Arizona Cardinals at Los Angeles Rams
Sunday, October 18, 2026
4:05 PM ET, SoFi Stadium
The Los Angeles Rams are 12.5-point favorites over the Arizona Cardinals, and the total is 51.5. My play is the Rams -12.5.
Mike LaFleur knows exactly what’s coming Sunday. He spent the last three seasons drawing it up. He just doesn’t have the players to stop it.
LaFleur was Sean McVay’s offensive coordinator from 2023 through 2025, and Arizona made him its head coach on Feb. 1. This is the first time the two have met from opposite sidelines, and it’s a fun storyline for about one quarter. Then the talent gap takes over. The Cardinals are 1-4, they’ve lost four in a row, and they’ve allowed 36, 36 and 45 points in their last three games. LaFleur didn’t sugarcoat the Detroit loss: “None of it’s good enough and we get to flush this thing, learn from it and get back to work on Wednesday.”
Arizona just made a bad week worse
The day after the Lions blowout, the Cardinals made the Marvin Harrison Jr. trade to Houston official, taking back a 2027 second-round pick. That might be smart team-building. It’s also one fewer weapon for Jacoby Brissett in a game where Arizona will need to score in bunches to stay close. The offense was already short on big plays before the trade, and the injury list keeps growing: left tackle Paris Johnson Jr., guard Isaiah Adams and running back James Conner are all on injured reserve.
The real problem is the other side of the ball. Arizona ranks 31st in EPA allowed per dropback, which means opposing quarterbacks are basically playing pitch-and-catch against them. That is the last thing you want to see with Matthew Stafford on deck. Stafford leads the NFL with 1,572 passing yards, and he just threw for 383 and three scores against Buffalo. Puka Nacua caught 17 of those balls. Picture that matchup for a second.
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The Rams are 2-3 after starting the year as Super Bowl favorites, and they’re coming off an overtime loss in which their would-be game-winning field goal got blocked. Good. That’s the team you want to lay points with. An angry, embarrassed contender coming home to face a division rival in free fall is a much better bet than a cruising one. The market agrees: this line sat at 10.5 last week and jumped to 12.5 after Arizona’s latest beatdown. Historically, the Rams have owned this matchup at the window, too, going 7-3 against the spread in the last 10 meetings.
What would make me look foolish
The Rams’ kicking game. Harrison Mevis missed from 50 and had a potential game-winner blocked in overtime Monday, and the Rams have made just five of nine field goal tries this season. Big favorites need points from every trip, and a couple of empty red-zone visits or blown kicks would open the backdoor wide. It’s also a short week after Monday night, left tackle Alaric Jackson is facing a two-game suspension he plans to appeal (David Quessenberry would start), and Myles Garrett still isn’t back from his knee injury. And Brissett threw for 292 yards and three touchdowns in his last game, so he can pile up garbage-time numbers if the Rams take their foot off the gas.
I’m laying it anyway. Anything up to -13 is fine by me, but I wouldn’t chase it to -14, which is one of the key numbers in football.
Projected score: Rams 34, Cardinals 16. Stafford carves up the worst pass defense he’ll see all month, and LaFleur’s homecoming ends with a handshake and a quiet flight back to Phoenix.
The Pick: Rams -12.5
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