geoff123 in Australia wanted some help with the NFL tonight
iirc there is a first touchdown scorer promotion on in his home market
with our bookmakers:
http://www.oddschecker.com/american-football/nfl/arizona-cardinals-at-st-louis-rams/first-touchdown-scorerso if Geoff can get 10-1+ on anyone, as david jones identified last night he might as well do Tre Mason who is 7-1 in places in the UK
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trying to narrow it down for what type of game this will be
it should be low scoring and this is anticipated
http://www.oddschecker.com/american-football/nfl/arizona-cardinals-at-st-louis-rams/total-pointstwo good defenses, especially against the run and two limited quarterbacks with injury hit skill positions
thursday night games can be low scoring in part because of lack of preparation time, but this is less of a trend in divisional games because the two teams will know each other well
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Rams are 4.5 point favourites. the line started -3 and went higher. when you consider that the Cards are the current number 1 seeds in the NFC, this is a quite remarkable quote. it speaks to a lack of confidence in the cardinals without carson palmer, and the recency of two consecutive rams shut outs of their opponents
Instinctively i want to be on the Cards +4.5
http://www.oddschecker.com/american-football/nfl/arizona-cardinals-at-st-louis-rams/point-spread---
in terms of players, i use rotoworld for fantasy football. As that is all about scoring touchdowns, it translates across to some of the data you need to find first touchdown scorers
eg
http://www.rotoworld.com/articles/nfl/50752/179/matchup-cardinals--ramssome of the key points from this are
- Cardinals offense
- St. Louis has been stout versus the run, "holding running backs to 322 yards and two touchdowns on 92 attempts (3.50 YPC) over the past month and a half. "
- three running backs are working in committee with Ellington now out for the season. Last week Taylor got 26% of the snaps, Grice 19%, Williams 36%. Complete crapshoot backing any of them for first touchdown
- receivers. Larry Fitz is just back from injury and having to play off a short week. not encouraging. of the others none look particularly encouraging either
- Rams offense
- "The Cardinals play top-six run defense and limit running backs to 3.77 yards per carry on the season"
- in the passing game "Hill's target distribution since he resumed starting four games ago: Stedman Bailey and Jared Cook 20; Kenny Britt 19; Tavon Austin 14; Benny Cunningham 13; Mason 10; Lance Kendricks 7."
- the rams receivers have to go up against two good Cardinals corners in Peterson and Cromartie, not easy
you can see how all this points to a low scoring game
the option that might appeal is the tight end jared cook. 2 touchdown catches last week and 2 in his last game against the cardinals. if hill struggles to complete to his receivers, then cook might be his next look...and from above he has 20 targets last four weeks
14-1 on
http://www.oddschecker.com/american-football/nfl/arizona-cardinals-at-st-louis-rams/first-touchdown-scorer --
If you watch it you'll also get to see Rams DT Aaron Donald, who is in the hunt for defensive rookie of the year for which we have 20-1 ante-post
A big night on national TV would be very welcome for this bet: why? a reminder that the player of the year votes are down to 50 journalists chosen by the associated press. votes can be influenced by big games on national tv, commenators talking players up etc etc
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