Arizona Cardinals vs. Tennessee Titans Odds, Preview, & NFL Week 1 Betting Picks

by Andy Means (meansy53) Last Updated 2021-09-10 17:29:12

NFL betting analyst Andy Means looks at Cardinals vs. Titans odds, previewing the Week 1 matchup and his best picks. If you live in Arizona, make sure to claim over $500 in FREE BETS to start the NFL season! Also check out Meansy’s best Cardinals & Titans player prop bets.

Cardinals at Titans Odds

Week 1 gives us an intriguing battle between the NFC West and the AFC South, as the Arizona Cardinals 2021 schedule kicks off with a road trip travel to Nashville to square off against the Tennessee Titans. The Cardinals, playing in arguably the toughest division in the NFL, are coming off of an 8-8 season, finishing third in the NFC West. The Titans, on the other hand, finished 11-5 and won the AFC South (taking the tiebreaker over the Colts).

Both of these teams flourished on the offensive side of the ball in 2020. The Titans finished third in the league in yards per game (396.4), while the Cardinals were not far behind at sixth (384.6). One big (and quite important!) difference was that the Titans were able to produce far more points (30.8 per game compared to just 25.6 for the Cardinals). I suppose it helps when you have a guy like Derrick Henry in the backfield.

What are their respective outlooks for 2021? And how will they match up against each other in Week 1? Let’s dive in and take a look.

Arizona Cardinals

As the Cardinals head into the third season of the Kliff Kingsbury / Kyler Murray marriage, they saw their fair share of roster turnover in the offseason. Kenyan Drake is now with the Raiders, and James Conner was brought in to replace him. Larry Fitzgerald seems to be on the cusp of announcing his retirement any day now, and the Cardinals signed A.J. Green (from the Bengals) and drafted Rondale Moore (Purdue) to replace Fitz. Moore specifically has been wildly impressive during the preseason, getting involved early and often in the offense on a variety of reverses, screens, etc. He sure seems to be an ideal fit for Kingsbury’s offense.

A defense that gave up just 22.9 points per game in 2020 (12th fewest in the league) saw some important names change jerseys too. After 10 seasons in Arizona, Patrick Peterson now calls Minnesota home. The Cardinals, however, were able to take away some of the sting of losing Peterson by signing Malcolm Butler (although it appears that Butler is now going to retire). Discussing their secondary first though is of course burying the lede, as the Cardinals made one of the bigger offseason moves in the entire league by signing J.J. Watt to bolster that defensive line. This defense should be even better this season, but it’s hard not to have a lot of questions about that secondary (especially now that it is thinned out even more with the apparent loss of Butler).

Looking ahead to this season, it’s hard not to like this offense once again. The Kliff/Kyler combo showed huge strides from Year 1 to Year 2, and I suppose a guy named DeAndre Hopkins had a lot to do with that. Last season, Nuk had the second most receptions in the league (115) and the third most yards (1,407). Where he—and the offense as a whole—will have to improve though is finding paydirt more often. Perhaps those aforementioned offseason additions (i.e. Conner, Moore, Green) will be able to help them in that department as well.

Tennessee Titans

Adding Julio Jones to an offense that scored the fourth most points per game in the league last season is an obvious starting point for any Titans discussion. Yes, there is only one football to go around on any one play, but Julio (even 32-year-old Julio heading into his 11th season) is a clear upgrade at WR2 over Corey Davis. Throw in the other two studs on this offense named Derrick Henry and A.J. Brown, and good luck to opposing defenses this season when it comes to stopping this Titans offense.

If the Titans are to experience any hiccups on that side of the ball, it would likely be due to new scheme and/or play-calling. Last season’s offensive coordinator, Arthur Smith, is now the head coach down in Atlanta, and he was replaced by Todd Downing (Titans’ tight end coach last season). One would have to assume that Downing comes into this season with a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality, but that of course remains to be seen.

What was broke in Tennessee last season though was that defense. In 2020, the Titans allowed the fifth most yards per game (398.3) and the ninth most points per game (27.4). To their credit—even with the Julio addition getting all of the attention—they did appear intent on improving the defensive side of the ball in the offseason. They brought in Denico Autry (from the Colts), Bud Dupree (from the Steelers), and Janoris Jenkins (from the Saints), and then they scooped up Caleb Farley (cornerback) with the 22nd pick in the draft. This defense should be improved too, but it’s hard to get too much worse than what we saw last season. The question is: will the (likely) defensive improvement be enough for them to truly make some noise in the AFC?

Clearly though, this team goes as the offense goes. And since you have to like what you see from the offense on on the other side of this game, that leads me to…

Cardinals at Titans Pick

Sure, you can easily make the argument that both of these defenses improved during the offseason (with the Tennessee side of things being far more relevant), but I also think you can make an argument that the offenses improved too. Ultimately, our projections at RotoGrinders have both of these teams as Top 10 offenses (Titans 6th; Cardinals 9th), whereas we have the defenses being average at best (Cardinals 16th; Titans 19th). Advantage —> OFFENSE!

And what’s more, both of these offenses last season were very quick-paced. According to Football Outsiders, the Cardinals played at the second fastest pace (25.06 seconds per play), while the Titans were the fourth fastest (25.99 seconds per play). All of this—Top 10 offenses, average defenses, quick-paced offenses—has me thinking that this game just screams SHOOTOUT. So for me, I’ll be riding with the over in this one. And if perhaps you are a little higher than me on the Titans defensive upgrades, maybe just fire on the Titans team total (27.5) on its own.

PICK: OVER 51.5 points

Image Credit: Imagn