NFL Playoffs -- Divisional Round

Another week, and yet again all anybody can talk about in the world of sports is Mr. Timothy Tebow. Man, you just cannot feel good going into a sudden-death, overtime type of situation against that guy, can you? The moment the Steelers lost the overtime coin toss and Denver elected to receive, pretty much everyone in that stadium -- the Steelers and Broncos players included -- knew the Broncs would be winning the game on that drive. Not sure we knew it would happen on the literal first play from scrimmage in overtime, but when you've got Tebow and just need one score to win, its ovah baybeee.

I'll tell you what -- anybody who saw value in the Pittsburgh Steelers this past weekend, giving nine points on the road at an upstart Denver team with something to prove, is out of their minds. Let alone, a Steelers team with a literally limping Ben Roethlisberger, and missing their top runningback, their center, and their leading tackler on defense? Giving nine points. On the road!

That had to have been the most obvious pick I've seen in the NFL playoffs in a few years. And this, from a guy who has had a long-standing rule never to bet against the fix-waiting-to-happen Pittsburgh Steelers. But with all those injuries, going on the road, and giving nine points in a game between two stingy defenses? That story just doesn't make any sense.

Denver's game this weekend at the Cheatriots is a different story, however. Unlike the Steelers, the Cheats are more or less totally healthy right now, and the full roster of key players on offense seem to be firing on all cylinders. New England is also at home this coming week, they have a much better offense than the Steelers even with both teams equally healthy, and Tim Tebow and the Broncos -- who just got beat pretty hard by the Cheatriots a few weeks back -- have that much less to prove this week after the home win against Pittsburgh last weekend. With the line on that game hovering right around two touchdowns, that one is a heck of a lot harder to pick than this past weekend's freest money around, but I'm thinking I would probably hold my knows and go with the Cheatriots as long as the number is under 14. I mean, they'll already know all of Denver's plays ahead of time by the time kickoff comes around next weekend, right?

Elsewhere in the NFL, there wasn't much surprise in the first round playoff games, as all four better seeds won in all four games, three of which (other than the Steelers) were favored by Vegas. The best game this weekend in my mind is the Saints playing at the 49ers, with the Saints installed as an early 5-point favorite on the road, across the country, at a team that was 13-3 in the regular season and which has the league's stingiest points-against defense. As much as I want to go with the home team and take the generous offer of five points, I'm just thinking that the Saints can find a way to eke out a touchdown or so margin of victory in this one.

Elsewhere, it's the Giants getting 8 points at the Packers, another line which intrigues me somewhat. I mean, didn't the Giants just take a late lead at Lambeau and end up losing in the final minutes by 3 points to these same Packers only a month ago thanks to a late Aaron Rodgers comeback drive? This same Giants team that today is clearly playing significantly better than it was a month ago, while the Packers have just as surely come back down to earth a little bit since losing the undefeated season to the Chiefs a couple of weeks later? I was expecting something a little smaller than 8 points, and I am inclined to think that the Giants are the better value on this pick as long as that number remains above a touchdown.

And in the final game of the conference semi-finals, it is the Houston Texans, in their first-ever playoff run as a franchise, traveling to Baltimore to play the Ravens. Houston is getting a lofty 8.5 points from the sharps in Vegas, and even though that is admittedly an awfully big number to give to a seemingly inconsistent team in the Ravens, something tells me that the Ravens will come through nicely at home, where they went 8-0 in the regular season. With Matt Schaub this could easily be an entirely different story, but me thinks that T. J. Yates is probably looking at his worst game as a starting quarterback in the NFL thus far for Houston. Given especially how poorly the Texans have performed against the spread this year, I'll take my chances and go with the Ravens and lay the 8.5 points in this one.

NFL -- Superbowl Predictions

With the Superbowl just two days away, I thought I would weigh in here with my prediction for the game as well as any other thoughts I have. In general, I think there is a decent chance we are looking at the best team in the NFC in the Packers -- who have played a lot better in the postseason than they did during the regular season -- against probably the next best team other than the Patriots in the AFC in the Pittsburgh Steelers. And we are also probably looking at the best quarterback in the NFC in Aaron Rodgers -- potentially second only to Philly's Mike Vick -- against the most clutch guy you're going to find in today's NFL in Big Ben Roethlisberger, who already has two superbowl victories in two appearances in just the last five seasons. This one has all the makings of a great game, with two excellent, well deserving teams bringing big stars to the contest looking to step up in big spots.

In Pittsburgh's favor, you've got the defense. The Packers have had a lot of success running the ball so far in the 2010-2011 post-season, featuring rookie James Starks out of nowhere to help balance what was otherwise a very pass-centered offensive attack in winning their three NFC playoff games. That flat-out will not happen in Dallas on Sunday. The Steelers' run defense is the best in the game today, and nobody but nobody runs the ball on them, least of all some rookie flash in the pan. So the run game will be totally out, which will help the Steelers to focus more squarely on Aaron Rodgers at qb. Although Rodgers has been good at evading the blitz with his feet and then making a play on the run with a very strong arm, the Steelers will likely throw some more unique blitz packages at Rodgers, designed to force him to throw the ball quickly rather than scramble around and make a play. How well Rodgers handles the Steelers' pressure is probably directly related to the Packers' chances of winning the game.

Also in the Steelers' favor is experience. The head coach has been here before, already the youngest Superbowl-winning head coach in NFL history. Many of the star players (James Harrison, Troy Polamalu) have been here and performed big recently. The quarterback has been to the Superbowl already twice before, winning both times on his way to a 10-2 post-season record at this point still young in his football career. As I mentioned, Big Ben is the most clutch of the clutch players in the NFL today, the ultimate guy you want to have the ball in the hands of when you need someone to make a play. He may not necessarily have the strongest arm, and his ball may not be the tightest spiral, but Ben Roth is a guy who avoids the rush as well as any qb in the sport, who escapes the pressure and then can throw on the run in a huge spot as well as anybody. The Packers, meanwhile, have just two defensive players with previous superbowl experience, and their head coach has a reputation for stepping down solidly in big games.

Oh, and any discussion of the Steelers' advantages in a big football game cannot forget perhaps the most influential thing they have in their corner -- the refs.

The argument for Green Bay is a little simpler, and it goes like this. This is probably the most potent passing offense in the NFL this year, and although the Steelers' strength against the run is not debatable, Pittsburgh's secondary has shown itself repeatedly this year to be beatable early and often, much unlike the Steeler teams of the recent past. In a nutshell, the Packers' greatest strength as a team (its passing game) clearly plays right into the Steelers' greatest weakness as a team (its pass defense). In conjunction with this seeming mismatch of Aaron Rodgers vs. the Steeler secondary, the Packers have a solid defense which should perform well against Rashard Mendenhall and the Steelers' pounding run attack. Sure, Big Ben is going to make some big plays, but the Packers should be able to move the ball well through the air on offense, and should be able to hinder to some extent Pittsburgh's preferred mode of offense, the rushing game. Overall, it's a good matchup for the Packers as far as potential Superbowl opponents go, and Aaron Rodgers has got to be hungrier than Big Ben, with Ben already having two trophies on his mantle from the past few years.

In all, the line on the game is Green Bay -2.5. I understand why the Pack is favored given the way they have played this post-season and the way that NFL fans seems to have glommed on to this team almost from the preseason back in the summer of 2010, but just with increasing fervor over the last four or five weeks of the season. But I just can't get over the fact that this line is a little bit over-adjusted for these factors. The overall feeling I am left with is that the "true" line on this game would be more like a pick'em, but that the powers that be in Vegas know they need to take a few points away from the Packers here or else 90% of the action will come down on Green Bay's side. But this line not moving conclusively from the 2.5 it opened at up to even 3 points after two weeks in play tells me pretty much all I need to know here -- the big-time bettors who know their stuff think this line is too much in favor of Green Bay already. You've got the more experienced team, the Superbowl-winning head coach, the best clutch guy in the game, Troy Polamalu and James Harrison on defense, and the refs who repeatedly dictate that you never, ever, ever bet against the Pittsburgh Steelers (see, scarring it into the underside of my right arm is already working out for me!), and you're getting nearly a field goal to boot. The value here is clearly on Pittsburgh +2.5, and that's my pick for the game.

For shizz and giggles, the over/under on this game is 45 points in Las Vegas. Let's take the under, but just by a hair. I'm thinking more like a 21-19 game than a 26-24 game for this Superbowl.

In terms of some of the more interesting prop bets I see available on Bodog.com for this year's Superbowl:

1. How Many Times will FOX mention "Brett Favre" on TV during the Game?
Over 2.5: -160
Under 2.5: -120

This is an easy Over to me. I'm sure they won't go nuts talking about Favre all the time, but how does Favre not get mentioned three times in a Superbowl game with the Green Bay Packers in it, in the same year he just "retired"? Especially if the Packers are winning near the end, I figure Favre is good for at least one mention early and one during the game at some point for sure. Anything at the end should be gravy on this bet.

2. How many times will FOX mention "lockout" on TV during the Game? Over 1.5 (-110), Under 1.5 (-120)

This has to be an Under here I think. FOX might refer to the potential for a work stoppage, but the odds of them using the word "lockout" more than once? I would say very low, most likely in accordance with specific written instructions from the NFL to that effect.

3. What side of the ball will the players that perform the Gatorade shower be from?? Offense (+150) Defense (-200)

I'm seeing this game ending with Big Ben kneeling down a couple of times to secure a close victory. And if not that, then I see it ending with Aaron Rodgers doing the exact same thing. And that means that, with the offense on the field, the defense will be the ones to do the dousing. Go with Defense, even for the 1:2 odds.

4. Packers QB Aaron Rodgers (Over 22½ completions)

Take the over, take the over! The Pack will not be able to run the ball much, and there is not even much illusion here that they might be able to. Rodgers isn't going to get to 30 completions, but 23 seems like a realistically likely outcome here.

5. Total rushing yards for Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall (Over 74½)

Take the over, take the over! Just like I expect Aaron Rodgers to throw the ball all day long, I expect the Steelers to keep trying to pound it with the run. Mendenhall is the kind of back who can get a lot of carries and keep running strong, and he put up 27 rushes for 121 yards against the Jets last week. I don't expect Rashard to equal that figure this week against the Packers, but 75 yards on the ground should happen for Pittsburgh's featured back in this game.

6. LeBron James 1st Half Points vs. LA Clippers: -115
Green Bay Packers 1st Half Points: -115

Here I like LeBron. James has been on fire lately, and I would be surprised if the Packers score 14 points in the first half on Sunday.

For those of you whose teams are still in it, or if you're taking a big position on any the game, best of luck!

NFL -- Conference Championship Picks

The NFL never ceases to amaze. It is far and away the hardest sport to predict anything in, as the league gets it the most "right" in my opinion of all the major sports in the world today as far as their focus on parity. The good teams get the worst draft picks every year, the worst teams get the easiest schedule the next year every year, the divisions play each other in packs to promote similar schedules among competing teams, and there are even little things like the minimum age requirement that help prevent the weakest teams from making huge mistakes in the draft by bringing in some 16-year-old whiz kid who never pans out. All this makes for hands down the most entertaining sport to watch in the world today -- despite being on the decline as the popularity of fantasy football is definitely off from its peak, and with the new Commissioner routinely taking actions and making changes that seem deliberately intended to whittle away his sport's prominence today -- but from a bettor's perspective, the league can be a real nightmare. I heard everyone and their mother last week was taking the Under on the Pittsburgh - Baltimore game last weekend, reasoning that there was no way this game would play out to more than 37.5 points, and what happens? It's 28 points by the half, and by early in the third quarter we are well over 40 points scored by two teams that pretty much always play to great defensive struggles. Similarly, who in America wasn't positive that the Cheatriots were going to cream the Jets on Sunday night? No offense, but only a monkey or a Jets fan was predicting a Jets victory in that game, and lo and behold, the Jets don't just win the game, but they basically stick it to the Cheatriots and never really even let them get close after the Cheats kicked an early field goal to take their only lead of the day. It's just so hard to predict anything in this league, even at this point down to the end of the season with only good, solid, balanced teams left playing, and that is most definitely part of what makes the NFL so awesome, but it can wreak havoc on anybody looking to make some money betting on these games.

Which is all a round-about way of excusing myself for going 1-3 in last week's Divisional round games, a week after a ho-hum 2-2 showing in the Wildcard round. I of course bombed out on the Cheatriots like the rest of thinking America, and I also put too much stock in Atlanta -- they of the 14-2 regular season record, and the 20-1 lifetime record at home for Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan -- as the Packers completely crushed the Falcons on the road just a month after the Pack lost 7-3 on the road to the Detroit Lions in a crucial, must-win game. I did manage to pick the Bears beating down on the lowly Seahawks correctly, but my big disappointment of the weekend had to be my call on the Ravens-Steelers game. I mean, how many fucking times do I have to tell myself to never ever ever bet against the Pittsburgh Steelers? I blogged this at least twice last year, at least once the year before that, and at least once or twice this year as well: Never ever ever bet against the Pittsburgh Steelers. And yet time and time again, I go ahead and pick teams to cover against the Steelers, when it is so fucking obvious that either Roger Gooddell is fucking some hot piece of ass who is a bigtime Steeler fan, or Steelers owner Dan Rooney has pictures of Gooddell or the head of NFL officiating doing some seriously unholy stuff. As I sat and watched the Ravens run back a kick in the fourth quarter last week that would basically have iced the win for Baltimore, I knew just what was coming. There were no obvious fouls visible during the live runback, but when that late flag came out, of course I wasn't surprised, not in the least. Sure, on the replay it was a legal block, a total housing of the guy actually that landed the Steeler special teamsman on his ass but it wasn't even close to a hold under the rules of the NFL. But what does that matter, when the Steelers are involved in a close game? Holding on the return team, take back the touchdown that had just buried the Steelers and ruined their incredible comeback (and the Ravens' shocking third-quarter collapse), and fast forward five more minutes and the Steelers are going to the umpteenth AFC Championship game under the tutelage of one Big Ben Roethlisberger. You just Never ever ever bet against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

So with all that in mind, my picks for this weekend's game are really short and sweet:

1. In the early game on Sunday, it's the Packers at the Bears, with the 6-seeded Pack favored by 4 points over 2nd-seeded Chicago. So let me see, I've got the better team, playing at home, far and away the best defense this ferocious Packers' offense has faced thus far in the playoffs, and I'm getting more than a field goal to boot? It's great how much the lemmings suffer from this same affliction every week, every year in the NFL. See a team blow someone out in one week, and the line for the next week's game suddenly swells. Guys, the Falcons had the 17th-ranked team defense in the NFL on the year, and while I give the Packers nothing but credit for the beating they administered in Atlanta last Saturday night, this Bears squad isn't going to give up no 45 points to Aaron Rodgers et al. In games decided by a touchdown or more, the Packers went 8-0 in the 2010-2011 regular season. Meanwhile, in games decided by four points or less this season, the Packers finished the regular season at 2-5. With the Bears defense being what it is, and with the Packers' running game still not something I can believe in despite the emergence of rookie James Starks here in the post-season thus far, I'm expecting more of a close game than a blowout at Soldier Field on Sunday afternoon. The Pack could easily beat this Bears team -- everyone knows that Jay Cutler is just one sack or one bad pick away of self-destruction at any time here -- but again you're offering me the better team, the better defense, playing at home, and an inflated four points to boot all because their opponents blew out the NFC's best last week in Atlanta? The value here is not close. Take the Bears and take the points.

2. After that phantom holding call against the Ravens on the kick runback in the fourth quarter, I took out a knife and etched deeply into my arm the mantra, so that I never forget it again: Never ever ever bet against the Pittsburgh Steelers. And then I lit a torch and cauterized myself to effect immediate scabbing. Now all I have to do is take one look down at the underside of my arm to know what to do with the Steelers - Jets game on Sunday night: Take the Steelers and lay the 4 points against the Jets. For the record it does not feel to me like the Steelers are 4 points better than the Jets right now, even on their home field. But the referees will find a way. (Looks down at arm.) Never ever ever bet against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Best of luck if your team is still in it, or if you're playing the lottery betting either of the games this weekend.

NFL -- Divisional Round Picks

So in a suite of four tough games with four tough lines last weekend, I went a ho-hum 2-2, winning with my picks of the underdog Packers and Jets on the road, but incorrectly taking the points with the Chiefs at home, who got blown out by the Ravens, and missing as well my pick on the Saints who not only did not win by 11 points, but who got blown out defensively and lost the game outright to the worst playoff team in NFL post-season history.

Which leads us to this weekend's game, the Divisional Round of the 2010-2011 NFL playoffs. Just like last week, I will suspend my regular-season rules and go out of my way to make a prediction on all four of the games, which I will cover now in chronological order of when they will be played. As with my picks all season, I will provide my picks against the Vegas spread as posted on Yahoo! Sports as of this morning, along with a brief commentary on my thoughts on why I am picking the game the way that I am.

First, we have the Ravens visiting the Steelers in the early-late game (4:30pm ET) on Saturday afternoon, in a repeat of what is basically the most defensive-oriented, tough-nosed, smashmouth matchup of any two teams of the season each time it is played these days, and the Vegas oddsmakers are just throwing up their hands here, awarding a 3-point line to the home-team Steelers in line with their usual 3 points awarded in every game for home-field advantage. The Ravens took the Steelers in the first matchup in Pittsburgh, a game before Ben Roethlisberger returned from his early season suspension related his (second) sexual assault allegations. The Ravens played the Steelers really tough in their second matchup in Baltimore closer to the middle of the regular season this year, but then an amazing defensive effort by Troy Polamalu to sack Ravens qb Joe Flacco and cause a fumble led the Steelers to a victory in the final minutes to even the season series at one win apiece. This one really is too close to call, as the Steelers have won six straight matchups with the Ravens with Ben Roth at the helm, and with them sitting on homefield advantage here, but yet this is easily the best Ravens squad of the past few years, in particular on offense with the emergence of Ray Rice on the ground and the addition of Anquan Boldin to the receiving corps to help move the ball. When it's so close like this, I have no choice but to just go with the numbers -- five of the last seven meetings between these teams have been decided by 3 points or less, and when I'm getting three points to go with the Ravens -- who already won outright by a field goal in Pittsburgh earlier this year -- I think the value lies barely on the Baltimore side of the equation here. So I will take the Ravens and the points and really look forward to watching this game on Saturday.

The late game on Saturday night features the 10-6 Packers visiting the 14-2 Falcons in a matchup of the NFC's 6 seed vs. the 1 seed, and yet for some reason I cannot entirely understand, this game has the smallest line of any of the weekend's matchups at just 2.5 points in favor of Atlanta. I wrote about this a bit earlier this week already, but apparently I am the only NFL fan outside in the country that does not think the Packers are all that. My objective look at this team says that they have a solid offense and a solid defense no doubt, but for whatever reason when you put them together, the team has had trouble making a great showing on the scoreboard as a result. Much like this year's San Diego Chargers, who finished the 2010 regular season ranked #1 in both total offense and total defense but who ended up 9-7 and not even in the post-season, the Packers clearly have a great quarterback and clearly have a very solid defensive line that I enjoy watching, but their coach is a monkey and does not inspire me much after I watched this team drop a crucial game to the Detroit Lions of all teams in Week 15 on the road, nor was I particularly inspired watching the Packers' play last week in Philadelphia, in a game that felt like a blowout but had to rely on a couple of truly freak occurrences to prevent them from losing in the final minutes nonetheless. If I knew GB rookie James Starks was going to go off for 125 yards like he did against the Eagles' porous sieve of a defense, I would definitely be tempted to go with the Packers and the points here. But instead, I see an Atlanta team that more or less does not lose games at home, with worse team stats numbers but with I think a quarterback who has proven he has what it takes to come back and win a tough game in the fourth quarter if needed. I do not expect Atlanta to blow out here by any means, but I do think they will win by a little bit more than the 2.5 points Vegas is giving to the Packers. So in this one I will go against basically everyone else on the earth today and take the favorites to win by more than a field goal.

Sunday's early matchup is the most unlikely pairing of the Divisional Round games, as 7-9 Seattle visits the NFC's #2 seeded Bears who finished the year at 11-5. Seattle is not a good team overall on either side of the ball, and one thing I can assure you is that the tenacious Bears' defense will not allow Matt Hasselbeck to float up after bomb after bomb after bomb about 80 yards straight up in the air and yet still manage to leave a receiver wide open downfield about 45 seconds later when the ball comes back down, unlike the Saints last week who looked like a bunch of midgets little people trying to defend the pass in utterly embarrassing themselves against the Seahawks' 28th-ranked offense last week. And although I like most people am just waiting to see Jay Cutler get flustered by somebody and punched out of the playoffs like we all know is coming, Seattle, the league's 27th ranked defense and 19th-ranked against the pass, is not likely to be the ones to achieve that ever-achievable feat. As much as I hate having to give double-digits to any team in the playoffs, unlike last week when Seattle was playing at home, I'm going to take the Bears and lay the 10 points Vegas is requiring here. It will make me have to hold my breath for a while here, but I expect by the end of the game that Chicago will find a way to win this one by a couple of scores and move on to where they belong, the NFC Championship game next Sunday.

