Minnesota Vikings
@ 
Arizona Cardinals
Game Analysis
Lean – Minnesota (+3.5) over ARIZONA
This line on this game was Arizona -2.5 during the summer and I think the market has adjusted a bit too much based on week 1. These teams should be rated roughly equal and home field advantage is not more than 3 points.
Kyler Murray averaged 8.2 yards per pass play last week in Tennessee and now he’ll face a diminished Vikings front seven. Edge rusher Everson Griffen (worth 0.4 points) will not play Sunday due to a concussion sustained in a car accident Thursday morning. Linebacker Anthony Barr (knee) will also be on the sideline and LB Eric Kendricks is banged up with a quad injury. However, we rated Minnesota’s defense near the top of the NFL coming into the year and I expect them to perform better than they did against the Bengals despite the injuries.
Kirk Cousins had a 5.8-yard average depth of target in offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak’s play calling debut. I expect the Vikings to work in the short areas again with Cousins likely facing more pressure than he was last week. Backup LT Rashod Hill will be exposed by edge defender Chandler Jones, who had five sacks and two forced fumbles in week 1. Kubiak will likely be conservative and lean on Dalvin Cook in the ground game.
Our model favors the Cardinals by 2.5 points with a predicted total of 48.1 points.
- Team Stats
- Game Log
- Vikings
- Cardinals
Pass
- Pass Plays 53.0 32.0
- Succ Pass Plays 43.4% 46.9%
- Sack Rate 5.7% 15.6%
- Int Rate 0.0% 0.0%
- Deep Pass Rate 10.2% 15.4%
- Big Pass Yards 35.9% 42.1%
- NYPP 6.8 8.2
Rush
- Rush Plays 22.0 36.0
- RB YPR 3.0 4.2
- Stuff Rate 45.5% 25.0%
- Succ Rush Plays 36.4% 52.8%
- Big Rush Yards 44.8% 36.2%
- Yards Per Rush 3.0 4.1
Game
- All Snaps 75.0 68.0
- Early Down Succ 41.1% 60.4%
- Succ Rate 41.3% 50.0%
- Big Yards Rate 37.3% 40.0%
- Yards Per Play 5.7 6.0
- Fumble Lost Rate 1.3% 0.0%
- Time Per Play (sec) 28.2 30.7
- Run Ratio 29.3% 52.9%
- Starting Field Pos 0.0 0.0
- Game Control -3.4 3.4
- Points 24.0 27.0