Opening Line: Cardinals -6
Over/Under: 47.5

Time: 8:30 PM EST Sunday September 11, 2016 on NBC
New England Patriots (0-0) vs. Arizona Cardinals (0-0)

The Patriots open their season without Tom Brady under center and all eyes will be on Jimmy Garoppolo to see if he can fill in with Brady out four games because of Deflate-gate. With Brady out the Cardinals are six-point favorites and they have legitimate Super Bowl aspirations with the stacked team they have.

The Cardinals have to like their chances in this non-conference game with Brady on the sidelines and Carson Palmer is coming off a career year where he ranked 3rd in the NFL in passing yards and 35 TD. The Pats’ defense has a few new faces and they will have their hands full on the road in the season opener facing an Arizona team that ranked 8th in the league last season on total offense.

These teams have not met since the 2012 season in New England where the Cardinals upset the Patriots winning 20-18 and covering the big 13-point spread.

In the preseason the Patriots were 3-1 and the Cardinals were 1-3.

Last season the Patriots were 8-8-2 ATS and they had an O/U record of 10-8 and the Cardinals were 9-9 ATS with an O/U record of 10-8.

Last season the Cardinals were 6-2 at home and the Patriots were 5-3 on the road.

Garoppolo has a decent supporting cast with TE Rob Gronkowski and the WR duo of Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola, but Amendola may miss this game due to an injury. It will really help the Pats if they can run the ball and with LeGarrette Blount having a down year last season New England ranked 3rd to last in the NFL in rushing yards per game.

Arizona had the league’s 6th best defense last season and they may be better this season since they added Chandler Jones who had 12.5 sacks with the Patriots last year.

The Patriots are used to Brady putting up big numbers, but with the unproven Garoppolo under center there is much more pressure on the Pats’ defense. LB’s Dont’a Hightower and Jamie Collins are solid up front, but the weakness of the defense is the secondary and that may be exposed in this game if the Patriots cannot pressure Palmer and he is given time to find his solid targets such as Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Floyd, and John Brown.

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Betting Trends

• The Patriots are 1-6 ATS in their last 7 road games and they have an Over record of 13-6 in their last 19 games in Week 1.
• The Cardinals are 1-6 ATS in their last 7 home games, 5-0 ATS in their last 5 games in September, and they have an Under record of 4-0 in their last 4 home games.
• The Patriots are 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games against the Cardinals.
• In the last 5 games between these teams the Under record is 4-1.

New England Patriots at Arizona Cardinals Free Pick

You never know what HC Bill Belichick has up his sleeve as far as the offensive game plan goes, but you’d have to think that there is a good chance that the Cardinals will see a lot of running plays. If Arizona stacks the box and forces QB Jimmy Garoppolo to beat them with his arm, we’d expect them to be use high percentage plays. Both of these teams are more thought of for their offense, but the Cards finished 5th in yards allowed last season and the Pats in 9th. We feel that this should be more of a 21-17 type game and therefore the value is in the UNDER.

Take the UNDER 47.5