Los Angeles Rams vs Arizona Cardinals MNF Best Bet: Is There Value With the Under?
Los Angeles Rams vs Arizona Cardinals MNF Best Bet: Is There Value With the Under?
The first ever Wild card Monday night game. Boy, can the network milk this game. We need every ESPN employee talking about this one but the best part is this is the third time they have played this year and we have some data to look at and make our play. Man, the loser of this game is going to look back and say what a wasted season. Will it be the last team to lose this year in Arizona or the team that mortgaged their future getting a new quarterback in Stafford and a defensive Super Bowl MVP in Von Miller. One of these teams will have a lot of explaining to do after this game.
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As we said, this is the third time they have played and in this best two out of three, the winner gets the series and gets to advance. The road team has won both games previously. The Cardinals have lost four of their last five to end the season and pretty embarrassing ones at that as they blew a lead against Seattle and lost to the lowly Lions as a double-digit favorite.
It doesn't end there, they lost to the Colts and these same Rams but somehow beat the Cowboys in Dallas which isn't that impressive anymore after what we saw yesterday. We are focused on tonight's total and Arizona has gone under their last four off a loss as they usually step up the defense.
The last few times they lost, the defense tends to get back in it. After a loss to Green Bay, the following week they allowed 17 to San Francisco. When they lost to Carolina, the following week they gave up just 13 to Seattle. After an embarrassing loss to the Lions, they held the Colts to just 22 points. Now, we'll see how they rebound after a loss to Seattle in Week 18.
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They get JJ Watt back tonight and he should be fired up after the performances his brothers had yesterday even though they lost they got a defensive touchdown and a sack of Mahomes, and this Arizona team was the 11th overall defense and even better most of the year before injuries got them.
The Rams everyone thinks are an offensive team with Stafford to Kupp the triple crown receiver and Higbee, Beckham, Jefferson, and Woods (before he got hurt) but this team has the best defensive player in the league, arguably the best shutdown corner and this team really wants to play defense especially tonight to keep Arizona off the field and run the ball 21 and 23 times in previous matchups. We expect the Rams to use the running game more as they have been with Sony Michel replacing the injured Darell Henderson and we know Arizona runs with Murray and their dual backfield with James Conner and Chase Edmonds.
This is Murray's playoff debut so expect a little shakiness from him early. He is still missing his number one receiver Deandre Hopkins, which is huge against the Rams and Ramsey. We mentioned the 2 previous matchups and we had a over/under of 54 and they scored 57 in October and more recently we had a 51 over/under and they scored 53.
Today the total is 50, the lowest it has been all year (hmm). As we mentioned Arizona just got scorched for 38 by Seattle who stopped playing defense because the LIONS, yes the Lions, scored 51 on them the previous week and the offensively inept Bears got 24 on them previously.
Arizona is a defensive team led by Chandler Jones and Markus Golden who both had over 10 sacks. The Rams as we mentioned have the best defensive player in Aaron Donald but Leonard Floyd has been huge and adding Von Miller this team was built to win with defense and having Ramsey as a shutdown corner we expect this defense to step up as they clearly choked last week giving the game away to the 49ers (blew a 17-0 lead in the second half ).
Two teams built on defense, neither wants the QB to make a mistake as both are turnover prone and we have the lowest total even though it's high for a reason. Playoff football is different from regular season football. We made this total 47.5 and we projected a 45 point game. 45 is less than 50, take the under and enjoy one of the best games of the wild card weekend rooting for the two defenses to play enough defense to stay under 50 and give us a winner.
Los Angeles Rams vs Arizona Cardinals Line Movement
Los Angeles Rams vs Arizona Cardinals Pick
- UNDER 50 (-110) (Bet $110 to win $100)