TEMPE, Ariz. -- The Las Vegas Hilton released its projected over/under win totals for all 32 NFL teams on Sunday. While there were not a lot of major surprises, there were a few.
Carolina, coming off a 12-4 year in which it won the NFC South title, was projected to win eight games. The same goes for Atlanta, which is coming off a 4-12 year.
Then there is the local team. After learning the nuances of the new coaching staff's schemes and each other tendencies, the Cardinals won seven of their final nine games in 2013 to go 10-6, matching the franchise's highest win total in the Super Bowl era (1974, '76, 2009).
So what did Vegas think of that? Not much.
Vegas installed Arizona's over/under total at 7.5. That would put Arizona behind 10 other NFC teams, meaning they would miss the playoffs again. The folks in Tempe will surely disagree with that assessment, as will many in the Cardinals' fan base, but the biggest reason behind that pick may be the schedule.
According to Nate Silver's website, FiveThirtyEight, which uses regression analysis to arrive at a more accurate strength of schedule ranking than simply taking last season's records into account (there is much annual fluctuation in those records), the Cardinals have the second toughest schedule in the league this year.
In the league's annually rotating inter-conference system, the Cardinals face the AFC West this season. That division was the only one to place three teams in the playoffs last season (Denver, Kansas City and San Diego). That's tough luck for Arizona, which already plays six games a year against the NFL's toughest division, the NFC West.
In addition, the Cardinals face four division winners from 2013 (Seattle twice, Denver and Philadelphia), eight playoff teams from last season (Seattle twice, San Francisco twice, Denver, Kansas City, San Diego, Philadelphia), eight quarterbacks ranked in the top 10 in passer rating last season (Nick Foles, Peyton Manning, Philip Rivers, Tony Romo, Russell Wilson twice, Colin Kaepernick twice) and five of the NFL's top 10 scoring defenses from 2013 (Seattle twice, San Francisco twice, Kansas City).
For what it's worth, Arizona's opponents went 140-116 (.547) last season.
If you're not a bettor and don't know how the system works, every team is assigned a number of wins. Bettors can wager on whether a team goes over or under that total. It serves a gauge for oddsmakers' expectations of each team.
The over/unders aren't necessarily equal. Fluctuations in the money line can alter the payouts and odds of each. For example, a $100 bet on the Ravens over (8.5) won't pay out the same money as a $100 bet on the Ravens under.
If you're wondering how accurate these predictions are on an annual basis, here were the 2013 predictions.
And here are the full, projected 2014 over/under win totals:
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