So I went 6-8 last week, my first week losing money on the year (just barely, and really it’s not losing money because betting the house on the colts made up any potential losses, I still will never get over how ridiculous that spread was) which puts me at 42 and 34 on the season. That’s not tremendous but I expect to get better as the season wears on, this week features a pretty difficult spate of games, however. Without further ado Chiefs (+6.5) over REDSKINS: Ok, the Redskins shouldn’t be giving 6.5 against a single team this season. They beat the rams by 2. I’ll go ahead and cite the oft-cited stat about how the redskins have yet to play a single team that had won a game, including the Chiefs (since the Giants were 0-0 when they played). And they’re 2-2. Since the redskins have yet to beat any of these teams by a touchdown, favoring them by a touchdown against the Chiefs just seems crazy. SAINTS (-3) over Giants: As far as I’m concerned this game is a “pickem†and I honestly think the Saints have played like the best team in the NFL thus far. They clearly have the best offense (well, one of them) and their defense is actually surprisingly good (6th overall). The Giants only beat the cowboys by 2 and the Redskins by 9 (and the Chiefs by 9) despite the horribleness of all those teams. I mean, that is mitigated by things like playing on the road, but this game is also on the road and those are not impressive scorelines as far as I’m concerned. The saints (blowouts) @Philly, @Buffalo, and the NYJ at home are all actually impressive. The Saints have yet to really show any weaknesses, thus far they’ve been good against both the pass and the rush and have been able to run and pass on teams. So… I dunno, my policy has been to pick the saints against basically anybody until they prove they can lose… Incidentally the Saints are 4-0 ATS, the Giants are 4-0-1. Carolina (-3) over TAMPA BAY: I’ll just be picking Raheem Morris led teams to lose until further notice. Carolina can defend the pass. That’s about all they can do but God knows it’s more than TBay. Tampa has yet to prove the ability to beat a single team and though Josh Johnson looks like he’s providing the kind of spark you’d expect out of a career backup, he’ll probably be the only thing that’s stifled in this game. Carolina is a better team and that spread is pretty ridiculously low to be picking Tampa to cover… Incidentally, Carolina is the only team in the NFL that is 0-4 ATS, Tampa is 1-4. SOMETHING’S got to give! BENGALS (-4.5) over Texans: in all honesty I think this is a pretty close game. The Bengals can’t stop the pass and the Texans can’t stop the run and those two things should mean that the over is hit (o/u 45) even before the Texans are stopped at the goalline as time expires. I don’t really “believe†the Bengals in that I know for a fact that Cedric Benson sucks (leading rusher in the NFL at the moment) and their passing attack is bad and their pass defense is bad. So, there’s that. I know that the Bengals almost lost to the Browns as well. But somehow they beat the ravens, who I thought were good, which to me means that their run defense is for real and that they’re a sort of “able to grind it out†offense with Palmer providing a threat against defenses that stack the run. The Texans are the exact opposite, losing two games they should have won @Arizona and Jacksonville at home both to goalline stands. If this spread were 7.5 I’d be pretty confident of the cover but 4.5 is just enough where I’m going to pick the team I think is most likely to win. I think both teams will be able to score on the other but thus far the Bengals have been slightly better at “closing out†games and they’re also at home so I have to pick them to cover the spread, but I’m not all that happy about it. I’m surprised the spread isn’t higher. Ravens (+3) over VIQUEENS: An easy pick at least. If you can stop the run you will beat the Viqueens. The ravens secondary is so terrible that I DO think Favre will throw for quite a few yards, but the ravens also have one player in their secondary who thrives off stupid passes and I would lay money down on him getting a pick this week. The viqueens’ defense isn’t really that good, they’re 11th against the run and 17th against the pass. The ravens should be able to move the football and I’m not sure the Viqueens will really be able to put the ball in the endzone. I think I’d have taken the ravens to win -8.5 but I did that last week too and look where it got me. If the ravens fail to stop the run for the second time in 40 games then all bets are off, but I think they’ll be able to contain AP and really that’s been enough to beat the viqueens every single game for the past 3 seasons. PITTSBURGH (-14) over Cleveland: Ugh, this was a horrible pick to have to make. I really wanted to take Cleveland particularly because their pass defense is not THAT horrible (11th) and the steelers do nothing but pass. But the combination of 32nd run defense AND on the road AND their totally inept offense make me kind of think that they’ll end the game with no more than 10 points total, and between 3 and 6 is pretty likely. That means I’d need to think that the steelers will NOT score between 20-24 points at home in a game where they’ll be able to run all day and will have the ball quite a bit of the time. I mean… I have a hard time making that bet but if I HAD to bet on a precise score, I’d probably guess the steelers win by around 12-13 points. That’s close enough to 14 and the steelers are so clearly the better team (and I DO believe a bit in the gambling mantra that if you don’t think the team has a prayer to win straight up then don’t pick them to cover) that really I’m going to have to pick the steelers and assume that “Ben†will come through in the fourth quarter to make a close-ish game a blowout. I’m not 100% sure this will happen but the fact that the Browns are in total disarray and the Steelers are in somewhat of a must-win situation. I’m not happy taking the steelers without Polamalu to win by 14 over ANYBODY, but I guess I’ll go ahead and do it here. JAGUARS (-10) over St. Louis: I mean, the Rams haven’t been able to cover against anybody other than the Redskins, who are arguably the third worst team in the league. They’ve gotten blown out in three straight weeks and now they’re on the road against a bad team, but all