The Chiefs are very big favorites over the Cardinals
Nov 6, 2018, 9:05 AM | Updated: 11:09 am
Cardinals receiver Christian Kirk, left, and Chiefs receiver Sammy Watkins, right. (AP photos)
(AP photos)
The Arizona Cardinals may feel optimism coming off a win followed by the bye week.
A peek at the Las Vegas oddsmakers’ perspective of the game could be sobering. The Cardinals are 17-point underdogs, according to Bovada, while other sportsbooks give them hardly-better odds set at 16.5 points.
Call it a round 17, and it’s the biggest point-spread in the NFL this season if it holds.
“This is the first of me hearing it,” Arizona safety Tre Boston said Monday. “One thing we know about sports is it’s always the outcome out on the field. It is what it is.
“It’s a great team. It’s going to be a tough job of containing them and stopping them.”
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How much of an outlier is the point spread for the Cardinals against the Chiefs? According to CBS Sports, it’s just the 23rd time since 2000 that a team has been that much of an underdog.
Historically, it ranks up there as well. A 2009 matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions gave the former team 17-point odds, and as of late September of this year, that was the fifth-biggest points spread in the NFL over the last 10 seasons, per ESPN.
More bad news comes in scouring the Chiefs’ success of late. Of course, Kansas City owns the highest-scoring offense in the NFL at 36.3 points per game and faces an Arizona team ranked 31st at just 13.8 points per outing. The Chiefs are 6-2 against the spread in their last eight games at Arrowhead Stadium.
So it might just come down to the Cardinals beating the spread, which they’ve done of late. Arizona is 4-1-1 against the spread in the last six games, and that’s likely because the team has gone under the point total — set at 50, per OddsShark — in eight of its last 12 games.
What’s the one trend that paints the bleakest picture for the Cardinals?
In the 22 times a game has had a 17-point favorite or better since the millennium turned, NFL squads have a perfect record straight up, according to CBS Sports.
Even if that spread ends up at 16.5, OddsShark said that teams are historically 67-5 straight up.
“I really really don’t pay attention to that stuff,” Cardinals coach Steve Wilks said. “I got a lot of things to worry about besides that. Again, we’re taking it one at a time. The great thing about this game, I said before, is the outcome is determined on the field. And that’s where we want to make sure we do our business.”
