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NFL betting: Bettors like the Arizona Cardinals and DeAndre Hopkins on Thursday night

pete truszkowski
·3 min read

Week 7 of the NFL season gets underway on Thursday when the Arizona Cardinals host the New Orleans Saints. While it's not the most appetizing matchup, it's better than some other prime-time games we've seen this season. Both teams should be desperate, as a 3-4 record is a whole lot better than 2-5. The Cardinals are 3-point home favorites. Which way is the betting action flowing?

Bettors like the Cardinals

Both the Cardinals and the Saints enter Thursday night's game with a 2-4 record. If either team wants to be a player in the wild-card race down the stretch, they would be best served to avoid falling to 2-5. That's a hole that might be a bit too deep to come out of.

Both teams are coming off losses last week. The Cardinals and Kyler Murray were held to nine points by the Seattle Seahawks, who rank 30th in scoring defense. The Saints blew a two-score lead in the second half, falling to the Cincinnati Bengals. Both Arizona and New Orleans had reasonable expectations of competing for the playoffs entering the season, but both have been rather disappointing.

The Cardinals opened as a 1.5-point favorite on Sunday night. However, that line is now all the way up to 3 points. At BetMGM, 68% of bets and 70% of the money is on the Cardinals. It's worth noting a lot of those bettors got better numbers, laying less than a field goal with the home team. The spread was below a field goal as late as Thursday morning.

For New Orleans, it appears Andy Dalton will be making his fourth straight start in place of Jameis Winston. Winston appears to be nearing full health, but Dalton has performed relatively well and has even put up more points in his starts than Winston did earlier this season. Michael Thomas, Jarvis Landry and Marshon Lattimore are also out for New Orleans.

On the other side, DeAndre Hopkins will be making his season debut for the Cardinals after serving a six-game suspension. Unfortunately for Arizona, Marquise Brown will miss at least a month. James Conner will be a game-time decision at running back. Newly acquired Robbie Anderson will be extremely limited if he even dresses. Rodney Hudson and Justin Pugh, two starters along the offensive line, are out for Arizona.

Action on the total is pretty split. Only 44% of bets are on the game to go over 43.5 points, but 56% of the money is on the over. The total is down two points from the opening number of 45.5 points. On the season, unders are 57-37 and prime-time unders are 13-6.

GLENDALE, ARIZONA - DECEMBER 13: DeAndre Hopkins #10 of the Arizona Cardinals has the number 88 placed on his helmet in honor of Denver Broncos player Demaryius Thomas during the game against the Los Angeles Rams at State Farm Stadium on December 13, 2021 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images)
DeAndre Hopkins plays his first game of the NFL season on Thursday, and bettors like him and the Cardinals to have a big night. (Norm Hall/Getty Images)

Hopkins is a popular prop bet

As mentioned above, Hopkins makes his season debut on Thursday night and bettors are expecting him to hit the ground running.

Hopkins is +125 to score a touchdown and +700 to score the first touchdown of the night. Those are the two most popular prop bets at BetMGM ahead of kickoff. Last season, Hopkins had eight touchdowns in 10 games.

The third-most popular bet also centers on the Cardinals offense. Bettors like Kyler Murray to go over 33.5 rushing yards. Murray ran for 100 yards last week and 42 yards the week before that. Murray went under 33.5 rushing yards in his first four games of the season. Yahoo Sportsbook's Greg Brainos agrees with bettors and likes Kyler to run wild.