It is a busy day of football on Sunday and the final game of the day sees the New England Patriots heading to Arizona to take on the Arizona Cardinals in a battle of two sides who won their divisions last season in the first Sunday Night Football of the season.
Both sides will be eyeing up runs to the Super Bowl again this season and will be looking to build on solid campaigns last year but for differing reasons the final showdown in Houston could be out of reach for the pair of them.
Arizona Cardinals
Arizona were one of the best sides in the regular season last year but we saw that they can still be taken apart when Carolina destroyed them in the playoffs. Carson Palmer was the centre of attention that night when he threw four picks in his worst performance of the season. He is under the spotlight again this year too. Will he regress or can he maintain the same standards?
One area the Cardinals shouldn’t go missing in is defence. They have added to a very competitive unit in the off season and that should give them the base for their exciting offensive playmakers such as John Brown and David Johnson to get to work and impact matches.
New England Patriots
It is well known by now that the Patriots will be without their star man quarterback Tom Brady as he is banned and more recently it came to light that Rob Gronkowski, another big man in this Patriots wheel, is missing with injury. That isn’t ideal for a fairly inexperienced quarterback in Jimmy Garoppolo.
Perhaps worse for the Patriots is the state of their defence which looks very thin on the ground. With Brady under center you could see them going toe to toe with sides in a shootout so the question is whether his replacement is good enough to offer the same sort of competence.
Betting
Until the Rob Gronkowski absence was confirmed I was thinking of siding with the Patriots here. There was always going to be an overreaction to the Brady absence. I was at a playoff game at MetLife Stadium a couple of years ago when the Patriots played the Giants and Jimmy Garoppolo didn’t look too bad for a backup quarterback but to lose his best receiving option is a big blow.
There are other concerns about this Patriots side too. Is Julian Edelman fit? Even if he is will he be able to make plays against this Cardinals defence and just how will the Patriots stop this powerful Arizona offense. All these questions will only be answered during the game.
Arizona Cardinals go into the match with fewer questions. Yes Palmer needs to prove that he isn’t a fading force but his tests will come much tougher than this as the season goes on and even if he doesn’t have the best game Arizona’s defence could get them out of any trouble. I’m expecting Arizona to be strong on special teams too.
With all of that in mind I’m expecting a fairly comfortable home win, if any win can be comfortable against a Belichick side. I’ll take Arizona to cover the spread in this one.
Tips
Back Arizona Cardinals (-7.5) to beat New England Patriots for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
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