NFC Wild Card Betting – Injured Cards Face Surging Panthers in Charlotte

Arizona Cardinals at Carolina Panthers (-6.5, 38 o/u)

The Cinderella season for the Arizona Cardinals (11-5, 4-4 away) will be in jeopardy this Saturday when the team travels across the country to take on the rising Carolina Panthers (7-8-1, 4-4 home).

After losing starting quarterback Carson Palmer and backup Drew Stanton to injuries, the Cardinals will have to rely on backup Ryan Lindley to kick start an offense that has been borderline pathetic for the last six weeks. Not only did the team go 1-5 over that stretch, but Lindley only has two TD passes (last weekend) and four interceptions on the year.

Lindley’s two majors came in week 17, when the Cardinals lost 20-17 in San Francisco. Despite committing three turnovers, Lindley also managed to pass for over 300 yards and, on whole, saw the game as a personal victory.

“It was good to get the monkey off my back a little bit,” Lindley said, ” I’m glad I got it out of the way in the beginning and just finished up the game and let it roll.”

Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians is hoping the team can stay alive in time for Stanton to possibly return.

“He’s progressing and nothing’s really changed,” Arians said. “We’ve got our fingers crossed that possibly he could go later in the week.”

However, that means beating the Carolina Panthers, which is the second team in NFL history to make it to the playoffs with a losing record.

With running backs Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams injured for much of the year, the Panthers struggled to score points early on. But Stewart has returned with a vengeance and the Carolina offense has followed suit, averaging just over 27 points per game in its last four.

Stewart knows that, heading into the postseason, the team’s early season struggles no longer matter. “It tells you that no matter what you do during the regular season, it just doesn’t matter. Things amp up to a whole different notch in the playoffs,” said the running back.

For the Panthers to win, quarterback Cam Newton will have to return to his old form as an accurate passer who can also scramble for major chunks of yardage.

“He presents different problems than Colin [Kaepernick] and Russell [Wilson],” Arians said. “He’s more of a combination of both those guys. He can really throw the football extremely well from the pocket. It presents a multitude of problems for us.”

Newton was efficient in Carolina’s week 17 drubbing of Atlanta, in what was essentially a division title game. The Auburn product went 10/16 for 114 yards and a TD through the air, while adding 51 yards and another major on the ground. The defense and the run-game get the bulk of the credit for the win, though: Carolina had four players rush for more than 40 yards and the defense forced three turnovers.

Arizona’s defense makes the Cardinals (+6.5) appealing, but the low total (38) makes the over the play.

(Photo credit: Keith Allison (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)