St. Louis Rams vs Arizona Cardinals NFL Week 16 Picks: First and foremost, 15.5 points is quite the freaking mountain to climb in the NFL. Remember when your grandpa used to tell you he had to walk five miles to school, uphill both ways? That’s kind of like a 15 point spread. Now, with an offense as explosive as Arizona’s, it might just be uphill one way, but when that offense hasn’t been all that efficient down the stretch, we’re getting dangerously close to that impossible uphill both way scenario.

The Rams can run the ball, that’s another hill the Cardinals will have to climb. Steven Jackson hasn’t been feeling his best, but the guy is amazing. Despite every defense doing everything they can to make St. Louis want to throw the ball, he’s still getting close to 100 yards every game and going work against the NFL’s best. After Arizona gave up and gaggle of yards last week to the freaking Detroit Lions, I have a feeling the Rams will be doing their best to exploit the Cardinals again this week.

And now for the kicker, I don’t see any reason for the Cardinals to play their key guys very long, or give that much effort to win these meaningless games. I mean, sure, they could play a little harder down the stretch, hope to be a high enough seed to be the NFC home team if the best teams get upset throughout the playoffs, but seeing how last year’s slow finish to the regular season had absolutely no effect on their post-season success, I don’t know why they’d risk injury to guys like Kurt Warner in games that will mean nothing.

All things considered, this is Lucky Lester saying, “uphill both ways sucks”.

St. Louis Rams (+15.5) @ Arizona Cardinals: