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.

2011 MLB Over Unders Revisited -- Final

After an absolutely crazy final month that saw both the Red Sox and the Braves give up nearly double-digit leads in September to miss the postseason for the first two times in major league history, and an even crazier final few days when the Braves couldn't win a single game out of three against the Phillies and the Sox could nab just one out of three against the lowly Orioles, including multiple extra-inning games on the final day of the season that had teams in four corners of the country staying up late glued to the tv in the clubhouse, the 2011 MLB regular season has come to a close once again. While it is fresh in everyone's mind, I thought I would take a look at my 2011 over-under predictions for every team in the majors, and see if I once again managed to go just slightly over .500 with a full league's slate of predictions at the start of the regular season.


ARI Under 85.5. That's a loss. New manager Kirk Gibson deserves a ton of credit for leading this team over the Giants and their amazing pitching in the NL West. I certainly did not see this season coming for Arizona.

ATL Over 82.5. I got this one right, even though the Braves' season ends up feeling like a total loss. Even with 19 losses in September, Atlanta still finished with 89 wins in a positive season for a team that was considered the NL's second best team almost from start to finish this year.

BAL Over 70.5. Another loss here. I put my faith in Buck Showalter after a very strong end to the 2010 regular season for Baltimore, but the Orioles proved to be among the worst teams in the AL and missed even this low number by one game by season's end, even taking 2 of 3 from the Sox to end the year and ruin the Sox's season.

BOS Over 94.5. This is another loss snatched away from the jaws of victory, as it took Boston losing 20 games for its worst September in history as a franchise to keep them under this number by the time game 162 was all done and a bow put on Boston's miserable 2011 regular season.

CHC Under 81.5. Easy win and never even in doubt. The Cubs are among the most mis-managed franchises in sports today.

CHW Over 82.5. My second loss due to going with a head coach who let me down this year. At 79 total wins the White Sox came close to their number, but it goes in the books as another loss in what proved to be Ozzie Guillen's last year at the helm in Chicago.

CIN Over 79.5. I still can't believe I lost this one, but the Reds lost to the Mets 3-0 on the last day of the season to finish with 79 wins, making them an Under this year by the hair on their chinny chinny chins.

CLE Under 83.5. Although the Indians fared better than I expected when I made this pick, they still finished the season just under .500, good for a win that was not necessarily looking good about two-thirds of the way through the season.

COL Over 80. This is another loss for me, as I went with the momentum one too many times with the Rockies, who failed to produce one of their patented second half runs this year and ended with just 73 wins on the season.

DET Under 80.5. One of my worst picks of 2011. I went with the White Sox in the AL Central, but Justin Verlander and the Tigers ran away with things, easily eclipsing their number for the year.

FLA Under 79.5. A precious win for me. I've picked Over more often than Under with the Marlins over time, but this year didn't seem like the year for the under-supported team from south Florida.

HOU Under 76.5. Easiest Under in the league, and the Astros dumped what little talent they had amassed before this year's trading deadline.

KAN Under 74.5. Another easy Under for one of those perennial non-spending, small-market teams that just may never reach the postseason again.

LAA Under 87.5. This is one I'm proud of as I picked this line as basically being spot-on but just went with the Under based on the rest of their division improving somewhat. Finishing with a total of 86 wins on the season, it's a squeak but a win is a win is a win.

LAD Under 84.5. I thought this would be an easy win, but Don Mattingly finished up strong and eked out an impressive 82 wins by season's end. Still, it's another win with good reasoning on my part for the year.

MIL Over 81. An easy win for a team that improved measurably since 2010 but whose line was just too low from the getgo at just .500 baseball.

MIN Over 85.5. Another of my biggest misses of the preseason predictions, as I went with the manager here but the Twins came out and shocked the world by losing 99 games in their 2011 campaign.

NYM Under 89. The Mets were basically right where I expected them to be in 2011, as they clearly improved from the loss of well-known idiots at both coach and GM from the past few seasons in Jerry Manuel and Omay Minaya. And they never had any chance of finishing significantly over .500 with that team, making this another of the easiest Unders on the slate this preseason.

NYY Under 96.5. Although I only lost this prediction by a measly half a game in the end, it is one that surprises me almost as much as any others on this list. The Yankees had a much better year than I expected, and would have had the best record in baseball if not for the historic season had by the Philadelphia Phillies.

OAK Over 81.5. This was another loss for me as the A's pitching staff failed to shine and the team's lack of talent was as apparent as ever, netting the team just 74 wins on the year.

PHI Under 89.5. What can I say, I figured 87-88 wins for the Phillies given the loss of Jayson Werth and an improved NL East across the board, and even though the division took a giant step up, the Phils still busted out with a franchise record 102 wins and were easily baseball's best team from start to finish in the 2011 regular season. It's a loss I'll take any day of the week.

