Expert Picks Week 5 – Arizona Cardinals Edge Out a Win

Can the Arizona Cardinals march into Motor City and leave with a win?

The experts have weighted in for this weekend’s matchup between the Detroit Lions, winless in four games, and the Arizona Cardinals, starting back to back seasons at 3-1 after a home loss to division rival St. Louis last Sunday. Detroit lost in amazing fashion after, and not sugar-coating it, getting screwed by K.J. Wright and the officials in Seattle. A win that could have really helped the Cardinals should they have pulled it out.

Here’s what the experts are saying for this weekend:

NFL.com’s Elliot Harrison has the Cardinals falling to the Lions 20-17 stating:

"Essentially, going with the Lions in this matchup translates to a gut play. Detroit’s a desperate, winless team, ticked off about the controversial loss in Seattle and playing at home. All of this trumps lackluster statistics and the ugly catalogue they’ve displayed up to this point."

Nate Silver’s ELO model, which is a predictive analytic system, has the Cardinals with a 56% chance of winning the game. Silver’s model also predicts the percentage of playoffs, divisional and  Super Bowl wins. Always an interesting model to look at each week.

Similarly, Microsoft’s Cortana model has the Cardinals with a 58% chance of winning the game. Cortana has been wild in her predictions over the course of the season, sometimes picking 13 games correctly, other times eight. Still, its fun to see these two competing models and what they would choose. This week they’re closely aligned in nearly all their picks.

Over at CBSSports.com the eight experts on the panel, seven of them have the Cardinals, one has Detroit in this Week 5 matchup which Arizona won, behind Drew Stanton, last season. Pete Prisco has the Cardinals beating the Lions 30-23 and has this to say:

"But this is a different style of offense. Carson Palmer loves the deep ball. The key will how the Arizona line blocks. I think they will be good enough. Cardinals take it."

Finally, FOX Sports’ panel of eight has, again, seven going with the Cardinals and one dissenter going with the Lions.

Seems sure enough through this all that the Cardinals have a good chance of going into Detroit and leaving with a 4-1 record. Hopefully the loss at home, in front of a crowd calling for blood after some questionable playcalling will have Arians and company back on the winning page