
There’s been some pretty bad quarterbacking between the Broncos and Cardinals. Defense should dictate their matchup on “Thursday Night Football”.
It’s been an ugly start to the season for the Arizona Cardinals, who sit at 1-5 on the season going into their Thursday Night Football matchup against the Denver Broncos. The game is set for 8:20 p.m. ET on NFL Network and FOX (live streaming via FuboTV, NFL, FOX Sports GO, Amazon Prime).
The lone win for the Cardinals came over the struggling 49ers, and they have yet to win a single home game. That said, the Broncos have earned both of their wins — they sit at 2-4 — at home, losing both of their away games thus far, and neither was particularly close. Their wins have come against the Seahawks and Raiders.
Case Keenum has been starting for the Broncos, and he’s been less than ideal. He’s completed 63.1 percent of his passes for 1,687 yards, seven touchdowns, and eight interceptions. The turnovers are what hurts them the most, though they’re also rushing for about 200 fewer yards in total than their opponents thus far this season.
Josh Rosen has taken over as the starting quarterback of the Cardinals, and he’s been very spotty. He’s completed just 55.6 percent of his passes for 626 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions while being sacked seven times. The Cardinals are also terrible at running the ball, with just 384 rushing yards compared to 907 rushing yards allowed to their opponents this season.
Below is all you need to know to watch the action on Thursday.
Time, TV, and streaming info
- Time: 8:20 p.m. ET
- Location: State Farm Stadium, Glendale, Arizona
- TV: NFL Network, FOX
- Streaming:FuboTV, NFL, FOX Sports GO, Amazon Prime
- Odds: The Broncos opened as narrow 2-point favorites over Arizona.
Broncos vs. Cardinals news
- The Broncos are fairly banged up going into Thursday’s game, as the team ruled out all of Adam Jones, Shane Ray, Dymonte Thomas, Jared Veldheer and Ron Leary in its final injury report.
- Arizona isn’t quite as injured, but they ruled out two started in Tre Boston and Mike Iupati in the final injury report.
- Getting Larry Fitzgerald touchdowns has been a huge problem for the Cardinals — this is the first time in his career that he’s not caught a TD pass in six games.
- The Broncos gave up 593 rushing yards over two games, an NFL record — not the kind you’d want, of course — and Vance Joseph says he is making changes to mitigate the damage.
- Fortunately for Denver, the Cardinals haven’t been very good at running the ball, and a lot of that has to do with predictability: they run up the middle more than any team in the NFL.
- The Cardinals also seem to be over-complicating things on both sides of the ball.
Broncos vs. Cardinals prediction
In the latest SB Nation expert NFL picks, three of the seven are going with Denver, along with the coin flip and the OddsShark computer. That leaves another four picking the Cardinals to win it.