Arizona Cardinals vs Kansas City Chiefs

As 8-point road favorites, the Chiefs’ 37-21 win at Cleveland improved their record to 8-1 overall and against the spread. Kansas City’s 31st-ranked defense held the Browns to six or fewer points in three of the Week 9 contest’s four quarters.

At 2-6 straight up and 4-3-1 against the spread, Arizona enjoyed a much-needed bye week. The Cardinals are 4-1-1 ATS in their past six games. Josh Rosen has started five of those six games.

Kansas City opened as a huge 16.5-point favorite, but Chiefs backers pushed the line to -17 by Monday morning. The Cardinals moneyline is a shot-in-the-dark +775 and the point total is 50. The only other time Kansas City was favored by 16 or more points was against the Patriots (+16) in 1992 when Dave Krieg and Christian Okoye roamed the Chiefs backfield. K.C. won, but did not cover, 27-20.

Cardinals vs Chiefs Game Center

WHAT WE LEARNED: WEEK 9

Chiefs – After holding the Browns to 21 points at home, Kansas City’s defense has allowed just 18 points per game over the past three weeks (vs the Browns, Bengals and Broncos).

Patrick Mahomes has passed for 300 or more yards in eight straight games and boasts 2,901 passing yards with 29 touchdown passes in nine starts. Because they’re so terrible against the rush, the Cardinals rank seventh against the pass at 225 yards allowed per game and have yielded the second-fewest touchdown passes (9).

The Associated Press reports that Kansas City has won the coin toss all nine games this season.

Cardinals – Arizona cut Sam Bradford, which leaves Mike Glennon as Josh Rosen’s primary backup. When we last saw the Cardinals, the rookie quarterback “led” his team to an uninspiring 18-15 win over the 49ers. In his five starts, Rosen is averaging 207 pass yards per game with a total of five touchdowns and five interceptions. He’s completed less than 58 percent of his passes in four out of five starts.

Because Rosen poses little threat, opposing defenses have stacked the box against David Johnson. The fourth-year running back has been held to 3.2 yards per carry this season, which ranks 48th out of 51 qualified running backs. As a team, Arizona isn’t much better at 3.4 yards per rush.

NEXT LEVEL TRENDS: TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

Since 1984, home favorites of 16.5 or more points are 67-5 straight up, but only 30-38-4 against the spread.

NEXT LEVEL TRENDS: REID BETWEEN THE LINES

Andy Reid-coached teams have been favorites of 10 or more points 24 times. In those games, Reid is 17-7 straight up, but only 10-14 against the spread.

KANSAS CITY, MO FORECAST

Partly cloudy with temperatures in the mid-40s and little chance of rain. Winds shouldn’t impact the game.

Arizona’s Phil Dawson is 4-for-6 on field goals and 12-for-12 on extra points this season. Kansas City’s Harrison Butker has missed extra points in back-to-back games. He’s now 39-for-41 on XP and 14-for-15 on field-goal attempts. When needing to cover 17-point spreads, every extra point carries weight.

MY LEAN

Since 1984, teams that start the season 8-1 against the spread are 6-3 straight up and 3-6 against the spread in their 10th game of the season. This will be the 8-1 ATS Chiefs’ 10th game.

If Kansas City’s defense is limiting underperforming offenses to 18 points per game over the past three weeks, the primary question becomes, how does Arizona’s offense keep pace? Kareem Hunt’s workload has been well-managed to date. So, it wouldn’t come as a shock to see him earn 20 to 25 carries against the league’s 31st-ranked rush defense, which has allowed the second-most rush touchdowns this season (12).

Granted, 17 points is a lot to lay, but when the Cardinals faced the Rams earlier this season and received 11 points, they were shut out 34-0 and I don’t believe Arizona has improved much, if any, since that game.

I’m leaning Chiefs cover the monster spread.