4-Star – DETROIT +12’ over Arizona – Arizona started the season 5-0 in their first five road games, but have lost their last two. This is their final road game of the regular season and the linesmakers have made them a big favorite over the Lions. We’re not convinced.
The Cardinals were extraordinarily flat last Monday Night against the 49ers. Warner and his receivers were completely out-of synch. He threw two interceptions, fumbled twice and was sacked four times. As a team, the Cardinals committed seven turnovers, were flagged for eleven penalties and lost 24-9.
This is a big number for them to cover on the road when they had so many problems last week. The Cardinals are 0-8 ATS (-10.1 ppg) on the road the week after scoring fewer than 10 points, 0-6 ATS (-9.2 ppg) on the road when they are off a game in which they passed for at least 100 fewer yards than their season-to-date average and 0-5 ATS since 2005 on the road the week after they allowed at least four sacks, losing every game straight up and failing to cover by an average of 14.0 ppg.
Whenever a quality team has a lackadaisical effort, they usually fall back on sound fundamental football — especially if they are on the road. This conservative strategy makes it hard for them to cover a big number.
The Lions are especially potent against a team that has committed a lot of turnovers season-to-date. The reason is clear: teams that have a tendency to turn the ball over, play very conservatively vs the Lions , thus allowing Detroit to hang around. In fact, the Lions are 13-0 ATS (+11.1 ppg) since 1997 as a home dog when facing a team that has averaged at least 2.2 turnovers per game season-to-date. Detroit is actually 10-3 straight up in this situation. They were a double-digit home dog in this situation only once. The game was in week 17, 2003. Detroit was getting 11 vs the Rams and they won outright 30-20.
Detroit was annihilated last week by the Ravens, losing 48-3. The Lions are actually a solid play after a bad loss, going 14-1-2 ATS as a TD+ dog off a 21+ point loss — including a perfect 7-0 ATS if they were getting more than ten points. This season, they are 2-0 in this situation giving the Steelers and Bengals all they can handle.
The fact that the Lions are banged up will only contribute to the overconfidence and conservatism of the Cardinals. We’ll grab this big number.
MTi’s FORECAST: Arizona 27 DETROIT 20

4-Star Chicago at Baltimore OVER 40’ — The Baltimore Ravens finally got the offense going last week against the Lions, explod- ing for 48 points. That’s right, none of the Ravens’ 48 points came from the defense or special teams. Baltimore had 548 yards of offense which was comprised of 308 rushing yards and 240 yards through the air. The Ravens held the Lions to only 3 points and 0-for-4 on their fourth down attempts.
Baltimore is 6-0 OU at home after they allowed at least 10 points fewer than their season-to-date average at home, going over by an average of 11.6 ppg.
Usually, when a team scores 47 points it is from a combination of defensive TDs, special team TDs and down-the-field passing attack. However, Baltimore passed 23 times and rushed 40 times and five of their six touchdowns were via the rush. Further, the Lions only committed two turnovers. Baltimore is a perfect 6-0 OU when they are off a game in which they rushed for at least ten times more than their season-to-date average, flying over by an average of 20.9 ppg, as long as the OU line is less than 44. Yikes.
Their win over the Lions put the Ravens at 7-6 on the season. This has been a launching point for a long string of OVERs. The league as a whole is 9-0 OU when they are off a double-digit win that got them to 7-6 on the season, as long as they did not benefit from five-plus turnovers from their opponent. The Sports Data Query Language (SDQL) for this situation is:
wins = 7 and losses = 6 and p:margin >= 10 and po:turnovers < 5 and season > 1996
As you can see by running the query, teams in this situation have gone over the total by an average of 13.2 ppg in this situation. AND you can see that there is yet another active date this week.
The anchor, for this play, however, is a league-wide system that states, “The league is 19-0 OU (+11.9 ppg) since late 2004 as a dog the week after a loss in which they committed 100+ yards of penalties as long as they weren’t getting more than four points in that loss.” This system produced two double-digit overs last season and this is the first active date for this system this season. It is the Bears that qualify, as they committed 109 yards of penalties last week against the Packers.
Finally, for what it’s worth, the Bears are 11-0 OU (+10.6 ppg) since October 1994 when they play on Monday Night football the following week. All this and a low total compels us to grab the OVER.
MTi’s FORECAST: BALTIMORE 30 Chicago 20