PIT Under 68.5. This line was laughably low coming into the 2011 season, and I finally got burned by going back to the Under well one too many times with this team. 72 wins and a terrible second half made for another big disappointment for this year's Pirates, but not big enough to keep me out of loss column once again on this prediction.

SDP Over 68.5. I just could not believe how low this line was, and I ended up winning as the Padres amassed 71 wins on the season, even though the team was surely worse than I thought they would be.

SFG Over 79.5. I won this number easily, as the Giants rode their tremendous rotation to 86 wins in this regular season, despite missing the chance to defend their 2010 World Series title in finishing 8 games behind Arizona in the NL West.

SEA Under 79.5. Here was an easy win, as the undermanned Mariners managed just 66 wins on the year and were never really in doubt for this prediction in 2011.

STL Under 84. The Cardinals used another strong contribution from Albert Pujols and a late-season surge to post 90 wins on the season, making the playoffs on the final day of the regular season and leaving my prediction twisting in the wind about two weeks into the final month of play this year.

TAM Under 87.5. I thought with the Yankees and Red Sox improving this season, the Rays would struggle to reach 88 wins. In the end, the Rays used a 17-10 finish in September to finish with 91 wins, exactly as many as they needed to make sure they reached the postseason and stole the rival Red Sox' playoff berth along the way, but giving my prediction a loss in the process.

TEX Over 77.5. Another easy win for the American League's best offensive team by far outside of New York or Boston. The Rangers picked up 96 wins on the year, going 30 games over .500 for perhaps the easiest Over of the bunch in this year's preseason predictions.

TOR Under 78.5. The Blue Jays did better than I expected in a very tough AL East, managing to end the year at .500 and making their gain my loss this year in terms of my picks.

WAS Over 65.5. Here was another easy win as the Nationals banged out 80 wins in the best season of the franchise's young history thus far, especially given the strength in the NL East.

So there you have it. And the final count? 15 wins, 15 losses overall. Right around .500 once again with the preseason over-unders. What else is new?

2011 NFL Post-Season Predictions

Finally this past weekend I had time to put the finishing touches on this post, which for the record was written over the couple of weeks leading up to the start of the 2011 NFL regular season. And what a wild Week 1 it was, which will quickly become apparent when you see some of my picks for the postseason this year in the NFL.

NFC East: Eagles
NFC North: Packers
NFC South: Saints
NFC West: Cardinals

NFC Wildcard: Cowboys, Bears

NFC Almost's: Falcons, Lions, Rams

AFC East: Cheatriots
AFC North: Steelers
AFC South: Texans
AFC West: Chargers

AFC Wildcard: Jets, Ravens

AFC Almost's: Chiefs

So, that is a total of four new playoff teams I am predicting in 2011, two in the NFC (Cardinals and Cowboys, replacing the Seahawks and the Falcons), and two in the AFC (Texans and Chargers, replacing the Colts and the Chiefs). Four out of twelve ain't bad, but over the recent past that's still not as much annual turnover as the NFL has seen in its slate of post-season participants, so there are likely some more surprises to come this year. I just think the Seahawks have fallen behind both the Rams and the Cardinals given the moves of this past offseason, and for some reason I decided to hitch my prediction this offseason to Tony Romo, the greatest step-down-in-the-clutch artist in the NFL today, over Matty "Ice" Ryan. Pure. Genius. And in the AFC, I am expecting the Chiefs to impress again this year but they are going to have trouble winning their division again due to a much harder schedule and not being overlooked by their opponents this year, while the Colts are in my mind finished without Peyton Manning at the helm.

I'm not typically one for making detailed post-season predictions for later rounds here without even knowing who is playing who, who is injured, etc. But I will say that I think the Cheatriots look once again to be the class of the AFC if they stay healthy and are likely to show up in the superbowl again this year, while the picture in the NFC is a bit murkier, between the Eagles and the Packers. I'll take the Packers over the Cheatriots in the superbowl in a repeat for Green Bay. Since, just like the Red Sox over the Dirty Decade in Boston, the Cheatriots have never won a damn thing since they haven't been allowed to cheat.

2011 NFL Over-Under Predictions

Amazingly, it's already time for the NFL season to start up again, as we head into the second half of 2011 with great expectations for both the baseball and the football team among us Philadelphia sports fans. As I have done over the past few years -- never yet to a sub-.500 record, in any sport, I might add -- I am going to make my predictions using the Vegas over/under lines for the win totals for each team in the NFL. Given the small number of total games in the NFL regular season as compared to a sport like baseball, most of these lines are really difficult to pick, and sometimes a half a game makes all the difference in the world between a bettable and a not-bettable number, but as usual there are some of these that I think are pretty easy steals, for a lot of the same reasons as usual with respect to public perceptions about certain teams. So, without further adieu, in alphabetical order by team city:

2011 NFL Regular Season Win Totals:

Arizona Cardinals: Over 6.5 wins. This is one to start off with that I think is very easy. The Cardinals improved on several fronts in the offseason, they added Kevin Kolb at quarterback where they have had a huge, gaping hole ever since Kurt Warner retired, they have the best wide receiver alive today, a new runningback, and the worst divisional competition perhaps in NFL history. This should lead to at least 7 wins for the Cardinals, who I expect to challenge for the NFC West title in 2011.

