NFL Week 15 gets underway on Thursday with a game of great importance when the Cardinals travel back to their previous home port to challenge the renascent Rams. Arizona roughed up the Rams in the desert in NFL Week 10.
This is a Rams team coming off back-to-back shutouts, something that hasn't been done in the NFL since 1945. Amazing. Not the Seahawks of last year, nor the Millennial Ravens, nor the 1985 Bears, nor the Steel Curtain teams of the 1970s; neither Lombardi's Packers nor Bednarik's Eagles.
That's why the current Vegas line has St. Louis by 4 points regardless of Arizona's top-seed status in the NFC.
Jeff Fisher has never impressed me. Even though I am predisposed to see Arizona lose the remaining three games -- St. Louis, Seattle, San Francisco -- it would not surprise me to see Bruce Arians outfox the Rams yet again.
Nonetheless, I think St. Louis comes out on top. Drew Stanton alone in the dome is not enough to master the Rams defense. Derek Carr is a much better QB, and he couldn't put any points on the board.
A loss by the Cardinals pleases me because, assuming the Seahawks continue their winning ways, this drops Arizona into a tie for first place in the NFC West, setting up a Battle Royale for the division next Sunday night.
If Seattle triumphs in the desert then regardless of the outcome of the last game of season, the Seahawks would be division champs.
I'm getting too far ahead of myself. I know. But to take it to the limit, imagine the improbable: Green Bay loses at Buffalo and Seattle runs the table of remaining regular-season games. That means home field for the 12th Man throughout the playoffs.
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