Cardinals vs Chargers Prediction & Picks: NFL Week 1

The Arizona Cardinals travel to Los Angeles to face the Chargers on Sunday, September 13, and it turned into one of the better line-movement stories of Week 1. The Chargers sit as a 10-point home favorite with the total at 47, but that number has been sliding for weeks. Sean Green and Ryan Kramer worked through it on the NFL Picks Week 1 episode.

Cardinals vs Chargers Odds

Los Angeles Chargers -10 (Arizona Cardinals +10)
Total: 47
Moneyline: Chargers -550, Cardinals +425

The line kept coming down all the way to the show. The guys tracked it falling from 11.5 to 11 to 10.5 to a flat 10, and while they were recording one book flashed the Chargers at just -8.5. Arizona is the side drawing the money as the public survivor dog, which is a big reason the number keeps sliding, even though most books still had it at 10.

Our Picks

Both hosts are on the same side of this one, and they updated their play live to the sharper number.

Ryan Kramer (@KramerCentric): Los Angeles Chargers -8.5
Sean Green (@SeanTGreen): Los Angeles Chargers -8.5

The read starts with the crowd on the wrong side. The public is piling onto Arizona as the survivor dog, and that usually pushes the guys off it. From there it’s the setup: the Chargers get a rare home game with the crowd behind them, and Harbaugh has been strong in season openers. Neither host trusts the Cardinals defense to keep this close, and both remembered chasing Arizona as a big dog last year only to watch them get run off the field. Sean summed up the whole game with a rule of thumb: anything under 10, take the Chargers; over 10, you can talk yourself back onto the Cardinals, with 10 as the breaking point. With one book showing 8.5, both landed on laying the Chargers there.