Full disclosure: after missing the first quarter to watch my two-and-three-quarters-year-old daughter, I had this game mostly in the background while I worked, the way I would a mediocre action movie I've seen five times (Think Taken 2).

• First off, I'm disgusted with myself for laying the 4.5 with the Rams. I bought into the conventional (or is it conventional-contrarian) wisdom that the Cardinals are collapsing, while the Rams are hitting their stride. I say "conventional contrarian" because sometimes we assume the conventional wisdom is simply that the team with the better record is better, and we're being contrarian by laying 4.5 with the last place one.

But given the Rams were coming off two shutouts, maybe what seemed contrarian was actually obvious (and the product of recency bias) while the Cardinals, who have been the better team for the last two seasons, getting 4.5 despite struggling of late were the clear value and the real contrarian play. Put differently, even if the casual fan would look at the records of the teams and think the Cardinals were a no brainer, the casual bettor is probably more likely to be aware the Rams won their last two games 76-0 and lay the wood. When we're talking about who's on one side of the Vegas market, it's the casual bettor, not the fan. So it was a case of thinking I was being clever when actually I was being an idiot.

• My favorite sequence of the game, and possibly top-five all year: Wrong review (clearly Shaun Hill had been sacked, but booth upheld incomplete pass), followed by useless review (meaningless determination whether play was an incomplete pass or three-yard fumble out-of-bounds for a loss when the Rams were punting at mid-field anyway), followed by a holding call on return where there was no return (ball rolled to a stop), followed by taking a knee to end the first half.

• The Cardinals defense is at least decent, and the team - no matter who's under center - tends to show up.

• We'll see what happens with whoever starts at quarterback next week, but Drew Stanton went back to targeting Michael Floyd down the field.

• Kerwynn Williams runs with some power and breaks tackles. Even Stepfan Taylor looked like an upgrade over this year's chronically-injured Andre Ellington.

• Stedman Bailey is the best receiver on the team - at least with Brian Quick hurt, and maybe even if Quick were healthy.

• The Cardinals have the best record in the NFL at 11-3 and are pretty much a lock to make the playoffs.