And lastly is perhaps the most hotly-anticipated matchup of the weekend on Sunday late afternoon, the 11-5 Jets at the 14-2 Cheatriots in a rematch of Week 12 which saw the Cheats drop a 45-3 smackdown on Rex Ryan's squad that, if you watched the game, truly was not even that close. This time around, I fully do not expect the Jets to get destroyed that badly, and in fact I look for the Jets to put up a decent fight for at least the first part of this game, unlike the last time the teams met at Gillette Stadium. However, as much as I would like to take the 9 points -- a ridiculous line I think to be laid on a Jets team with a solid defense and a lot to prove this weekend -- for me the key here is Ryan Sanchez, who if you've watched these last several games has pretty much been goddam atrocious lately, even in the Jets' recent wins. The quarterback disparity here is about as wide as you're ever going to find in an NFL post-season game, and Sanchise is easily the worst quarterback of all those playing in the playoffs in 2011, and he'll be playing in very hostile territory, in the freezing fucking cold that he hates, and in the place where he threw what, 85 interceptions the last time around? Although as I said I do think this line is too big, even at 9 points I think I will take the Cheatriots and assume they will find a way to take this one by a couple of scores by the time the whistle blows on the season.

So it's Ravens +3, Falcons -2.5, Bears -10 and Cheatriots -10 for me this weekend, three favorites here in the Divisional Round just a week after I took three underdogs in the Wildcard Round. Hopefully we'll see some better results with these picks than last week's 2-2 performance. Best of luck to all those whose teams are playing in these games, and to those who are betting what are I think all very tough lines again this weekend as well.

NFL -- Wildcard Weekend Picks

In a very strange twist of events, for the first time in as long as I can remember, it looks like all four of the lower-seeded teams in this weekend's Wilcard Round games in the NFL have a good argument that they are actually the better team in their respective matchups. I mean, obviously the defending Superbowl champion Saints are far better than the embarrassing 7-9 Seahawks, who will host the Saints on Saturday due to the NFL's playoff seeding system that puts all division winners ahead of all wildcard teams right off the bat. That same system also has the 11-5 Jets travelling to the 10-6 Colts on Saturday afternoon, although that is at least a much closer matchup where you could easily see either team finding a way to win. And in the Sunday games, it's the 12-4 Ravens visiting the 10-6 Chiefs in the early game in another matchup of a far better record travelling to a far worse record team due to the NFL's divisional structure. And then Sunday's late game is what most are viewing as the best game of the weekend, a matchup of the 10-6 Packers visiting the 10-6 Eagles, but when the two teams played heads-up in Week 1, the Packers bested the Eagles in Philadelphia, albeit with Kevin Kolb at quarterback in what seems like it was about 10,000 years ago. I'm not sure I can ever recall a situation where all four of the road teams have a good argument to actually be the superior teams, and in particular where three of the four matchups feature a team with a better record on the season going on the road to play at a team with a worse seasonal record, doubly in particular in this case with two of the matchups being a road team visiting a home team with at least two fewer wins on the year.

All that said, the Vegas lines on these games are adjusted accordingly to take into account all of the above, and the end result is four games which are all pretty much hard to pick. With that in mind, I'm going to deviate from what I did during the regular season and just force myself to make picks for all four games, and see what happens. Whether I will really bet these lines in real life remains to be seen, but unlike my regular season predictions where I pretty much only posted picks on the games I had good confidence in, I'm planning to go ahead and just make my guess for each playoff game from here on out and see how I do.

For starters, I like the Saints over the Seahawks, even giving the 11 points Vegas has come up with for the line between one of the league's hottest teams and defending league champion and a truly bad sub-.500 divisional winner. In looking at Seattle's schedule, if you throw out Carolina and Arizona -- perhaps the league's two worst overall teams -- Seattle's total scores over its last 8 games have been, in order of most recent to least recent: 16, 15, 18, 21, 24, 19, 7, 3. The 21 and 24 both came in blowout losses as it is, and included a fair amount of trash time late in the game where those last points were not defended by the opponents with nearly the ferocity that the Seahawks are sure to run into this weekend in the Saints who are defending their Superbowl title. And, the 'Hawks are either looking at Charlie Whitehurst again at qb this weekend, or a beat-up Matt Hasselbeck at something like 70%. Basically, I'm thinking the Seahawks are going to score mid-teens in this one (unless the Saints run up 40), and the Saints should be able to pile on some serious points with their offense. New Orleans already scored 34 points at home against the Seahawks when they played in mid-season, and the Saints have put at least 30 on the board in 6 of their last 8 games to boot. This one looks to me to be a low-30s to mid-teens affair, which means the 11 points is not likely to be enough to cover the massive chasm in skill between these two squads. Especially with Seattle's average margin of defeat this season sitting at over 21 points, I'll take the champs and lay the points here, albeit a huge line for a road favorite in the playoffs.

In the second game on Saturday, it's the Colts favored by 3 points at home against the Jets, which is also a rematch of last year's AFC Championship. Only, this year, both teams seem a little worse than they were last year, and it seems to me that whoever wins this game is going down hardcore next week, regardless of which team wins and which team they play in the conference semis. That said, something tells me that Rex Ryan and the Jets will find a way to defend well enough against the Colts' incredibly one-dimensional offense, as Indy is the #1 passing team in the league but the #29 rushing squad. They're going to be an easy game plan in relative terms for what is still a strong defense in New York, and even the return of Joseph Addai a few weeks ago is likely to do a whole lot to remedy this big imbalance. In addition, the Jets' Mark Sanchez has had an inconsistent year, having particular trouble against aggressive, talented defenses, but the Colts just don't have one. They are 13th against the pass on the season, and 25th against the run. This means the pressure will likely be off of Sanchise to make things happen with his arm, and when he needs to make a play, the Colts have just not had a great time this year coming up with the big stops on any kind of a consistent basis. In all, I think this is a close game, but with the Jets getting 3 points on top of a favorable matchup, I think New York is where the value lies for this one.

Moving to the early game on Sunday, the AFC West champion Chiefs are getting three points at home against the Ravens, and even though I have been behind the Ravens as a dark horse Superbowl candidate all season long, I think this one could be a tougher matchup for Baltimore than most people seem to think. Yes the Chiefs haven't been good for several years before this one, but this is a deceptively good team, with the NFL's #1 rushing attack, a wideout with 1170 yards and 15 touchdowns, and a quarterback who threw 27 touchdowns to just 7 interceptions on the season. Although the Chiefs' defense is pretty much average at best, the Ravens don't exactly feature the type of offensive onslaught that is likely to give KC trouble, and the Chiefs have perhaps the single best home-field advantage in the NFL, losing in KC only in the last game of the season this year after the Chiefs had already clinched their first divisional crown since early in the last decade. Although I have a definite worry that the Chiefs faced only two playoff teams in 16 games all season long (one of them being 7-9 Seattle!), the Ravens no longer have the incredible team defense that they did a decade ago. I could see the Ravens squeaking one out in KC for sure, but on balance with the Chiefs having a lot going for them in this game and that incredible home field advantage, I think taking KC plus 3 points is the value pick here.

And then we come to the toughest game of the weekend to pick, both from a spread standpoint and for me from a personal standpoint as well, being a lifelong Philly fan. The Eagles are favored by 3 points at home against Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers, who sneaked into the playoffs with a Week 17 win over the Bears to knock the Giants and Bucanneers out of postseason contention. In the Packers' favor, Aaron Rodgers is pretty much the class of the NFC as far as quarterbacks go, and the team has a solid defense as well to boot. Andy Reid's amazing postseason ineptitude is another big plus that simply cannot be overlooked from Green Bay's perspective, as his in-game management is basically as bad as any coach in the league today. On the Eagles' side of the ledger, though: the game is in Philly, and the Packers were just 3-5 on the road this season, with one of those road wins over the Kevin Kolb-led Eagles way back in Week 1 -- a totally different team -- and another against the hapless Vikings back in Week 11. This is simply not a good road team, who managed to lose during the season at the likes of Washington and Detroit in the second half. The Packers are also another of these totally one-dimensional teams like the Colts, with the Pack ranking as the league's 5th-most prolific passing team but just the 24th-best running squad. And let's not forget that Packers' head coach Mike McCarthy is almost equally poor at game management as Andy Reid, so it's not like there should be a big advantage either way there. This one is so hard to pick, because the Pack's total give-up on the running game is going to make things much easier to game-plan for Andy Reid, and Reid does know how to win a game in the early rounds of the playoffs, and in this case he's facing a team that has not played well at all on the road overall on the year. But the Packers should benefit from the general beat-up nature of Mike Vick at this point in the season, and the game plan that the Giants twice put together as well as the Vikings most recently in showing how to take Vick out of his comfort zone pretty easily. I could go back and forth on this one all day, so in the end I think you have to take the points and go with the Packers, who could easily win the game outright, but could even lose a close one and still get you the winning pick for the game.

So in all, I'm laying the big points on the road in the one totally lopsided matchup on Saturday, but otherwise I am taking the points and the road team in the close matchups at Indy and at Philly, and am again taking the dog and the points at home with the Chiefs. Other than the Saints - Seahawks, this may be the best set of Wildcard Round matchups in recent memory in the NFL.

2010 NFL in Review

With the 2010 NFL regular season now officially in the books, I thought I would take a look back at my preseason predictions and see how they fared. This year for the first time, I decided to pick each NFL team against the over-under line established in Vegas for total season wins, and as I recall at the halfway point of the season I was pretty close to 50-50. So without further adieu let's see how my 32 picks ended up for the 2010 regular season:

Arizona Cardinals: Under 7.5 wins. Bingo. With the departure of both Kurt Warner and Anquan Boldin, I figured the Cardinals for a down year, and in the end they proved to be one of the league's worst teams in 2010.

Atlanta Falcons: Over 9 wins. Another win for me, as the Falcons were nothing short of awesome, coming out and going 13-3 in easily nabbing the NFC's #1 seed. As predicted, Matt Ryan and Michael Turner both had huge years, and the Falcons basically ran the table in what proved to be the strongest division in the NFC with three 10-game winners including the defending Superbowl champion Saints. Nice job to the Falcons who really proved something in the regular season this year.

Baltimore Ravens: Over 10 wins. Another easy win, as the Ravens established themselves as one of the AFC's best teams early and often in 2010, finishing the season tied with the Steelers atop the AFC North at 12-4. With TJ Houshmanzadeh and Anquan Boldin added to the receiving corps, Joe Flacco had a solid year to go along with the Ravens' always-solid defense to post a very strong effort on the season.

Buffalo Bills: Under 5.5 wins. At 4-12, the Bills also made a run at the NFL's worst team in 2010, easily clearing the under and another win for my season predictions. It's hard to imagine when this team is going to be good again, and I wouldn't be shocked if the franchise is gone from Buffalo before that ever happens.

Carolina Panthers: Under 7.5 wins. This was another pick that ended up winning easily for me, as the Panthers also made a strong showing for the league's worst team. At 2-14 overall, head coach John Fox is finished in Carolina, and almost surely quickly get a new head start coaching somewhere else, but this team has massive problems on both sides of the ball right now and is in desperate need of a fresh start with a new leader to rally around. Can you say Bill Cowher?