the same a team with some talent and some ability to put points on the board. The Jags beat Tennessee at home by 20 and presumably they can beat a much worse team than Tennessee by a similar score. The Rams have been thus far the NFL’s worst team, they haven’t been able to do a single thing correctly and I really can’t see the logic behind picking them to cover a spread that means they’d have a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter. Lions (+13.5) over PACKERS: I mean, the packers haven’t proven that they can blow out anyone other than the rams and the Lions have been frisky all season, losing either in the fourth quarter or only conceding a chance to win until the fourth quarter in basically every game this season. The Packers happen to be an unfortunate matchup for the lions, whose secondary is just atrocious, but even then the Lions defensive line is really not that bad (and we all know about the Packers’ offensive offensive line at this point) and their offense has been able to move the ball on occasion against bad defenses like the packers. The Packers’ passing attack having a field day wouldn’t wholly shock me, but if the lions can play decent defense and get a pass rush then they should be in this game until the end, an outright victory wouldn’t floor me, but it would certainly amuse me. Philadelphia (-14) over OAKLAND: again, I kind of wish I could pick Oakland here. They have a good defense and I think that WILL be able to stop the Eagles quite a bit, it wouldn’t shock me if this game is somewhat close in the first half. However, the raiders have yet to score more than 13 points in their last four games and they’re now playing a decent defense. The trainwreck that is their coach (and entire organization) probably won’t be able to do much about that and I don’t see where an offensive upgrade would come from. Can the Eagles put up at least 20 points on the raiders on the road? Presumably they can if they have the ball all game, I expect them to pull away in the second half to cover the spread even though I’m not too happy about this pick. How hiliarious is it that the chargers almost lost to the raiders in week one? Good thing ESPN still ranks them as like the best team of all time. SEATTLE (-3) over Arizona: The seahawks are at home where they’re dangerous and they have a decent pass defense (9th) that is getting steadily healthier every week. Arizona features the number 32 pass defense in the NFL and Seattle was able to pass ALL over the Jags last week. I can’t see any reason to take the cardinals in this even though I think both of these teams suck. I continue to maintain that the Bears winning @Qwest was really a pretty tough win. PATRIOTS (-9.5) over Titans: I mean, normally I pick against the Patriots most weeks because they get higher spreads than they deserve so often, but the Titans have been the same way this year, going 1-4 ATS so far (Pats are 2-3). But basically the titans are even a bad matchup, they can’t stop the pass to save their lives and the Patriots can pass the football. Presumably the pats will just pass all over them, put up a ton of points, and that should be that because God knows the Titans won’t be putting up any points. These are two mediocre teams but the patriots at home against a terrible pass defense (31st in the NFL) should be able to take care of business. JETS (-9.5) over Bills: Ugh, all these home favorites to cover… and the Bills can run the football which, apparently, is a bit of a weakness for the Jets. The thing is that the Jets can’t put points on the board even when they DO run the football and since their defense is also pretty porous I guess I’m going to have to figure the home team will cover this spread, particularly coming off a pretty rough loss last week to a different divisional foe. Bears (+3.5) over FALCONS: I’m not sure how much I believe in the falcons. I can’t help but remember last year when the Bears (who were awful) beat the Falcons (who were not terrible) only to have Michael Jenkins get wide open with seven seconds left for the game-winner in one of the more ridiculously awful defensive displays I’ve seen. Either way, the falcons defense is the same as last season – still terrible. They lost @New England and beat the Panthers, which is hardly inspiring. Last week’s beatdown of the 49ers was surprising and I’m not sure exactly what it means, if they can produce like that against the Bears presumably they’ll be able to beat the bears too. The Bears have been terrible in first quarters this year so if the Falcons DON’T lead by at least 10 at the end of the first quarter I think that’s a sign that the Bears will win the game. I dunno, at the moment the seahawks and steelers both have better passing attacks than the falcons and the bears beat both of them so …we’ll see. I think both of these teams are teams that know they haven’t played as well as they should have in a few games, but both are 3-1 and have enough talent/promise to think that “it can come together†for a superbowl push. My guess is that the bye week will have done some things for the both the Bears defense (particularly in the first half) and also the Bears run game, which if they both come alive will mean a victory. We’ll see though, Matt Ryan is 9-1 at home in his career and he looked good last week against a defense that is probably no worse than the Bears’ defense. I am worried, this game and @Cincinatti next week will go a long way towards proving how serious the bears are this season… Broncos (+3.5) over CHARGERS: So this is 1-3 ATS vs. 5-0 ATS. The Chargers managed to almost lose to the raiders in week one, they lost to the steelers (the steelers ONLY cover of the season, 1-4 ATS) and have generally been an awful team except for their passing attack. The Broncos have been tremendous defensively (most notably 5th against the pass) and have a good offensive line that will be solid enough to put points up. Why an undefeated team is underdog against a 2-2 bad team I can’t understand, but the point is that it’s pretty easy money in Vegas. To give an idea, if the Giants were playing @Washington this week I’d guess the spread to be somewhere around Giants -10. Teams with identical records become Giants +3.5. What a joke, but … I mean… I can’t see any reason not to back the team that SHOULD be favored if they’re getting odds that kind. BM
