NFL Picks Week 7: Seahawks Cardinals Pick ATS, Predictions

NFL Picks Week 7: Seahawks Cardinals Pick ATS, Predictions

The Seattle Seahawks are 6.5 point road favorites against the division rival Arizona Cardinals.

By: MaChez, TSZ Expert

This week’s Thursday game gives us an exciting NFC West division matchup between the 5-1 Seahawks and the surprising 3-3 Arizona Cardinals.  The Cardinals will try to avenge a 58-0 beat down from last year, while the Seahawks will try to finally put up a good performance on the road where they’re average point differential is less than one.

Seattle Seahawks

The Seahawks finally lost their first game of the season in a back-and-forth battle in Indianapolis in Week 5.  In Week 6 they rebounded with a seven-point win over the Jake Locker-less Titans and will now try to recover during a short week to take down the Cardinals.  Russell Wilson isn’t playing as well stats wise as last year, but Marshawn Lynch continues to be the focus of this offense, scoring two TDs and accounting for 155 total yards against the Titans.

The Seahawks defense is solid as usual.  Headed by strong personalities like CB Richard Sherman, the Seahawks are second in yards allowed and third in points allowed while taking the ball away a league-leading seventeen times.  In their two road wins this year, the defense was responsible for the wins when they forced late fourth quarter turnovers to keep the offense in the game.

Arizona Cardinals

The Cardinals are flying under the radar at an even 3-3.  Last week they actually played pretty well against the stingy SF defense (403 total offensive yards) but two costly turnovers by new Cardinal signal-caller Carson Palmer kept Arizona from winning the game.  Star wideout Larry Fitzgerald has been slowed by a hamstring injury but historically has played very well against the Seahawks.

Arizona’s defense is playing pretty well recently, too.  After giving up 20 or more points in their first three games, they had two solid outings against the Panthers and Bucs when they gave up 10 points or less in each game.  Plus, against the run they’re only allowing 90.7 yards/game, good for fifth in the league.

The Spread

This line opened with the Seahawks as 4.5 point favorites but quickly rose to 6.5, with the total at 40.5.  When you look at Seattle’s road struggles and Arizona’s previous record against the Seahawks, 7-1 SU and ATS over the last eight, its surprising that this spread is so big.  

Even with this and all other signs pointing to an Arizona cover, I‘m going to take my new strategy of avoiding anything obvious and take Seattle.  Arizona’s strong run-D may limit Lynch on the ground, but he only had 78 yards last week on the ground with half of his yards actually coming through the air.  Wilson will have no problem utilizing Lynch and the rest of his weapons against a Cardinal’s D that’s allowing an average of 28 points in games against teams with records of 500 or better.

On the other side of the ball, Carson Palmer will be forced to score points against one of the league’s best defenses.  He had two turnovers last week and it wouldn’t be surprising if he has the same this week, if not more.  This game will be close for most of the game but count on Seattle’s D to take the ball away late, setting it up for the Seahawks to get a late score and cover.

PREDICTION:  Seattle Seahawks (-6.5) over ARIZONA CARDINALS

OVER 40.5