Chicago Bears: Under 8 wins. Whoops. This was a horrible pick for me, as the Bears started the season 3-0 and really never looked back on their way to taking down the thought-to-be-competitive NFC North and easily surpassing the .500 mark with a few games left to play in the 2010 season. Jay Cutler and Mike Martz proved to be a formidable duo on offense in Chicago -- which doesn't surprise me all that much to be honest -- and the addition of Julius Peppers from Carolina in the offseason seemed to re-energize the Bears' team defense which was absolutely ferocious on the season. This was a big miss for me, and I have to admit that between the Vikings and the Packers, I like most of the NFC North competition never saw the Bears coming before this season began.

Cincinnati Bengals: Under 7.5 wins. Here was another easy win for my preseason picks, as the Bengals added TO in the offseason and then promptly proceeded to put up one of the most disappointing seasons of any team in the NFL in 2010. As I said during the preseason, Marvin Lewis is a terribad coach, and I have to laugh at learning this week that Lewis will not be dismissed by the Bengals after a generally very disappointing tenure at the helm in Cincinnati, with his team's 4-12 record this year doing very little to help his cause when it comes to evaluation time at season's end. But then, decisions like this are how long-term loser franchises become long-term loser franchises. Think of it as "Mets Syndrome" -- bring in losers to run your team, and then reward them over and over for mediocre performances.

Cleveland Browns: Under 5.5 wins. After a decent middle of the season, the Browns really cooled off at season's end as (former) head coach Eric Mangini's whole shtick predictably grew tired as it always does. Whether it was Jake Delhomme or Colt McCoy, the Browns could just not do enough on offense to score the points they needed to against their opponents, and the result was a 5-11 2010 campaign that squeaks squeaks out another win for my preseason predictions.

Dallas Cowboys: Over 9.5 wins. Talking about the most disappointing teams of 2010, no list would be complete without the Cowboys right up at the top of the list. I royally screwed up this prediction, as I picked the 'Boys to run away with the NFC East crown that was instead nabbed by the Eagles, while the Cowboys posted a sub-.500record after starting the season 1-7 and seeing the firing of their head coach Wade Phillips, a move which I predicted just a year too early back before the 2009 regular season. Another bad miss for me in my preseason picks.

Denver Broncos: Under 7.5 wins. I said in the preseason how I just did not like this team in 2010, and even I didn't realize just how bad they would be. As predicted, the pick of Tim Tebow was an absolute joke given where the selection was made, and along with the bad running game, just about the only big surprise to the Broncos' 2010 season was the sudden firing of head coach Josh McDaniel just a few weeks before the end of the regular season. With 4 total wins on the year, the Broncos might be up there among the worst teams in football this year, making for another easy win for my preseason pick here.

Detroit Lions: Over 5 wins. I didn't love the line on this team heading into the 2010 regular season, but I went with my heart and picked the over, and came away with a victory as the Lions managed to best the Vikings in their last game of the year to finish the season at 6-10. They weren't great, but especially given that quarterback Matt Stafford missed much of the season due to injury, the Lions did a decent job, just enough to get me another preseason prediction victory.

Green Bay Packers: Over 9.5 wins. As predicted, I thought this was a very good line heading into the regular season this year, and this one came right down to the wire with the Packers playing the Bears in Week 17 at 9-6 and needing to win in order to fight their way into the playoffs. The Pack managed to win their last two crucial games of the year to finish the season at 10-6, a win for my preseason pick, and a date with my Philadelphia Eagles in the wildcard round of the NFL playoffs next weekend at The Linc in Philly.

Houston Texans: Over 8 wins. This one was a miss, as I thought the AFC South was set up for a sleeper team, but I incorrectly picked the Texans instead of the Jaguars as that team during the preseason. The Texans finished several games under .500 in a very disappointing 2010 campaign, and just recently announced their intention to retain head coach Gary Kubiak which will probably mean another year of mediocrity for Houston in 2011.

Indianapolis Colts: Over 11 wins. The Colts finished 2010 with a 10-6 record, which means this was another miss for me with my preseason pick, but I honestly have to laugh at anybody who got this one right before the season began. For the team that won at least 12 games for seven consecutive seasons heading into this year with Peyton Manning under center, and who didn't lose a single game they tried to win back in 2009, I don't regret this over pick even a little bit, but it does go down as another loss among my 2010 predictions here at season's end.

Jacksonville Jaguars: Under 7 wins. Here was another miss, as the Jaguars surprised pretty much everybody by busting out to an early AFC South lead before eventually succumbing to the Colts even in a down year for Peyton Manning et al. Although they fell short in the end, the Jags had a very positive season overall in my view and managed to squeak one game past their Vegas number by the time the smoke had cleared on the 2010 NFL regular season.

Kansas City Chiefs: Under 6.5 wins. Here was another wide miss for me, as it was obvious after just a couple of games into the 2010 regular season that the Chiefs were the class of the AFC West for the first time in nearly a decade, but heading into the regular season I had this team picked as a 5- or 6-game winner at most. As I've said several times here on the blog, Matt Cassel quietly had an awesome year, throwing 27 touchdowns against just 5 interceptions, and the Chiefs' pwnership of the West was really never in doubt after the Chargers started slow and were just too inconsistent to ever make a serious push.

Miami Dolphins: Under 8.5 wins. Here's one that didn't look like a win at the halfway mark, but ended up another correct prediction for me thanks to the fact that the Dolphins simply could not win a game at home to save their lives in 2010. Home losses vs. Cleveland, Buffalo and Detroit late in the year sealed the Fins' fate vs. their Vegas line in 2010, and Tony Sparano's job may be in jeopardy after posting that abysmal 1-7 home record on the year despite ending the season an impressive 6-2 in road games.

Minnesota Vikings: Over 9.5 wins. I could not believe this line was so low heading into the 2010 regular season, but how much more wrong could I have been about this team? Between the Brett Favre sex scandal, and his just general suckery at the quarterback position in throwing just 11 touchdowns and 19 costly interceptions over just 13 starts, and the laughable ineptitude of former head coach Brad Childress who lost his job with just a few games to go in the regular season, the Vikings were never close to good and never made any kind of a push in the division after a 2-5 start that never really got much better as the season wore on in Minnesota.

New England Cheatriots: Over 9.5 wins. Easy win. The Cheatriots finished the year I think showing why they are easily the NFL's best team, finishing with a 14-2 final record in easily taking down the AFC East. This line was never in doubt for any serious NFL fan this year and was about as big of a gimme as you'll find from the Vegas pros in any year.

New Orleans Saints: Over 10.5 wins. Despite a rocky beginning, the Saints were one of the NFL's consistently best teams in the second half in 2010 on their way to posting an 11-5 record and another win for my preseason pick. Frankly I was and remained surprised that this line could be so low given the defending Superbowl champions' 2009 performance, although it took until Week 16 for New Orleans to get it done so I guess the sharps in Vegas knew a little about what they were doing with this line before the season began.

New York Giants: Under 8.5 wins. Although I was correct pretty much all season that the Giants were a typically overrated New York media-created team, they did manage to squeak past their Vegas number and give me a loss in my preseason pick. Fortunately, that was the only loss that me or my Eagles suffered at the hands of the Giants this year, with the Eagles' historic 31-10 comeback in the final 7:40 of their game against the Giants a few weeks back officially ruining the entire season for the then 9-4 Giants on the year, who were officially eliminated from the postseason after the Packers beat the Bears in Week 17 to ice it.

New York Jets: Under 9.5 wins. I was also pretty much right on about the Jets being overrated heading into 2010, but they too managed to get past their Vegas number in posting 11 wins on the season, despite trying to lose about 7 of those games. In the end I should have paid more attention to the Jets' schedule, which proved to be pretty much the easiest schedule I have ever seen a defending conference finalist face, and that was enough to get what seems to be to be a mediocrely-good team over 10 wins on the year.

Oakland Raiders: Under 6 wins. Here was another loss for me, in what proved to be one of the strangest teams of the 2010 NFL season. The Raiders became only the second team in NFL history since the merger to go 6-0 in their division, completing the 2-0 sweep of all other teams in the AFC West by crushing the Chiefs in Week 17. However, the Raiders were pretty much unable to beat anyone else outside of the division, ending the year 8-8 and in third place in the West despite not losing a game to anyone else in the division all the way through the season.

Philadelphia Eagles: Under 8.5 wins. Another incorrect prediction for me, as I like the rest of America failed to know how incredibly well Mike Vick would play for this team after Kevin Kolb was named the team's quarterback of the future in the offseason. As I mentioned before the season began, Andy Reid has a pretty amazing record in regular season games as Philly's head coach, and he did not disappoint this year in guiding the Eagles to a 10-6 record despite trading away longtime starting qb Donovan McNabb before the season began.

Pittsburgh Steelers: Over 9 wins. This one was another easy gimme line this year that I got right, as it was only ever this low because Ben Roethlisberger was slated to miss at least 4 games at the start of the season, while the team managed to go 3-1 in Big Ben's absence and then ran on to a 12-4 record on the year after Roethlisberger's return. As long as Troy Polamalu is healthy, the Steelers have a chance to go far as one of the AFC's best overall teams in the 2010 post-season.

San Diego Chargers: Under 11 wins. I liked this line a lot going in to the 2010 season, but in the end the Chargers were not nearly as consistent as in past seasons, and the rest of their division got better around them instead of worse as I had thought. My prediction for "under" ended up being more correct than I thought, as the Chargers ended the year with just 9 wins and a lot of disappointment, despite (chuckle chuckle) announcing that head coach Norv Turner would be retained heading into the 2011 regular season as well.

San Francisco 49ers: Under 8.5 wins. I thought this was a pretty good line as well heading into the regular season this year, but something about head coach Mike Singletary didn't seem quite right, and I'm glad I took the under as a result. Fast forward 17 weeks, Mike Singletary has been fired, and his team finished the season at 6-10 and was not a factor even in the historically bad NFC West on the year.

Seattle Seahawks: Under 7.5 wins. The Seahawks managed to win the pitiful NFC West in 2010, despite the fact that they could not even make their low Vegas over-under number even with a last-week win to clinch the division. As predicted, the Seahawks did not do a good job on either offense or defense, and it showed in their results as they were never a serious threat to even make it to .500 by the time the second half of the season rolled around, giving me another preseason prediction win.

St. Louis Rams: Under 5 wins. Like the Chiefs, this was a pick I knew I had wrong just a couple of weeks into the regular season this year, but it's still a loss nonetheless. Although the Rams were not a fabulous team in their 2010 campaign, they were in my view the only team really worth rooting for in the embarrassingly bad NFC West on the year, and I was sad to see them fail on the last night of the regular season against a backup quarterback and playing at a pretty terrible Seahawks squad.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Under 5.5 wins. Perhaps my worst pick of the entire 2010 preseason, I like most NFL fans pegged the Bucs to be among the NFL's worst teams, only to watch them bust out with 10 wins and make a very serious run at a playoff spot before falling just short when the Packers beat the Bears in Week 17. Young Bucs' coach Raheem Morris really showed the rest of the league something, and the team will look to keep the momentum going heading into the 2011 NFL season.

