49ers’ joyride will hit bit of speed bump in desert
The undefeated 49ers visit the Cardinals in this week’s presumed NFL “Thursday Night Football” mismatch.
But that doesn’t mean we won’t be watching and, just like last week when we cashed with the Redskins +17 at the Vikings, we have betting value on the prime-time underdog.
The 49ers are 10-point road favorites, which seems to be the right number in the marketplace as the spread was 9¹/2 points earlier in the week and bettors were willing to bet that and it was even up to 10¹/2 points at some square books in Vegas and offshore.
But once again we expect a prime effort from the supposedly overmatched underdog that — similar to the Redskins last Thursday and the Dolphins on Monday night — doesn’t want to get embarrassed on national TV and sees this is as its Super Bowl.
If we throw out the Cardinals’ blowout loss in New Orleans on Sunday, they’re been playing much better lately with a solid running game. The line has been opening holes for David Johnson (when healthy) and Chase Edmonds. The latter will miss this game but the Cardinals acquired Kenyan Drake from the Dolphins, who can help take the pressure off rookie QB Kyler Murray.
This reminds me of Week 2 when the Cardinals went into Baltimore and everyone expected them to get blown out as 13-point underdogs but they lost only 23-17 to cash for their backers. Also working in our favor this time is the fact they’re at home and the 49ers, who I grant are obviously playing at a high level on both sides of the ball, have to play on the road on short rest with their primary goals being to stay undefeated and get out of the game healthy as opposed to needing to win by a big
margin.