NFL: Rams defence to dominate against the beat-up Cardinals

Tough St Louis defence can pull off upset against AFC West leaders

It’s a great thing in the NFL that even when it looks like your team have nothing to play for, they never just lie down and shame themselves by losing for the rest of the season. The epitome of that this season is the St Louis Rams, who looked dead and buried a month ago, are now pulling out eye-catching results against everyone they come up against.

They’ve had consecutive shut-outs and while that is highly unlikely to happen again when they take on the 10-3 Cardinals, that excellent defence will squeeze the life out of poor Drew Stanton. The backup quarterback hasn’t been in sparkling form and the Cardinals look like they’ll limp into the post-season so back the Rams to win at 1/2 in what on paper will look like an upset.

Arizona snapped a winless streak of three games last week but it was a close one, most of the credit goes to the defence who played out of their skins. Bruce Arians is a top coach and deserves the Coach of the Year honour should his team win the division but they could quite easily lose all their remaining games. Their defence will keep this a low-scoring affair, take the total points to be under the -41.5 alternative handicap at 18/25 as neither offence are good enough to score often enough against two great defences.

Jeff Fisher is a fan of the trick play, famous for the Music City Miracle whilst at the Tennessee Titans and his special teams have been fantastic this season. They completely bamboozled the Seahawks a few weeks ago and they have so much success on kick-offs and punts that they are a real threat. For the first scoring play of the game, put some money on a St Louis TD at 8/5 as they are so dangerous on returns that if they get the ball in space, they’ll get into the end-zone.