Tennessee Titans: Over 8.5 wins. Another loss for me, as I thought the Titans would make a good showing behind Vince Young in the AFC South, but instead the team had inconsistent qb play, culminating in Vince Young blowing up after being benched during a game in mid-season, and the team ended up trying to win with an old and decrepit Kerry Collins, finishing the season 6-10. Jeff Fisher could be on his way out as well as the NFL's longest-tenured head coach, as that team will need to find a way to build around Chris Johnson on offense and get back to their form from a few years ago.

Washington Redskins: Under 7.5 wins. Winnah. The Skins ended a very disappointing 2010 campaign with a home loss to the non-playoff-bound Giants and a 6-10 overall record. Donovan McNabb posted far and away his worst season since his first in the league, eventually getting benched in four different games of the regular season in favor of longtime Florida retread Rex Grossman, who easily outplayed McNabb when he was under center on the year. Between the McNabb saga and the Albert Haynesworth debacle, Mike Shanahan will have his hands full as he looks to turn things around heading into the 2011 NFL season.

Overall, 17-15 on the season for another set of over .500 predictions in the sports arena for me. 17-15 is not at all what I'm looking to accomplish with these picks, but I guess in the parity-laden NFL these days, I can't look at it as too shabby. 20-12 would be so much better though.

In terms of my postseason team predictions, in the NFC I predicted Dallas, New Orleans, Minnesota, Green Bay, Seattle and the Giants. In reality, after the Eagles crushed the Giants' spirit back in Week 13, it is Philadelphia, New Orleans, Chicago, Green Bay, Seattle and the Falcons, giving me 3 out of the 6 playoff spots correct, and only one of the four division winners (Seattle, ironically). And in the AFC, which admittedly I thought going in I was much more confident about and stated as such in my original 2010 preview post, I picked New England, Indy, Tennessee, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and San Diego, when in reality it was New England, Indy, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Kansas City and the Jets. This also leaves me at 3 of the 6 playoff teams correctly predicted, and two of the four divisions (AFC East and AFC South) correctly predicting the winner. So, I nabbed 6 of the 12 playoff teams overall in the preseason, which is again nothing to write home about by a longshot, although coming off a year where I predicted exactly 1 of the 12 playoff teams in the preseason, I guess I should count this as a step upward for me.

Lastly, after deciding to skip the last week of the season like I do the first week every year, since teams often don't play their starters and generally have a million other motivations other than winning their games, I ended the season going 27-17-2 in my game picks against the spread. This is a stellar performance -- especially for me -- and one which I will look to keep the momentum going with as we head into the postseason. Especially in the second half of the season, I seemed to really hone in on those teams that were good and those that were the jokers, and I did an excellent job avoiding the myriad trap games every single week in the league that in past years I have walked straight into and taken the bait like a chump.

Later this week I will look to post picks for this weekend's four wildcard round playoff games, all four of which I think have a reasonable shot for the lower-seeded team to win.

NFL -- Week 16 Picks

After going 2-0 on the Eagles and the Jets in Week 15, my season record is now up to 25-18-2 as I continue to pull away from the .500 mark as the season wears on. It's funny how much this season's picks are the opposite of last season's, as last year I was utterly dominatory in the first half of the season only to become equally and utterly worthless in the second half to the point of going with straight-up opposite picks by the postseason, and winning amazingly well in doing so. This year has been pretty much the total opposite. I was mired within a game either way of .500 all through the first half of the season, but since then now it has been six straight weeks of winning picks, including a 3-0 week and now last week's 2-0 performance baked in there for good measure. With just two weeks to go in the 2010 NFL regular season, I am definitely looking to keep the momentum up heading into the postseason, where for whatever reason I have always had extremely good luck with my picks. And after putting up two road winners last week, the two games I like in Week 16 are both home teams, keeping with my theme of picking all kinds of winners week to week throughout this NFL season. With that in mind, here are the Week 16 picks, in no particular order as always:

1. St. Louis Rams -3 vs San Francisco 49ers. I'm going to the well one more time this season with that blazing idiot Mike Singletary, as his team is 1-6 on the road this year with only a win against lowly Arizona to their credit away from their home stadium. Yes the Niners have looked somewhat better after an 0-5 start, but last week's 34-7 shellacking by the Chargers shows that this 49ers team really still does suck. What's more, on the road this year, the Niners have lost by 27 to San Diego, 18 to Green Bay, by 3 to the Panthers of all teams, by 21 to the Chiefs and by 25 to the Seahawks, so there' just no reason to expect them not to lose by at least a field goal here. The Rams are in my opinion the best team in the terribad NFC West, and having already lost in overtime to the 49ers earlier in the year, I see the Rams getting their revenge this week in front of the hometown crowd in a play to nab their first division crown since the days of the Greatest Show on Turf.

2. Kansas City Chiefs -5 vs Tennessee Titans. The Chiefs' offense rematerialized with the return of Matt Cassel last week, and the team is 6-0 at home so far this year, including wins over solid teams like the Chargers and the Jaguars, both of whom are fighting it out for their divisions even at this late point in the season. With head coach Todd Haley poised to make a serious run at coach of the year honors after a truly amazing performance here in 2010, I expect the Chiefs to continue their run at home perfection by beating the overmatched Titans who had lost six straight efforts before beating the Texans at home in Week 15. Jamaal Charles should be able to keep the ball out of the Titans' hands behind the NFL's best rushing attack and against the 17th rated rush defense, and once the Chiefs score, the Titans' 29th-rated pass offense in the league is going to have a very tough time keeping pace.

Merry Christmas to all the Christ worshippers out there. And happy Chinese Food Day to the MOTs.

Go J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS this weekend!!!

NFL -- Week 15 Picks

Make that five straight weeks of winning picks after I went 2-1 once again in Week 14 to raise the season record to 23-18-2, again a fresh high for the season. Not many people I'm seeing out there are much over .500 at all, so it's been a very positive season so far for my picks by any measure, and yet the margin above even is small enough that any one bad week will basically take me right back down to the flat-line. That risk is very acute heading into this weekend too as we are looking at one of the best weeks of NFL matchups in recent memory, with several high-profile teams battling it out for divisional supremacy and/or playoff positioning. In fact I would argue that this is the most difficult week to pick the games yet in the 2010 regular season, and frankly with two of the games still not posted with lines here on Friday (Packers @ Patriots and Bears @ Vikings) this only increases the difficulty of finding games that look attractive to play.

With that in mind, there are only two games that jump out at me as good value plays this week, although I suspect that I might like to jump on the Vikings if they ever post a line there, as I think this Bears team is ripe for another beatdown after last week's humblement by the 2010 Superbowl Champion Patriots, especially at the hands of a pass rush-happy Minnesota squad out in the cold. So here are this week's two picks, which I will update over the weekend if they post a good line on Bears - Vikings at some point:

1. Philadelphia Eagles +3 at New York Giants. This will be my first time picking my hometown Eagles all season long, but on a slate full of very, very tough games, this one stands out as smelling like a bit of value here. The Giants have not looked all that great, even in winning their last few games, and they're not going to rush for 250 yards on the ground against the Philly defense like they did last week in destroying a broken down Vikings squad playing without their starting quarterback for the first time in his two years with the team. What's more, this week they had to put top wideout Steve Smith on injured reserve, further decreasing Eli Manning's weapons which he should need in spades in this key divisional matchup. Despite what you hear all over the media in New York City these days, this Giants team actually looks kind of down to me compared to the past few seasons, and while I think there is every chance that they find a way to squeak out a victory at home after already losing to the Eagles earlier this year in Philadelphia, it is hard to turn down the better team, getting three points, playing at a place where they've had some decent success over the past couple of years in what is almost always a crucial game for both teams. The winner here pretty much takes the NFC East -- in particular if it's Philly who will be a virtual lock with a victory -- while the loser could be in big trouble in terms of even making the 2010 NFL postseason. I'll hold my nose and take my boys and the points on the road.

2. New York Jets +6 at Pittsburgh Steelers. I don't know what it is with me and road dogs lately -- I guess I just enjoy killing the oddsmakers week in and week out or something -- but something about this game makes me think the Jets are going to make a real show of it. It's hard to predict an outright victory here for the Jets, especially with the way Sanchise has played the past couple of weeks, but if there's one thing I've seen out of Mark Sanchez in his short career, he tends to bounce back nicely after bad showings. Now I know that was not the case for him last week, but I'm expecting a decent performance out of Sanchise this weekend in Pittsburgh, in particular with word that defensive player of every year Troy Polamalu will sit this game out with a leg injury, a key piece of the puzzle in taking the Jets and the points here. The Steelers haven't exactly been lighting it up on offense these past several weeks, scoring just 16 and 13 points respectively in regualtion in Buffalo and Baltimore, followed up last week by 23 points in Cleveland but zero offensive touchdowns to get there. One thing I know for sure is that Rex Ryan will have his team all riled up to pile it on in particular on defense, and without Polamalu there to create offense from his defense, I predict the Steelers should have a hard time scoring enough to win this game by a full touchdown. I wouldn't want to take the Jets straight up, but with 6 points to boot I think this is clear value on the NYJ side.

Best of luck to those of you playing the games. Wish I hadn't talked myself into avoiding the fluffy 9-point line in Thursday night's Chargers - 49ers game -- Mike Singletary somehow still has a job despite three NFL coaches being fired this year in mid-season -- but there are so many huge games this weekend that almost anybody with a rooting interest is likely to be on the edge of their seat come 1pm ET on Sunday.

NFL -- Week 14 Picks

Another week of the NFL, another 2-1 performance from me here in the second half, and my season record against the spread sits at its high for the year of 21-17-2. It's still nothing all that impressive, but from my perspective, to be up above .500 at all in this league where (1) the oddsmakers know all the nooks and crannies of setting these spreads better than anyone, and better than they do in any other sport in the world (2) the referees basically decide who wins most of the games, either by purposeful decisions or just by missing obvious blown calls and then turning a blind eye to their mistakes on replay, and (3) most of all, where parity reigns supreme unlike anything else in professional sports today, I'll take 4 games over .500 through three-quarters of the season. Hopefully I can retain that record, and even improve it a bit here with four weeks left in the regular season.

