Handicapper: Nite Owl Sports
Sport: NFL Football
Game: Arizona Cardinals @ Carolina Panthers - Saturday January 10, 2009 8:15 pm
Pick: 2 units ATS: Carolina Panthers -9.5 (-110)
While we are not wild about laying this many points in NFL, we still believe that Carolina is the best way to go in this game out of the four options (Carolina, AZ, over or under), as the "numbers don't lie," and Carolina has a clear edge in just about all of them except the one that is keeping this line from "crashing" the double digit barrier, that being the fact that when these two played in mid season in Carolina, the Cards played Panthers tough, losing by only 4 points and "pushing" ATS vs the consensus line for that game, in which they led 17-3 in third quarter before a series of costly mistakes did them in -- what else is new for Cards on the road TY, especially when playing decent teams in the eastern time zone? And that brings us to the first edge that Carolina has in this game, which is Arizona's miserable 0-4-1 ATS record (with average MOL/margin of loss 20 points) when playing road games TY in the eastern time zone. And it just so happens that the only meaningful road games played by cards TY (the four that they played vs teams with .500> W-L records, excluding rout loss at NE after Cards had already clinched NFC-West) were all played in the east. In those four representative games (at Wash, Jets, Caro and philly), AZ was a horrible 0-3-1 ATS, with an average MOL of 15 points. And conversely, Carolina was 4-0-1 ATS in their five representative home games, played vs teams with .500> W-L records (AZ, Denver, TB, NO and Atlanta), with an average MOV of 15.5 points in those five games. So combining and averaging these #s and records, we have a 7-0-1 edge for Carolina (counting earlier game between these two just once), with a projected 15 pont SU and ATS Carolina win. And while it's understandable to be reluctant to lay the big points (>7) against a decent team like Arizona, it should be noted that in playoff point spread records compiled for the divisional round over last 32 years (since 1976), the highest % of wins in any point spread category is for home faves of 7-9.5 points, with a 24-18 (57%) ATS record.We believe that one of the reasons for that good record is that in the playoffs, where there is no tomorrow unless you win, the faves rarely take their foot "off the gas pedal" when they have a late lead, like they often do in the regular season for various reasons. And this results in very few "back door covers" by heavy dogs in the playoffs.
Looking at the stats for this game, while we note that Arizona QB Curt warner played a very solid game in the earlier season match-up between these two, passing for 381 yards with two TDs and just one "pick," we have been really impressed with the development of Carolina's running game, particularly RB De Angelo williams, with 18 TDs TY and an average of 5.5 YPC. resulting in Carolina having one of the top running games in NFL at 145 YRPG on 4.8 YPC. While both teams' run defenses have basically similar #s, allowing about 110 YRPG on 4 YPC, the Arizona rush offense is just so-so, averagging only 73 YRPG on 3.4 YPC. In that mid-season match-up, Carolina outrushed Cards 120-50, and with panther rushing attack much more developed since then and with RB Williams still healthy, we project a 100+ yard rushing edge tonite for Carolina. Nor does it hurt that Carolina also has a significant ST (special teams) edge, being ranked #17 in STs as opposed to Arizona's crappy #31 ranking. The final edge for Carolina that we will mention is with the defensive comparison, especially when looking at the key stat of YPT (yards per point), where Carolina "D" has a very good YPT of 17, compared to Arizona's bad defensive YPT of 12.5. For those of you unfamiliar with the term YPT, Carolina's good YPT of 17 means that opposing teams need to gain 17 yards for every point scored against Carolina defense, while Arizona's bad YPT of 12.5 means that opposing teams need to gain ony 12.5 yards for every point scored against the leaky Arizona defense.
So based on the foregoing, we suggest a small (two unit) play on Carolina at -9.5 (but pass at -10>). We also like Carolina as "teaser bait" for one> 7 point teasers, teasing line down to -2.5 for Carolina and teasing Panthers to one or more of our other NFL picks for this WE, as well as teasing Carolina to the over in this game (with totals line teased down to 42.5 points or less). Once individual team totals lines are released for today's NFL games, we will update this pick write up for our subscribers, with at least one likely individual team totals play as well, along with some very solid second half betting strategy and guidelines for this late game.
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