Denver Broncos @

Arizona Cardinals

Thu, Oct 18
5:20 PM Pacific
Rotation: 301
Odds: Arizona Cardinals +1, Total: 42

Game Analysis

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1-Star Best Bet – *Over (41) – Denver vs ARIZONA

Lean – Denver (-1)

John Elway called his defense “soft” this week and there’s certainly reason for his frustration. Denver’s defense hasn’t looked the same without shutdown CB Aqib Talib this season and the Broncos rank 21st in our numbers defensively, slightly better than Arizona’s 23rd-rated defense. The defenses in this game are not good enough to justify a total this low.

The Broncos allowed 6.1 yards per pass play in 2017 compared to 6.7 yards per pass play this year with Talib’s replacement, Bradley Roby, surrendering 1.70 yards per cover snap, 7th-worst among all qualifying cornerbacks. Roby has been in Denver since 2014, but it appears he isn’t ready to be the top outside corner and this week he’ll line up across from Josh Rosen’s most targeted receiver, Christian Kirk. Ricky Seals-Jones has seen the 3rd-most targets from Rosen and he will look to build on his 11.5 yards per target performance last week versus a Broncos pass defense allowing 10.3 yards per target to opposing tight ends this season (29th). Two of Rosen’s top receivers have favorable matchups in the air, and David Johnson should be able to find room on the ground against Denver’s 30th-rated rush defense (according to our metrics).

On the other side of the ball, Patrick Peterson is surrendering just 0.56 yards per cover snap (3rd) and is likely to shut down Demaryius Thomas, but Case Keenum’s most targeted receiver this year is Emmanuel Sanders, who has an excellent matchup on the inside. Sanders runs 63% of his snaps from the slot and he will line up across from Budda Baker, who is conceding the 2nd-most yards per cover snap of all qualifying nickelbacks. Furthermore, the Cardinals allow 8.1 yards per target to opposing running backs (28th) and we should see plenty of targets for Phillip Lindsay, who is gaining 1.88 yards per route run (11th) in his rookie season.

Both offenses have some favorable matchups against defenses that came into the season overrated. Arizona has only averaged 4.5 yards per play so far this season but in today’s NFL it’s likely that number regresses upwards. That low yppl average actually triggers a pretty good over situation, as starting in week 5 the Over is 49-12-1 since 2013 if one of the teams enters the game average less than 4.80 yards per play (including the over in Arizona’s game last week). The Broncos play at the 4th-fastest pace in the league and we project 45.7 total points in this battle of bad defensive teams. The Over is a 1-Star Best Bet at 42 points or less.

Our model favors Denver by 2.3 points and the Broncos apply to a 72-26-1 ATS situation this week. I’ll lean with Denver.

  • Team Stats
  • Game Log
  • Broncos
  • Cardinals
DEN
Offense
Defense



Pass



  • Pass Plays 38.7 33.8
  • Succ Pass Plays 48.8% 51.7%
  • Sack Rate 6.5% 8.3%
  • Int Rate 3.6% 3.3%
  • Deep Pass Rate 19.1% 18.9%
  • Big Pass Yards 47.8% 52.7%
  • NYPP 6.8 8.4



Rush


  • Rush Plays 23.5 30.2
  • RB YPR 5.3 5.1
  • Stuff Rate 25.8% 16.3%
  • Succ Rush Plays 51.0% 46.1%
  • Big Rush Yards 50.0% 45.5%
  • Yards Per Rush 5.3 5.0




Game

  • All Snaps 62.2 64.0
  • Early Down Succ 51.4% 50.5%
  • Succ Rate 50.2% 48.7%
  • Big Yards Rate 50.1% 52.7%
  • Yards Per Play 6.3 6.5
  • Fumble Lost Rate 0.0% 0.6%
  • Time Per Play (sec) 27.9 29.5
  • Run Ratio 37.4% 47.9%
  • Starting Field Pos 27.2 27.7
  • Game Control -3.8 3.8
 
  • Points 20.0 25.7
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