Atlanta Falcons vs. Arizona Cardinals 4:30 ET
Not many forecasted this to be a Wild Card match-up at the beginning of the NFL betting season. However, the Atlanta Falcons (11-5, 9-7 ATS) will look to continue its unbelievable single season turnaround when it takes a trip to the desert to square off against the Arizona Cardinals (9-7, 9-7 ATS); kick-off is slated for 4:30 ET and the game can be seen nationally on NBC. The Falcons broke even for NFL bettors on the road this season by compiling a 4-4 ATS mark while Arizona produced a decent return posting a 5-3 home ATS record.
Super Bowl XLIII future players take note: the Atlanta Falcons currently sit as +2000 choices to hoist the Lombardi Trophy at the end of the season, while Arizona chimes in as +4000 long shots to get the job done. Bookmaker Sportsbook currently offers Super Bowl XLIII future betting for every team that qualified for the post-season.
Atlanta clinched a playoff birth back in Week 16 with a win at Minnesota, and could have earned the #2 slot and a “Bye” if Carolina tripped up last week at New Orleans. 
Carolina narrowly escaped in “The Big Easy”, so first year head coach Mike Smith and the Falcons must now head west for this wild card match-up.
Arizona tripped and stumbled its way to a 9-7 SU overall mark to get back to the post-season for the first time in 10 years. The Cardinals hope they can finally take their name off the list of teams that have never reached the Super Bowl this time around, but they’ll need to play a much better brand of football against stout competition in order to do so.
These clubs last met way back in Week 16 of the 2007 season in a game that saw the Cardinals escape with a three-point overtime win (30-27). That was just another cover for the Falcons in this series as they’ve been pointspread gold for football bettors against Arizona compiling a 4-1 ATS mark throughout the L/5 meetings. Atlanta’s also a perfect 4-0 ATS as road favorites of 0-3 points the L/4 times, and won in that role at Oakland 24-0 earlier this season. The Cardinals have been dreadful as an underdog of late going 2-7 ATS the L/9 times; they split in that role twice at home this season winning outright in overtime against the Cowboys and losing SU & ATS to the Giants.
This has also been a high scoring series with the over cashing for ‘total’ bettors in 6 of the L/7 meetings; it’s also a perfect 4-0 the L/4 times these teams have squared off in the desert.
Bookmaker.com currently has the visiting Falcons sitting as 2-point road favorites with a game ‘total’ of 51.
Will the Falcons continue its remarkable season and move onto the divisional round, or will the Cardinals build off of last weeks confidence building win over Seattle and advance?
