightower will be expected to carry the rushing load.\u00a0 The absence of Wells and former wide receiver Anquan Boldin will put even more pressure on Fitzgerald and Hightower to produce and help Anderson in his first game.\u00a0 Arizona is also without key defensive starters from last season, as linebacker Karlos Dansby and safety Antrel Rolle left via free agency.<\/p>\n

St. Louis is hoping Bradford can help jump-start an offense that averaged an NFL-low 10.9 points per game last season.\u00a0 The Rams ranked 28th<\/sup> in passing offense with 167.9 yards per game and will look to exploit the Cardinals secondary without Rolle back in coverage.\u00a0 Bradford finished strong in the preseason, completing 21-of-28 passes for 257 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions in two starts, including a win at New England.\u00a0 Veteran A.J. Feeley was expected to challenge Bradford for the starting job but he injured his thumb in the preseason.<\/p>\n

Bradford will have a new receiver to throw to in Mark Clayton, who was acquired from Baltimore on Monday.\u00a0 Clayton replaces last year\u2019s leading receiver Donnie Avery, who suffered a torn ligament in his right knee during the preseason.\u00a0 St. Louis leading rusher Steven Jackson is also coming back from offseason back surgery and should be a factor in the passing game as well.<\/p>\n

The Rams have dropped seven straight games to the Cardinals and have covered the spread only twice during that stretch.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in the last four meetings following three straight OVERs in the series between the two NFC West opponents.<\/p>\n

This game looks like a toss up to us and we have no opinion on it, we do have 5 strong NFL picks for Sunday though.\u00a0 Get these winners and signup for the best NFL picks on the Internet today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Arizona Cardinals will have a newer look than even they probably anticipated heading into their regular-season opener on Sunday when they visit the young St. Louis Rams.\u00a0 The Cardinals are 3.5-point road favorites on the current NFL point spread and tabbed free-agent acquisition Derek Anderson as their starting quarterback over Matt Leinart while the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":6382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[646,2986,2539,2615,2216,1930,1922,121,863],"class_list":["post-7497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-arizona-cardinals","tag-cardinals-rams-preview","tag-football-betting","tag-nfl-football-lines","tag-nfl-football-picks","tag-nfl-odds","tag-nfl-picks","tag-sports-betting","tag-st-louis-rams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7497","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\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7497"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7529,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7497\/revisions\/7529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}