LOOKING FOR THE BEST NFL CAPPERS ON THE INTERNET? WE KNOW WHERE THEY ARE \u2014\u2013><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nBut developing at least a little more balance has been a stated priority in the Southwest, and the Cards emphasized that by taking Ohio State\u2019s Beanie Wells with their first draft pick. There have been stops and staerts in the early going as Wells and Tim Hightower split carries. Wells, for example, fumbled twice in Arizona\u2019s victory over Jacksonville last weekend and has taken grief all week for it. But he did gain 44 yards on 7 carries (6.3 per), and the Cardinals at least paid lip service to the running game by balancing the attack \u2013 28 rushes, 32 passes. And they actually outrushed J-Ville, 118-92, overall, for what that\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n
Zona coach Ken Whisenhunt hopes his team\u2019s new-found love for a balanced attack will hold it in good stead on Sunday night when the Indianapolis Colts come calling.![\"Sports](\"http:\/\/affiliates.commissionaccount.com\/processing\/impressions.asp?btag=a_3953b_870\")
The Colts, ironically, have made moves to improve their own running attack, drafting Donald Brown to at minimum light a fire under under-achieving Joseph Addai. Indy still has several good years left from Peyton Manning and doesn\u2019t want to take the ball out of his hands too often, but new coach Jim Caldwell has stated his desire to keep the offense diversified.<\/p>\n
All the talk about running the ball might be keeping the O\/U number (47.5) a bit lower than we might expect from two teams that live and die with the forward pass and seem more comfortable winning 38-34 than 13-10. The spread opened at Arizona -2.5 and at mid-week stood right there. The over hasn\u2019t budged, either.<\/p>\n
In Indy, Caldwell appears to have been given a big gift as he charts his way through his first year as a head coach. Basically, the Colts are pretty much what they have always been, but the other teams in the division appear to have taken backward steps. Houston confounded fans coast to coast with their lackluster opening-day non-effort against the Jets before an equally confusing Week 2 thrashing of \u2026 Tennessee (0-2), which has done nothing yet to prove that last season\u2019s NFL-best 13-3 record was not a fluke. J-Ville (0-2) is rebuilding and may wind up in Los Angeles in a few years. All the turmoil below them has given Indy the early high ground in the AFC South.<\/p>\n
Arizona has more to lose. The Cards still need to prove that 2008 was no desert mirage, and a victory Sunday night will go a long way dispelling the notion that the Arizona was an average team that simply got on a month-long run at the end of last season. By the time the Cards (1-1) take the field, San Francisco might be 3-0 in the division, and a loss to Indy would put Arizona in a hole that might take 5 or 6 weeks to dig out of.<\/p>\n
Comment on this game below, hit us with your pregame NFL picks and predictions…<\/strong><\/p>\nGrab yourself a 50% SIGN UP BONUS today at Sportsbook.com Sportsbook! (Plus you grab yourself a $25 Free Bet!!!) – CLICK HERE NOW!<\/h3>\n
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\nLawrence Paul is a regular contributor to the Cappers Picks Blog, and is a free-lance gambling and travel writer from Massachusetts.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Point spread, ATS odds, and moneyline betting and preview article for the 2009 Week 3 Sunday night football NFL clash between the Indianapolis Colts and the Arizona Cardinals…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[17573,89,2469,3916,17574,334,17575,17576,17577,17578,17579,504,17580,2045,713,66502,955,1186,17581],"class_list":["post-13554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nfl","tag-3009-nfl-previews","tag-ats","tag-bet-on-cardinals","tag-bet-on-colts","tag-bet-on-week-3","tag-colts","tag-colts-cardinals-lines","tag-colts-cardinals-odds","tag-colts-cardinals-spread","tag-colts-vs-cardinals","tag-colts-vs-cardinals-preview","tag-gambling-odds","tag-indianapolis-colts-vs-arizona-cardinals","tag-moneyline","tag-moneylines","tag-nfl","tag-overunder","tag-spread","tag-week-3-gambling-lines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13554"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109352,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13554\/revisions\/109352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}