Although only four games over .500 at this point in the season, one thing I've done exceedingly well this year has been to avoid the games where something in my head tells me the line doesn't like quite right. This Thursday night's Colts - Titans game is a perfect example. I considered posting yesterday and picking the Colts, after two straight weeks of picking against the Titans and winning, but when I looked at the line, something about needing to give four points from a .500 team on a downswing and on the road in the Colts just seemed wrong. The Titans are generally a tough opponent, and while I fully expected the Colts to win, given that the team was 1-4 in the last five games and that Peyton had thrown 11 picks in his last three games, it just didn't smell right that they would have to give more than a field goal, going on the road to play a tough divisional matchup, even against a hapless Titans squad that has more or less given up on the season. And lo and behold, Bo Scaife punches one in as time expires in the game to bring the final score to 30-28, and more importantly, to cover on the day. I'm sure people all around America were cussing in disgust at around 11:40pm ET on Thursday night as the Titans scored the meaningless touchdown game-wise in the final seconds and yet totally blew what was an easy win against the spread for the Colts otherwise, but not me. I can't tell you how many times I've written down six or seven games that looked good to me, and when I've culled it down to my three picks, those three ended up going 2-1 on the week while my other three options went 1-2 or 0-3. So I've been doing a great job this year so far of avoiding the bad spreads, and I'll try to continue that this week heading into Week 14, as the league moves into the home stretch where every game counts, and where the good teams shift from trying to get into the playoffs to instead jockeying for playoff position and trying to nab one of the two choice spots atop the division and the corresponding bye weeks for the Wildcard round.

Here are this week's picks, in no particular order as always:

1. Seattle Seahawks +6 at San Francisco 49ers. Obviously Seattle is not much to get excited about this year, but to be getting 6 points to play at one of the NFL's worst teams -- with its single worst head coach, in particular now that Josh McDaniels is gone -- is just too much to pass up. Mike Singletary's latest brilliant idea is to choose a new (shitty) starting quarterback every week, with this week seeing a switch back from Troy Smith to Alex Smith, but I just can't see how the value is not on Seattle here plus almost a touchdown against a truly bad 49ers squad with a horribad coach, laughable quarterback and their top runningback recently put in IR for the season.

2. San Diego Chargers -7 vs Kansas City Chiefs. This game would have been a lot more interesting if Matt Cassel -- quietly one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL this season -- did not have his appendix removed on Wednesday night, but although Cassel won't rule himself out yet, I just don't see how he is going to play an NFL game just four days after being under the knife like that. In his place is likely to be Chiefs' backup qb Brodie Croyle, who is 0-9 in his career as a starter, but who took most of the snaps in midweek practices this week for KC, and with that this is just not looking like a good matchup for the Chiefs to me. Not only is San Diego far better at home than on the road, but this a crucial game for the team as they look to keep their hopes of winning the AFC West alive and must have a win here in order to do that. What's more, the Chiefs' weakest link is their pass defense (21st in the NFL), while they will face Phillip Rivers and the #2 passing offense in the league this Sunday afternoon. Another apsect of the matchup that cuts against the Chiefs is that their greatest strength by far is their running game, which already was #1 in the NFL before this coming weekend and which will take on added importance due to Cassel's injury, but the Chargers will bring in the league's #2 rush defense into this key divisional game. I don't love the thought of any Norv Turner-coached team having to give a touchdown to anybody, but this is not the same Chiefs team with Brodie Croyle at the helm, and a double-digit win is I think likely for the Bolts this weekend.

3. Atlanta Falcons -8 at Carolina Panthers. This one may be a bit of a stretch, but the Panthers are right up there with the worst teams in the NFL this season, and at home they have been utterly abysmal whenever they've faced off against a team heading for the playoffs here in 2010. They lost by 13 to the Buccaneers at home in Week 2, and then by 17 at home to the Bears three weeks later. In Week 9 they lost by 31 points at home to the Saints, and then the Ravens beat down on them by 24 points in Week 11, rounding out the Panthers' 4-for-4 stretch of losing by well into double digits against playoff teams at home so far this season. Given that, and how well the Falcons, Matt Ryan, Michael Turner, Roddy White and Tony Gonzalez have been playing, I'll take the NFC's leading team and lay the points, and assume this one will cover some time in the second half as the Panthers players are already looking towards the offseason.

Best of luck to everyone playing the games this weekend. Keep an eye on the Packers, Eagles, Giants and Buccaneers who all go on the road this weekend in crucial matchups against teams that are supposed to be inferior but who will all be looking to play the role of spoiler in what continues to be a very bunched-up NFC playoff picture here with just a quarter of the season left to play.

NFL -- Week 13 Picks

After another 2-1 week in Week 14, the season record is at its high point of the season at 19-16-2 heading into the final quarter of the 2010 NFL season. I've been hot here in the second half after a .500 first half, so far basically the opposite of how things went for my football picks in 2009, so here's hoping I can keep that trend going this week. There aren't any games that really jump out at me this week as being obvious or almost too good to be true, but I did find six games that I think I know the winner of against the spread, and it's just a question of narrowing those down to the two or three I have the most confidence about.

With that in mind, and with my Eagles having nabbed a huge win last night on the NFL network -- the only broadcast I would put up there with NBC's Sunday night team among the worst regular sports telecasts in the world today -- here are the Week 15 picks, in no particular order as always:

1. Baltimore Ravens -3 vs. Pittsburgh Steelers. I was sure the Steelers would win this game to avenge their earlier-season loss at home against the Ravens in the final game of Ben Roethlisberger's season-opening suspension for his sexually assaultive extra-cirricular activities, but then I saw Big Ben hobbling around on his injured foot last night on ESPN and I think I've changed my tune on this one. I don't love having to give the 3 points, but this game is in Baltimore, and as hard as it is to imagine the Steelers losing twice to the Ravens during the regular season, I've made no bones about the fact that I think the Ravens are among the very best teams in the AFC all year, and nothing I've seen has made me think otherwise. So give the Ravens the three points for home field advantage anyways, and Big Ben's foot is the thing that simply tilts this game in Baltimore's favor for me. With that swarming, pressure defense coming at him all game, Ben Roth is simply not going to be able to rely on his usual ability to stand strong and avoid the rush with his feet. I don't see a blowout here by any means, but I think the Ravens will find a way to take this one by more than a field goal and take a commanding lead in the AFC North having swept the season series against their only competition in the division.

2. Jacksonville Jaguars +4 at Tennessee Titans. With all the problems the Titans are facing now on offense, having to change their quarterback and go with Kerry Collins (!!!!!) behind center, and with Randy Moss already moping his way through the motions for the rest of the season there, I will be hard-pressed to pick the Titans to win another game this entire season, even with as much as I like their coach Jeff Fisher. I'm not sure I would pick the Jags to win this one straight-up on the road, but with a four-point cushion I just think the value is clear here, even with the Jags going on the road for a key divisional matchup. The Jags have been playing well for the better part of a month now, and I see them putting up at least a good fight in this one, so I'll take the team and the points and go with the clear value pick here.

3. Green Bay Packers -10 vs. San Francisco 49ers. Here we have the 49ers coming off a short week and a key divisional matchup, travelling on the road to frigid Lambeau Field for a game that is crucial for the Packers to win to keep pace in the NFC playoff race now that the Eagles got their big win on Thursday night even with evil Andre Johnson unfairly allowed to participate. The Pack's offense has come alive recently, averaging 31 points per game over their last three games as well as their last three home games and the 49ers have been generally dismal on the road this season other than last week's performance on Monday night against probably the real worst team in the NFL in the Cardinals. I expect the Pack to throw up another 30-spot in this one, and I'm not foreseeing the 49ers being able to amass 20 points against a pretty stingy Packers defense thus far in the 2010 season. Ten points is a lot of points to give, but I think the Pack will surpass that margin by the time this one is done. Of course, 49ers coach Mike Singletary will probably see the line and think it is "100" instead of "10", but that's another story for another time, after Singletary gets fired at season's end.

All three of these games could go either way, but I do think they represent the best value among all the lines I'm seeing this week. Best of luck if you're playing the games, and in particular if your team is in the hunt in the NFC, every single game becomes very important here now that the Bears appear poised to nab one of the 6 postseason slots. With the NFC West, North, South and East winners getting four of the six spots, that leaves room for only three out of Bears/Packers, Eagles/Giants, and Saints/Falcons/Buccaneers in the postseason picture, so every single win from here on out is pretty much crucial for these teams if they want to be playing into January 2011.

NFL -- Week 12 Picks

Hopefully you all have had as awesome of a Thanksgiving weekend so far as I have. I know I say this every time I get to spend some time with my family without my effing job getting in the way, but a big splotch of time like this with my wife and kids simply cannot be beat, regardless of where you go or what you do with the time. The truth of the matter is that I have been so focused over the past couple of years on excelling and proving my worth at my job that it has slowly but surely encroached to the point that it has completely taken over my life. Just to keep up with the incredible amount of work I have taken on -- and which the powers that be have willingly availed themselves of with me -- I am up at the crack of dawn (before that, actually) five days a week, I'm the first one in the office, and I still don't get to see my kids at all many nights on the other end of the work day. Plus, I check the PDA at every red light on my drive home every day, and many days I walk in the door and head right to my home pc to log right back in to the same email account I've been slaving over all day already at the office. To get some time like this where I've truly just disconnected is simply invaluable, and it does wonders every time to put back into perspective what is really, seriously important and awesome for me.

OK, enough with the sappy stuff. Back to football. I should mention that longtime asshead Marvin Lewis officially joined Mike Singletary among the ranks of the truly legally idiotic on Thanksgiving day this week when his player Reche Caldwell was adjuged to have touched the ball on a punt return in a crucial spot in a close game to lead to an alleged fumble recovery by the Jets, and even though Caldwell could not have been clearer that he did not believe he touched the ball, and even with the replay clearly showing how laughably far from him the ball was and how he could not possibly have touched it, and how there thus could not possibly have been a fumble on the play, and what does Marvin do? Stone cold nothing. What a piece of shit. I mean, I didn't play that game, I'm neither a Jets nor a Bengals fan -- if anything, I've thoroughly enjoyed this run the Jets have had as I spend my days in New York -- so I have no personal stake whatsoever. But there are a million people who are Bengals fans out there, and they don't care if the team is yet again mired in another hopelessly losing season. Giving up on the game like that should be grounds for immediate termination, and you can rest assured that I and a million Bengals fans out there would have done just that if given the chance at that moment. How the fuck dare that shitmonkey Marvin Lewis not even challenge an obviously wrong call that gave the Jets an unearned turnover and essentially put away a football game where the Bengals had been close to coming back against a team that hasn't played a good game against a bad team in over a month. I'll tell you what though -- the moment that Coach Marvin chose not to give a shit about the game like that, was the same moment that I stopped giving a shit about the game myself. I don't need to invest any time or interest in a game that the frigging head coach of one of the teams by definition doesn't give a shit about. It's obvious that Marvin Lewis -- pretty much the single worst coach in football today other than his alter ego Mike Singletary in San Francisco -- will be fired at season's end and with good reason. But if that owner had even the smallest twig in his pants he would have fired that horse's ass right there in the middle of the season. In the middle of the game. What a piece of shit.

