New England Patriots @ Arizona Cardinals

Preview

• Point Spread: Arizona -6
• Injury/Suspension Report:
  • NE: Tom Brady – out (sus), WR. Danny Amendola – Q (knee), WR. Malcolm Mitchell – Q (elbow)
  • Ari: RB. Stefon Taylor – Q (knee)

Game Analysis

This week’s game of the week will take place Sunday Night in Arizona live on Sunday Night Football where the New England Patriots will be in town to take on the Cardinals. Even without Brady this game still figures to have a ton of intrigue. We’ll finally get answers to a lot of questions we’ve been pondering about all offseason. Questions like how will the Patriots look on offense without Brady under center? How will the Patriots implement Martellus Bennett into their offense? How will Bennett mesh with Gronk? On the other side for Arizona they simply might have the best team on paper in the NFL and are out to prove that last year’s success wasn’t a fluke.

Ultimately I’m picking the Cardinals to win this game. The biggest reason is the fact that New England has a QB that’s making his first NFL start in a national tv game against a defense that features a ball-hawk secondary with an improved pass rush. I still expect the Pats to move the ball but ultimately I think turnovers will spell doom for New England. The Pats running game is far from elite and quite frankly the team just wasn’t built to line up and run it 30 plus times. Even with Jimmy G making his first start I don’t see Bellicheck and his staff completely scrapping their offensive system for 4 weeks just to protect him. I believe there going to let him go out and execute the same offense Brady does and though no one is expecting him to have Brady like results I think they trust him to get the job done. But It’s a lot to ask of a QB making his 1st start against this defense to go out and play a completely mistake free game. I expect Garappolo to figure it out and really play well throughout the majority of the 4 weeks he starts but on Sunday night I think it’s just going to be 1 of those wrong place at the wrong time type of situations and we most likely will see a few deer in headlights kind of moments from him. Against a team like Arizona turnovers will get you killed and that is why I think the Patriots ultimately lose this game.

But by no means do I feel it will be a blow out. The Cardinals offense is definitely going to move the ball but New England has a tough defense in their own right and I expect a lot of bend but don’t break from that unit. The Patriots have the talent in the secondary to compete with the Cardinals explosive receiving corps. In the end New England will hang around and make things interesting but ultimately  the inexperience of Garappolo will be the Pats undoing as I just don’t think their going to be able to score enough points to stay with the Cardinals throughout the entire game.