The Arizona Cardinals‘ 2021 campaign was a tale of two halves. The Cards won their first seven games and quarterback Kyler Murray looked like the MVP frontrunner. But then Murray suffered an ankle injury and Arizona finished out the regular season 4-6 before being blasted by the eventual Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs.
The Cardinals aren’t a team the NFL world seems high on entering 2022, and Vegas reflects that. According to Caesars Sportsbook, there has not been a more lopsided Under bet in terms of dollars than Cardinals Under 9 wins. In fact, 91.4% of the money on Arizona’s win total is on the Under. The Cardinals opened up at 25/1 to win the Super Bowl in 2023, but it has now risen to 35/1. Caesars says this is in large part due to lack of action.
While Arizona has improved every season under Kliff Kingsbury, there are reasons to be wary of the Cardinals. Over the past two seasons, the Cardinals have flailed down the stretch after hot starts. It’s curious as to if Arizona will be able to fly out of the starting gates in 2022, as it opens the season against the Kansas City Chiefs, then gets a revamped Las Vegas Raiders squad followed by the Rams. Not only do the Cardinals reside in a very tough division in the NFC West, but they have to play the four teams from arguably the league’s best division in the AFC West in 2022.
To make matters worse for the Cards, they will be without star wideout DeAndre Hopkins for six weeks due to his violating the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy. However, the Cardinals did add Marquise Brown to make up for the loss of Hopkins.
After an 11-6 campaign last year, NFL bettors see the Cardinals taking a fairly significant step backwards.