But hey don't worry, the schmuckhole announcers didn't even say a thing about it when it happened. I call it "Collinsworth Syndrome" -- as much as the officials in the NFL are absolutely hell bent on taking over the game instead of just calling it, the announcers have absolutely zero interest in calling the game as they see it, instead preferring to merely do and say whatever they have to to protect the integrity of the job the referees are doing. It's gotten to the point where you know you saw it wrong if the announcers agree with you, and if Roger Gooddell thinks that's what's good for the game, then he's as wrong about that as he is about allowing his refs to take over the games. Like the NBA twenty-some years ago, nobody can even conceive of the NFL ever not being the behemoth in this country and around the world that it is today. But I can. By the time Gooddell figures it out, it will probably be too late for his sport, but I'll have seen it coming, what else is new.

OK so after a dominatory 3-0 performance last week, where I got all three games correct all the way down to the most minute details as if they were an opponent's holding at the river, the season record has swollen to 17-14-2. Having not liked any of the three Turkey Day games this week, I've got three more picks in some interesting situations heading into Week 14. So here they are, in no particular order as always:

1. Cleveland Browns pickem vs. Carolina Panthers. Here's another line that is almost too good to be true, but the truth of the matter is that the too good to be true lines this year have almost all paid off on the "obvious" side. The Panthers are pretty much the worst team in the NFL this year, and even with horrible Jake Delhomme being given a gift start against his old team this weekend, the Browns should be consistently better than the Panthers, in particular at home. As a pickem, the value on this one isn't even close to close.

2. Houston Texans pickem vs. Tennessee Titans. Here's another home team facing an opponent with all kinds of trouble, and once again I think the value is clearly weighted on their side. The Titans have no quarterback, Randy Moss has already proven beyond any doubt to be a total bust on his third team of this NFL season, and the Texans haven't played so well over their last few games despite having a formidable offense. This seems to me to be the week they break out and nab their next win, and at a pickem I'll take my chances with the home team on this one.

3. Washington Redskins -2 vs Minnesotaq Vikings. The Redskins obviously suck, so this pick has nothing to do with them. This is an anti-Vikings pick, plain and simple. Unlike Jerry Jones, who fired his horribad coach at the perfect time midseason to still get his players to play and to still leave them and his interim head coach with a reason to try, the Vikings owner -- who clearly thinks he's doing exactly the same thing as Dallas -- has actually made a completely boneheaded play in firing head man Brad Childress in Week 13. I mean, the Vikings are 100% totally and completely finished, and they literally probably will not win another game this year. Childress obviously had to go -- clearly he has been a moron for a loooong time and pretty much has always been in over his head as a head coach -- but I'm pretty sure the Vikes' owner is about to be treated to exactly why you almost never see teams change head men mid-season like this. The Redskins are pretty much an embarrassment to the sport, but they could win this weekend against the Vikings at home by double digits. If not triple.

NFL -- Week 11 Picks

So through 10 weeks of the NFL season, I'm basically once again right back to where I started, with my season record sitting at 14-14-2 after a 2-1 week with my predictions for Week 10. This week I see a bunch of big lines, but in general I find this week to be perhaps the most difficult week of the season in terms of finding games that look like easy wins. Here are my picks for the coming weekend, in no particular order as always.

1. Tampa Bay Buccaneers +3.5 at San Francisco 49ers. The Buccaneers are much better than expected this season, and they've done a great job beating the bad teams they've played all season long so far in 2010. It's always unsettling picking a team that has to travel all the way across the country, but in this case the far superior team is getting a field goal+ to play against a very bad 49ers team with a head coach with the intelligence of a below-average chimpanzee. I just can't pass up the better team and the points here, even with the cross-country travel, especially as the Bucs are 3-1 already on the road this season.

2. Buffalo Bills +6 at Cincinatti Bengals. The Bills are fresh off their first win of the 2010 NFL season, and they've been playing much better of late than earlier in the season. Meanwhile, the Bengals' season is all but over once again as that team continues to flounder in the midst of a 5-game losing streak under the "tutelage" of Marvin Lewis, another bozo who was a good coordinator some time ago but who could not be more obvious simply does not have what it takes to be a successful head coach in this league. Even though the Bengals can and should win this game, the team hasn't had a good outing in almost two months, and I just have a major problem with them giving six points to a tough young team who plays hard every week and doesn't give up to anybody. I like the Bills getting nearly a touchdown here in this one.

3. Baltimore Ravens -10 at Carolina Panthers. Here's a double-digit road favorite that I know a lot of people will scowl at, but this is about as good of a road matchup as I have seen this year. For starters, Matt Moore is out as Carolina's qb, and backup Jimmy Clausen is concussed and not likely to start as well on Sunday, leaving some guy named Tony Pike to take the helm at quarterback for perhaps the league's worst team. And just for fun, Pike will have to face the raucous Baltimore defense in his first start of the season, which sounds like a recipe for a bunch of incompletions and probably a few pick-6's to boot. And just to round out the analysis, the Panthers are 1-4 at home this year, and in those four home losses, they lost by 13 to the Bucs, by 13 to the 2-7 Bengals, by 17 to the Bears, and most recently by 31 to the Saints. They haven't had a single home loss yet by fewer than 10 points, and they're playing one of the best teams in the league in the Ravens, and they're starting some stiff at quarterback in his first significant minutes of the season. This one should be a bloodbath.

There's the Week 11 picks. There are a ton of too-big lines in my view in this week's games, but these are the ones I am most comfortable with given what I have seen about the teams involved. And the best game of the week? Giants at Eagles, on the Sunday night package, in a battle for NFC East supremacy as the Eagles look to follow up last Monday's silly beatdown of the Foreskins and their $3 million guaranteed contract to quarterback Donovan McNabb. Who signs a $3 million guaranteed contract in the NFL anyways?

NFL -- Week 10 Picks

As I mentioned earlier in the week, through Week 9 of the 2010 NFL season, my weekly game picks against the spread sit at an uninspiring 12-13-2. While this certainly could be worse in the wild and wacky NFL, I'm definitely looking to improve these figures over the second half of the season, although in all honesty the second half of 2009 is where my picks really seemed to drop off, so I'm going to need to do much better in this year's second half or else the season is going to be a complete and total disaster in terms of my picks. Still, I'm going to stick with the recent policy of not forcing myself to pick any certain number of games in any given week as I do think that will help me over time to focus my predictions on the games I generally feel the most confident about. Just like last week's Giants-at-Seattle game. Heh heh.

OK so here are my picks for Week 10 of the NFL season:

1. Miami Dolphins +2 vs. Tennessee Titans. In a week chock full of tough games, I really like this pick as I think the better team is getting points, and playing at home to boot. It looks like the Fins will be starting Chad "All He Does Is Win" Pennington at qb this weekend for the first time all season, and the Dolphins are simply not going to 0-8 at home on the year. I know the Titans just added Randy Moss over the past week after the Vikings cut him after Week 8, but I just can't pass up the extra two points for the home team who I would have picked to win this game in any event.

2. Houston Texans +1 at Jacksonville Jaguars. This is a matchup of 4-4 teams, but I've made no bones here about the fact that I think the Texans are a good team, and the Jags are not, overall this season. This is a game where the Texans will find a way to win if they are actually going to try to make a playoff push in 2010. When I look at this objectively, I think the Texans throw the ball better than the Jaguars behind Matt Schaub, and Arian Foster and his nine touchdowns runs the ball better than Maurice Jones-Drew and his one touchdown scamper this season as well. Once again this is a game where I would probably take the Texans as a pickem, but with the added bonus of a push if the Jags win by one point, the value seems definitely tilted a bit on the Texans' side here in my book.

3. St. Louis Rams +6 at San Francisco 49ers. I don't even understand this line, which can often be a harbinger of one of those too-good-to-be-true lines that I love to get burned on, but with the 4-4 and first-place Rams heading to San Fran to play Mike Singletary and his no-math skills, I am surprised this is more than a pickem as it is. The chances of the 49ers scoring many points against the quietly very solid Rams' defense in this game are I think low to begin with, and the NFC West's best offense in the Rams should be able to move the ball against the hapless 49ers defense. Mike Singletary has lost all control of this team, he is a lame duck fool on the sidelines, and his team has got nothing to play for throughout the balance of this season. I'll take the Rams plus a touchdown and do so quickly.

While I do think the Giants' 14-point line at home against the Cowboys in Jason Garrett's first game as head coach is too high, I think even I might have to stay away from that game despite knowing that the Giants have consistently disappointed in games like this during the Tom Coughlin era. I can't believe the Eagles are favored by 3 at the Redskins in Monday night's game, but I do suspect the Eagles will win so I want to stay away from that one as well. And while I do think the Bills will nab their first win of the season at home this weekend against the Lions and their backup quarterback, having to lay three points to pick the only 0-8 team in the NFL is just a personal insult, and I won't do it. So there's your three official picks this week (bank it!), and best of luck to anyone playing this weekend's NFL games.

NFL Midseason Update

Ugh. This week has been a new low for my level of busy-ness and franticness at my job. And speaking of that, I want to extend a special thank-you to the biatch downstairs who was first assigned this horrifying deal that has utterly and completely ruined the last five days of my life, for waiting until the weekend and then responding that she was "too busy" to take on such a short-term assignment with such urgency and such difficult clients. Because of course, me and my five or six times as many deals as her, I was of course less busy than she was to take this monstrosity on, right? Whore. It's unbelievable, really. Anyways, some biatch on the 23rd floor is too lazy to do her effing job, and as a result you don't get any posts for several days. Funny how the chain reaction of things happens.

Anyways, here's the post I tried to start writing over this past weekend, and only now have had the chance to finish.

With every team in the league now having played at least eight games (and four teams having played nine games), here we are officially past the midpoint of the 2010 NFL season, and I thought I would take my usual halfway-point look back at my preseason predictions for the NFL teams. Back in early September, for the first time I made over-under predictions based on the Vegas lines for each of the teams in the NFL, and now I want to look back and see how those predictions are going so far in what is, by far, the most difficult of the major sports to make meaningful predictions in, be it preseason, or even week to week in the individual games. So here are my September predictions for each team in the NFL, along with a short commentary on how close or far off I am looking so far:

Arizona Cardinals: Under 7.5 wins. At 3-5, Arizona is worse than I even thought they would be, and they should end up under here. The quarterback situation in 'Zona following Kurt Warner's retirement has left this team with a total void at qb, and they're going to have a lot of trouble winning most of the games left on their schedule.

Atlanta Falcons: Over 9 wins. Right now Atlanta is one of the six teams in the NFL with just two losses, and at 6-2, nine wins sounds like an easy Over for probably the best team in the NFC so far through the halfway point of the season.

Baltimore Ravens: Over 10 wins. It is really hard to take the Over with a number like 10 wins, but taking the Over I did, and the Ravens are another of the small handful of teams with two losses who are looking like they might be the best team in all of football. As long as the team goes over .500 in their final 8 games, they will best the 10-win line for 2010 and be poised to make a deep run in the AFC postseason.

