The Rams showed how dangerous their passing game can be Monday night—and still walked away with a loss. Now they’re 12.5-point favorites against Arizona, raising a different challenge: turning that production into comfortable separation. Our projections show a substantial yardage advantage for Los Angeles, but its recent results against the spread offer a reason to look beyond the stronger roster.
Stafford’s attack gives the Rams a clear starting point
Matthew Stafford threw for 383 yards and three touchdowns in the Rams’ 37-34 overtime loss to Buffalo on Monday. Puka Nacua caught 17 passes for 138 yards and a touchdown, while Davante Adams added two touchdown catches. That’s a productive group for an Arizona defense that just allowed Detroit to score 45 points.
Our grades favor Los Angeles on both sides of the ball: an A offense and A- defense, compared with Arizona’s B- offense and C defense. Our yardage projections tell a similar story, with roughly 400 total yards for the Rams and 310 for the Cardinals. We also project about 125 rushing yards for Los Angeles against 80 for Arizona, giving the Rams a more balanced expected output.
Still, producing yards and covering a large spread are different challenges. Los Angeles is 2-3 outright and has covered only once in its first five games. Its last three games all ended without a cover, including a four-point win at Philadelphia. The current DraftKings spread asks for considerably more separation than that.
Monday also exposed problems beyond the final score. Buffalo rushed for 234 yards, including 121 from Josh Allen, and the Rams had two unsuccessful field-goal attempts, one of them blocked in overtime. Arizona doesn’t present the same rushing matchup, but that performance is a useful counterweight to our strong defensive grade: Los Angeles still has to turn its advantages into stops and finished possessions.
Arizona needs steadier drives, not just a respectable final stat line
Jacoby Brissett finished with 292 passing yards and three touchdowns in Arizona’s 45-21 loss to Detroit on Sunday. But those totals conceal the stretch that broke the game open: the Cardinals had five consecutive three-and-outs in the first half, gaining just 12 yards, before their next possession ended with an interception.
That makes sustained offense Arizona’s most important counterweight to the Rams’ advantage. The Cardinals have scored 30, 24 and 21 points in their last three games, so they’ve shown they can contribute points even while losing. Avoiding another long run of empty possessions would give them a better chance to keep this matchup competitive.
There’s also a backfield issue to monitor. The Arizona Republic’s Theo Mackie reported Wednesday that Jeremiyah Love, Arizona’s starting running back, would miss practice with an ankle injury. That adds a concern for a rushing game our projections already expect to trail Los Angeles.
The broader betting history hasn’t been kind to Arizona, either. Over the past year, backing Cardinals opponents against the spread went 11-5, returning a historical profit of 4.93 units on flat one-unit bets. That record reinforces the concern around Arizona’s competitiveness, even as the Rams’ recent struggles to cover give bettors a reason to examine this double-digit price carefully.
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The 51.5 total depends on Arizona’s contribution
There’s a credible scoring case here: Stafford’s receivers are coming off a big night, Arizona has allowed at least 31 points in each of its last four games, and both teams’ last three games went over their respective totals. Los Angeles has multiple ways to move the ball against the weaker of the two defenses in our grades.
The counterweight at 51.5 is Arizona’s ability to keep contributing. Its recent scoring has come alongside uneven drives, and our projections give the Cardinals only about 80 rushing yards against a defense we rate highly. A productive Rams afternoon and another extended Arizona stall would create a different scoring environment from Monday’s back-and-forth game against Buffalo. On the other hand, the Rams’ recent difficulty getting stops leaves room for Arizona to sustain more offense than it managed early against Detroit.
Los Angeles has the stronger case to control this matchup, with Stafford’s passing production and our projected rushing advantage offering two ways to build a lead. Covering a large spread requires the Rams to finish possessions and get stops more reliably than they did Monday. Arizona’s drive consistency is the key connection between the two markets: sustained possessions could keep the Cardinals competitive while supporting the scoring pace, whereas another stretch of three-and-outs would make their recent point totals less reassuring at 51.5.
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