Projected Line: San Francisco by 11 points
After several Monday Night Football games this season where the clear underdog was able to remain competitive throughout the whole game and cover the spread at the end (e.g. the Jets covering against Houston or Detroit covering against Chicago), there are a lot of people who expect Arizona to make a huge effort tonight on their one and only National TV game of the season and be able to remain competitive throughout the whole game against San Francisco and end up covering the spread at the end of the game. However, I don't believe that. I expect Arizona to make a big effort tonight, but this is a divisional game as well and San Francisco will also make a big effort tonight to increase the gap in the standings to their main divisional rival. Considering the fact that the 49ers are clearly a much better team than the Cardinals right now, I expect San Francisco to pick up an easy win today.
Alex Smith wasn't exactly great on the team's last two games against the NY Giants and Seattle, however he is still having a very decent season by being in the league's top 10 in completion percentage (#6), yards per pass attempt (#9) and quarterback rating (#8). He'll be facing one of the best defenses against the pass this season in Arizona, so I don't expect him to have anything else but a solid game, while avoiding turnovers and giving some support to the team's excellent running game. It is exactly on the running game that San Francisco has a great shot of making the Cardinals' defense struggle tonight. San Francisco's running game is not only the most imaginative of the league, as it is also the most efficient one with 5.9 rushing yards per carry. Both Frank Gore and Kendall Hunter have been excellent this season and I expect them to have a good game against a Cardinals' run defense that it is just #20 on the league with 4.2 rushing yards allowed per carry. They showed last week in Minnesota that they can struggle against great running backs, when they allowed Adrian Peterson to rush for 153 yards in 23 carries for an average of 6.7 rushing yards per carry. Now against the best running game of the league, I expect Arizona to once again struggle in stopping the opposing's team running game and together with the solid support of Alex Smith, San Francisco should be able to have a positive offensive game, even though Arizona has indeed a good overall defense.
But San Francisco's domination ob this game will mostly happen on the other side of the ball, as I expect Arizona's offense to fail miserably in getting any kind of decent production tonight. Not only John Skelton is a poor quarterback, as the Cardinals' offensive line is clearly the worst in football, having allowed a total of 29 sacks on their last four games! San Francisco may not exactly have a great pass rush, but they are surely decent enough to outplay Arizona's horrible offensive line and put loads of pressure on John Skelton. Besides the fact that John Skelton will be pressured the whole game, there's also the fact that San Francisco's secondary has been excellent on pass coverage this season. In fact, even though their pass rush hasn't been great this season and so, the opposing quarterbacks aren't being pressured when they face them, the truth is that San Francisco is #5 in completion percentage allowed, #1 in yards allowed per pass attempt and #4 in the opposing quarterback rating. So, I have no doubts that Arizona will fail miserably on their attempt to have any kind of production from their passing game tonight. On the other hand, the Cardinals' running game is quite poor, as they have lost Beanie Wells and Ryan Williams to the injury reserve and San Francisco also possesses a good run defense that will without a lot stop LaRod Stephens-Howling, who is coming from the best performance of his career in Minnesota last week in a big effort and who will surely have a letdown tonight against a powerful 49ers defense.
On special teams, both kickers have been quite inconsistent his season, while the 49ers have a better punter than Arizona. I believe both teams will have an edge on their returning over the opponent's coverage, so don't be surprised if a team scores a touchdown on a return tonight. I believe both teams have a quite decent special teams unit and I don't see any kind of overall edge of a team over the other on this unit.
I believe San Francisco will explore very well the edge they will have on their running game against Arizona's run defense, while the Cardinals will struggle in having any kind of decent production on offense today. Therefore, I expect a relatively low scoring affair, but with San Francisco dominating the game and so, I'll be taking the 49ers in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 243 San Francisco 49ers (-7) @ -105 / 1.95 on 5Dimes
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