Buffalo Bills: Under 5.5 wins. Going under 5 wins for any team in the NFL can be tough, but the Bills are the league's last winless team in 2010 and have virtually no chance of reaching this number in 2010.

Carolina Panthers: Under 7.5 wins. This is another winner, as Carolina would need to go 7-1 to end the season (with no quarterback whatsoever to speak of, at that) after their 1-7 start. I love the coach, but John Fox will be moving on after season's end to bigger and better pastures as the Panthers will easily finish Under their number this season.

Chicago Bears: Under 8 wins. At 5-3 right now, the Bears are technically on pace to finish over .500 on the season, thanks largely to a surprise 3-0 start. However, if you've been watching the games this season, most people would probably consider this one to be a bit of a crapshoot by season's end, as the Bears have played pretty horrible football for the better part of a month here now, and I would expect a finish right around .500 as the most likely outcome by the end of the year, but right now this one goes down as a loss for my pick.

Cincinnati Bengals: Under 7.5 wins. This was one of my outlier picks in the preseason given all the hype surrounding this Bengals team heading into 2010 after they won the division last year for the first time in years. But here we are at the halfway point, and despite a surprisingly strong output from big baby Terrell Owens, the Bengals are 2-6, alone in last place in the AFC North, and they're highly unlikely to make it back to .500 on the season.

Cleveland Browns: Under 5.5 wins. Here's a team that has surprised pretty much everybody by not playing nearly as horribly as they were expected to play. The team is currently at 3-5 through 8 games, but my guess is that they will come in just over their number by season's end, making this pick another likely loser for me on the year.

Dallas Cowboys: Over 9.5 wins. Boy did I screw this one up. The 'Boys are currently 1-7, the head coach has been fired, and the team that I pegged as the easy winner of the NFC East and probably the NFC's best team is instead making a serious run for the conference's worst. Even if they somehow ran the table with Jon Kitna at quarterback in the second half, they still couldn't come close to the over here, and this team will be my biggest miss in the preseason pretty much no matter what happens with any team in the rest of the season.

Denver Broncos: Under 7.5 wins. A lot of people questioned this pick before the season began, but so far in 2010 we have seen exactly how Josh McDaniel's hubris has harmed his team's chances to play well this year. At 2-6, Denver sits alone in the basement in one of the worst divisions in football, and the scoring differential of -69 points also places the Broncos among the three or four worst teams in the league.

Detroit Lions: Over 5 wins. Here I made a "heart" pick in going over despite not really knowing where 6 wins would come from on this team's schedule, and after starting off 2-6 in the first half, and especially after watching the team's utterly inept coaching in last week's game against the Jets, they're just not going to make it in 2010. Long live the worst streak for the NFL's worst overall franchise.

Green Bay Packers: Over 9.5 wins. The Pack is 6-3 through 9 games this season, putting them on pace for 11-12 wins on the season. Even though I think most people would agree that this team in practice has underperformed many people's expectations on the season, the Over is still looking good at this point, due in no small part to a very, very weak NFC in 2010.

Houston Texans: Over 8 wins. Right now the Texans are sitting at 4-4 at the halfway point of their season, putting them right on pace to hit their number for the year if all stays as planned. The Texans have been a bit on the inconsistent side for my tastes so far in 2010, but looking at their schedule there's no reason not to believe they can muster another .500 performance in their final eight games of the year.

Indianapolis Colts: Over 11 wins. Indy is 5-3 through eight games, and it looks like a stretch for them to string together another 12-win season, so this one is most likely going to be a loss for my preseason prediction, despite the Colts quietly putting together yet another solid season under the watchful eye of quarterback Peyton Manning.

Jacksonville Jaguars: Under 7 wins. The Jags have been a bit of a pleasant surprise for a lot of NFL viewers out there, sitting at .500 here at the halfway point. Even though this is not a particularly strong team, the odds are clear that they will find a way to win three of their last eight games and manage to make the Over, giving me another wrong preseason prediction.

Kansas City Chiefs: Under 6.5 wins. Booom here's another one I really fucked up, along with the rest of the free world. I picked the Chiefs to finish with 6 or fewer wins on the year, and here at the midpoint they have already amassed 5 wins and amazingly sit in first place in the AFC West. As I told you here after Week 2 of the NFL season, there is no reason at this point that this team cannot outright win the division thanks to their horrible competition and their last-place schedule.

Miami Dolphins: Under 8.5 wins. I went off in the preseason about how much I like Tony Sparano and what this Dolphins franchise has done with seemingly very little to work with over the past couple of years, and they have not disappointed in posting some big wins already en route to a 4-4 record at the midpoint. Still, that keeps the team on pace for an 8-win season and an Under, and with the Jets and Cheatriots looking strong once again, it is difficult to imagine the team going 5-3 down the stretch.

Minnesota Vikings: Over 9.5 wins. Here I didn't just pick an Over, I picked an "easy Over" in the preseason, adding to the list of teams I simply utterly flubbed in making my preseason predictions. Although the team is coming on a bit of late and is currently 3-1 at home through 8 games, the team is 3-5 and would need to totally turn things around and run off a 7-1 record in the second half to threaten their number. It's not gonna happen.

New England Cheatriots: Over 9.5 wins. With a healthy Tom Brady and with Bill Bellicheat at the helm, the Cheatriots are an easy Over any time they're predicted to produce single-digit wins. Right now the team sits at 6-2 through eight games, and until last week's drubbing by the Browns were considered by most to be the NFL's best team in 2010.

New Orleans Saints: Over 10.5 wins. Even though the Saints have generally underperformed compared to most people's expectations through the first half of the 2010 NFL season, the team still sits at 6-3 after Week 10, putting it on pace for 11 wins and still barely an Over, for now. How well the defending champs play in the second half seems still fairly up in the air, but for now a win is a win.

New York Giants: Under 8.5 wins. Man did I eff up my predictions for the NFC East this year, which is especially interesting since this is my own hometown division since birth. Although I was very dubious about the Giants in a division with an improved Dallas and Redskins squad, in the end the team has already piled up 6 wins in the first half of the season, and it is very hard to imagine the team not winning another 3 of their final 8, so this one is going to end as an Over.

New York Jets: Under 9.5 wins. Although after just a few weeks into the 2010 season it was very obvious that the Jets were for real, I did not believe in the Jets heading into the season and as a result this is going to be another loss for me. At 6-2, the Jets are among the six NFL teams with six wins at the halfway point, and even though the team has not been playing well lately, again it is a virtual lock that Rex Ryan's squad will amass at least 10 wins for the Over by season's end.

Oakland Raiders: Under 6 wins. At 5-4 through their first 9 games, the Raiders are off to their best start in several years, and the team will make their Vegas number with their next win. This is another one that I just did not see coming by a long shot.

Philadelphia Eagles: Under 8.5 wins. Another NFC East team, another miss for my preseason 2010 predictions. Of course nobody in America could foresee the incredible story of Mike Vick and how well the guy has played so far through the first half of the season, but in at the halfway point, the Eagles are 5-3 and should manage to best their number by at least a game or two.

Pittsburgh Steelers: Over 9 wins. Even with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger missing the first four games of the season, the Steelers have posted an impressive 6-2 record to start the 2010 campaign. With potentially the best team in the NFL working now that Ben Roth has returned, Over 9 wins seems like a virtual certainty for the 2008 superbowl champions.

San Diego Chargers: Under 11 wins. Here is one surprise team that I actually predicted correctly in the preseason, although I certainly did not foresee how underwhelming Norv Turner's team would play in likely his final season in San Diego. At 4-5 through 9 games, the Chargers would have to rattle off seven straight wins to make their number, and that simply isn't going to happen despite Phillip Rivers continuing to kill it at quarterback out in the AFC West.

San Francisco 49ers: Under 8.5 wins. Here's another surprise team that I correctly predicted few months ago, although again I can't take credit for knowing just how much of a goddam idiot head coach Mike Singletary is. Ever since he incorrectly read the score as 20-14 when it was actually 24-10 in the 49ers' Week 5 game, the 9ers' 2-6 start has been no kind of a surprise, and that kind of a raging moron has no shot of leading his team to another 7 wins this year in what has got to be his final year in San Fran.

Seattle Seahawks: Under 7.5 wins. So far this is technically a loss for my pick with the Seahawks sitting at 4-4 through 8 games, but even though the NFC West is incredibly weak, I would still guess this team will end the season below the .500 mark, especially after this past weekend's utter and complete embarrassment and manhandling at the hands of the Giants in Seattle.

St. Louis Rams: Under 5 wins. At 4-4 at the midpoint, the Rams are one of the happiest stories in the NFL in 2010. I'm obviously going to lose this pick as soon as the first-place Rams win their next game, but I'm more than happy to take this loss in honor of Steve Spagnuolo, Sam Bradford et al who have seriously turned things around in St. Louis after a couple of years near the bottom of the heap in the NFL.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Under 5.5 wins. I owe Rahim Morris an apology for calling him the single worst coach in the NFL during my preseason picks. Morris has led his team to a 5-3 record in the first half of the 2010 season, and he's easily getting his team to an Over in 2010.

Tennessee Titans: Over 8.5 wins. Although they've been a bit inconsistent for my tastes so far in the first half, the Titans are off to a 5-3 start in their first eight games in 2010. Unless the addition last week of Randy Moss eats this team away from the inside, they should reach 9 wins and make the Over before season's end.

Washington Redskins: Under 7.5 wins. The Skins currently sit at 4-4 after 8 games, but something tells me that this is going to end the year as an Under and a winner for my preseason prediction. With Donovan McNabb physically breaking down and flirting with benchings weekly by new head coach Mike Shanahan, this is gonna be a close one but we'll see if the Skins have enough to play the second half of the season at .500 like they have so far in the first. Hopefully a loss to the Eagles next Monday night would basically ice the Under in my book for Daniel Snyder's weakass franchise.


So, here I sit at the halfway point, basically with 15 winners and 15 losers so far through the midpoint of the season. Even though that is clearly not the kind of success I am looking for with any of my sports predictions, in the NFL of all leagues, I'll take it. I mean, in all seriousness, I cannot name a single person in the world of which I am aware who I would say is doing a good job making picks of the NFL games on the season when using the Vegas spreads. As I mentioned above, the NFL is just such a crazy league, there is just so much mediocrity and parity, and the system is just so set up to make the bad teams good the next year, and the good teams bad, that going .500 with preseason predictions is not as bad as I would view that in a league like baseball where there really is much more information available from previous seasons about how good a team is going to play the next year, and what kinds of numbers individual players are going to put up. I'm 15-15 with my predictions, and I believe I am a game under .500 in my individual game picks against the spread so far through nine weeks. I hope to improve upon both of these stats over the second half of what is shaping up to be another awesome NFL season.