Free Week 7 Prediction: Cardinals vs. Saints NFL Odds
Looking for Arizona Cardinals vs. New Orleans Saints Free NFL Week 7 picks & NFL odds? NFL betting sees the Cardinals taking on the Saints on Thursday, October 20th, 2022 at State Farm Stadium. Cappers Picks provides complimentary handicapping picks all NFL season long including all NFL Week 7 games so stay tuned for more FREE NFL predictions like this Arizona – New Orleans matchup.
NFL Handicapping Analysis: Week 7
Arizona Cardinals (2-4) vs. New Orleans Saints (2-4)
Date: Thursday, October 20th, 2022
Time: 8:15 PM EST
Venue: State Farm Stadium, Glendale, AZ
NFL Week 7 ATS Betting Lines: Cardinals -1.5 (-110) | Saints +1.5 (-110) (Bet Now!)
NFL Week 7 Moneyline Odds: Cardinals -123 | Saints +100
NFL Week 7 NFL Betting Total: O/U 45.0
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Thursday Night Football once again brings us two sub-.500 teams looking to claw their way back to average.
Amazon forked out around $1B to have Thursday Night Football rights, and for some reason this week I really thought about how crazy that is. They even shelled out a pretty penny (though relatively small to their corporation) to get an established playcalling team between Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit, and they got the worst night of football all week.
NFL football has a scarcity in available games, and I’m sure some smart analyst/quant out there did the analysis to show it was a worthwhile investment, but still Amazon had to check all the boxes, in a real, we-went-all-out fashion, to get the worst night of NFL football all week.
But hey, I watch every single week, and there is an entire base of football sickos that do it every week as well. I read a book some years ago called Everybody Lies by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. The take home message is that we never trust what people say we only trust what they do. So in that respect, I’m sure Amazon is still pleased with their purchase.
Anyways, on to football.
Arizona Cardinals
I’ve oft mentioned Kliff Kingsbury’s shaky position as the Cardinals head coach and week 6 didn’t ease concerns. Yes, they were on the road in Seattle, but 9 points against one of the NFL’s worst defenses isn’t going to garner an extension.
It starts with Kyler Murray, and I’ve aired this concern in other spaces and airwaves, but when do we begin the conversation for worst contract in the league? Sure, Kyler managed 322 total yards on the day, including 100 rushing yards on 10 carries, but the captain of the offense is ultimately responsible for putting points on the board, and has failed to do so.
Arizona maintains the 27th passing offense by DVOA and is averaging just over 21 points per contest. That just isn’t going to get it done. Murray does get DeAndre Hopkins back this week after serving a 6-week suspension, but he also just lost Marquise Brown for the season.
James Conner missed the contest, leaving lead back duties to Eno Benjamin, who didn’t produce much. They need to get Conner back in the lineup soon if they hope to turn the season around. Arizona has yet to produce 30 points in a game this season and their two wins are against the 1-4 Raiders and the 1-5 Panthers.
On the defensive side of the ball, you could give some credit to the Cards for limiting the NFL’s #1 offense by DVOA to just 19 points. Geno amassed less than 200 passing yards and DK was limited to 2 catches for 34 yards.
That makes two weeks in a row where the Cardinals have limited productive offenses to 20 points or less. Geno was under pressure all day. Arizona produced 5 sacks, 9 TFL and 6 PD, which is a monster day for any defensive unit.
New Orleans Saints
New Orleans simply choked their game on Sunday against the Bengals. With a 26-24 lead at the two-minute warning, the Saints allowed Ja’marr Chase to score a 60 yard touchdown to ultimately take a 30-26 lead they wouldn’t surrender. Let’s think about that. On what should be your last defensive series, with a 2 point lead with 2 minutes to go, you let their best receiver do a house call.
Alright, so who are the Saints (maybe better said, Who dat?)? If they didn’t have their meltdown late, we’d be looking at a 3-3 team on a two game win streak, so it’s not as though they’re a helpless team. They even have the NFL’s second best rushing attack by DVOA, so there are some positives here.
Alvin Kamara led the rushing charge on Sunday with 19 carries for 99 yards. He looks fully back from his rib injury. Andy Dalton seems to be their starter, even if and when Jameis is healthy enough to return, which should limit our expectations just a little. Taysom Hill will still be involved in a very, amorphous role so we can attribute some explosiveness there.
The Saints were a bit short-handed on Sunday, without Michael Thomas or Chris Olave and the Bengals sported one of the NFL’s best pass defenses so the lack of production isn’t entirely alarming.
The Bengals represented a soft, exploitable offensive line and the Saints responded with 3 sacks. They’ve been just average in adjusted sack rate, so I’ll say they performed well on Sunday in that respect. They now get the task of dealing with the mobile Kyler Murray.
Outside of their one mishap, I thought the Saints did pretty well defending the pass, which will be needed again against one of the league’s most dangerous receiving threats in DeAndre Hopkins.
NFL Betting Trends:
- The total has gone OVER in 4 of New Orleans’s last 5 games when playing on the road against Arizona
- New Orleans is 4-1 SU in its last 5 games on the road
- The total has gone UNDER in 4 of Arizona’s last 5 games
- The total has gone OVER in 4 of Arizona’s last 5 games when playing at home against New Orleans
4* Free Week 7 NFL Betting Prediction: Cardinals -1.5
It’s getting close to do or die time for both of these teams as the loser will drop to 2-5. Neither team has data in 2022 for road underdogs or home favorites respectively, so we have to go with some bit of narrative here.
Arizona has played well defensively over the last few weeks and will face off against Andy Dalton on Thursday. Kliff faced an elimination game for his job earlier this year against the Panthers and won on the road. The Cardinals are home for this one.
The Saints will likely return key offensive pieces in Thomas and Olave and really should be a .500 team. Arizona, like Cincinnati, isn’t a great rushing team and Justin Pugh will likely miss this contest, hurting their pass protection.
Still though, I think I like Arizona at home to get it pulled together. You could even take a look at the under here, since primetime unders are still hitting around 62%.
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