Bo Nix's 62-yard touchdown run buries the Cardinals +4.5 in a 30-16 loss

We priced Bo Nix as a quarterback who can't throw and can't be protected, and Arizona's blitz as the thing that would prove it. Nix broke a 62-yard touchdown run, the longest by a Broncos quarterback in franchise history, and finished with 222 yards and a score through the air. Arizona got home once, by Darius Robinson. Budda Baker and Josh Sweat did nothing. Trey McBride's 10 catches for 111 were the whole offense, and Arizona went one for five in the red zone. Broncos 30, Cardinals 16. Took 4.5, lost by 14.

Two of the worst offenses in football, which is how a total of 43.5 happens in a dome. Bo Nix is at a career-low 60.3%, last in the NFL in air yards per attempt at 6.0, 28th in EPA per dropback when blitzed at -0.31, and under 200 passing yards in four of six games, with Sean Payton having taken the play sheet off Davis Webb after four weeks. Arizona is built to attack exactly that: its leading sacker is safety Budda Baker with 3.5 and its other real threat is Josh Sweat with 2.0, and against the Rams it blitzed 13 times, a season high for the unit, with Baker and Sweat each getting home. That was the week Arizona held the league's top-ranked offense to 16 points and no offensive touchdown, forcing two fourth-down turnovers. Trey McBride takes 27.7% of Arizona's targets and Denver's own staff has named containing him the central task of the week, with strong safety Talanoa Hufanga not practicing Wednesday on an ankle. Against us: Denver is 31st in rushing yards allowed and Arizona's chance to use that arrives in the week its lead back Jeremiyah Love did not practice, James Conner is still on injured reserve and has not practiced at all, and Baker, Jedrick Wills, Walter Nolen and Andrew Wingard were all reported absent Wednesday from a single outlet we could not double-source. We make it Broncos -3; the market says -4.5, and that point and a half is the entire bet.