Atlanta Falcons: Under 10.5 wins. This one was close enough that I really had to pore through the Falcons' 2011 schedule, but no matter how many times I go over it, I just don't come up with more than 10 wins. With games at the Bears, Colts, Texans Saints and Buccaneers on the schedule this year, plus home outings against the Eagles, Packers, Saints and Bucs, I'm thinking we're looking at more like 9-10 wins for Matt Ryan et al in the coming regular season.

Baltimore Ravens: Over 10.5 wins. The Ravens are an awesome team on both sides of the ball, and they should not be hurt too much by the departure of tight end Todd Heap to the Cardinals this offseason. Plus, their division plays the putrid NFC West, which should be enough to put the Ravens over the edge to 11 wins in their 2011 campaign.

Buffalo Bills: Under 5.5 wins. Buffalo will likely be one of the NFL's worst teams, and with uncertainty at quarterback, a worse wide receiver corps, and the Jets and Patriots to deal with within the division, I'm not quite seeing 6 wins in 2011.

Carolina Panthers: Under 4.5 wins. I'm a big Cam Newton guy in terms of his talent as I've written here before this year, but Carolina has got a ton of holes for a rookie qb to have to overcome in his first season in big leagues. 3-4 wins sounds about right to me for this team that plays in one of the toughest divisions in football in the NFC South.

Chicago Bears: Under 8.5 wins. This is one of those amazing NFL lines where a team that went to the NFC Championship in 2010, and really did not lose much in terms of its skill players, is predicted to go only .500 in 2011, making it look a lot to me like one of those "too good to be true" NFL lines that you almost have to play the opposite way of what is obvious. Although the defense was excellent in 2010, the offense was pretty horrible, and I've made no bones here about not being a Jay Cutler fan generally. With the Packers looking to repeat and the Lions on the come, I'll guess we're looking at more like a .500 season for the Bears this coming year.

Cincinnati Bengals: Under 5.5 wins. The Bungles are definitely in breakdown mode, having lost quarterback Carson Palmer to (bitter) retirement and wideouts Chad Johnson and TO to free agency for this coming season. Marvin Lewis has got to be in his final season of failure and ineptitude, but until that guy is gone, I'm not seeing this team winning 6 games in a division with Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and an improving Browns squad as well.

Cleveland Browns: Under 6.5 wins. Although I think in reality it is likely that one of either the Bungles or the Browns goes over these two low numbers, I just can't see it as I look through the Browns' 2011 regular season schedule. For a team with no quarterback whatsoever to speak of, having to finish their season vs. Baltimore, at Pittsburgh, at Arizona, at Baltimore, and vs. Pittsburgh is enough for me to put the kibosh on the team nabbing 7 or more wins in 2011.

Dallas Cowboys: Over 9 wins. The Cowboys are going to be one of the biggest hit-or-miss stories of 2011 in the NFL, with new head coach Jason Garrett finally getting his shot to see what he can do with a full NFL regular season and a full season of Tony Romo at quarterback. The 'Boys play in a tough division, and in truth this one smells like a chop to me at 9 wins, but something tells me that weakened Redskins and Giants teams might enable Dallas to squeak into double digits in a nice comeback year for America's Team (for Douchebags).

Denver Broncos: Under 5.5 wins. This is maybe the most spot-on line of the entire league's worth of predictions for 2011 in my view, as the Broncos are going to struggle mightily without a set idea of who will play quarterback for them, even in a weak AFC West. The Chargers and Chiefs look superior to this Broncos team, however, and let's not forget the Raiders who went undefeated within the AFC West last year for the first time in more than a generation. I'm thinking 4-5 wins for Josh McDaniel's old team in the 2011 NFL regular season.

Detroit Lions: Over 7.5 wins. The Lions are suddenly one of the sexy picks heading into the 2011 regular season, with young quarterback Matthew Stafford teaming again with Calvin Johnson to spark the offense on a team that is clearly on the come this year. Even though the public is so in favor of the over here, I will still take it as well, as every time I walk through the Lions' 2011 regular season schedule, I always seem to come up with 8 wins, and that's being conservative about a couple of games that I could easily see Detroit pulling out to boot.

Green Bay Packers: Over 11.5 wins. It can be hard for some people to take an over when the line is 11.5 wins, but not for me. The Packers are the clear class of the NFC North, and really of the entire NFC along with perhaps the Eagles, and they have basically the best quarterback in the league right now. If this line were 12.5 I would surely not take the over due to the team's inconsistency over the past few regular seasons and their lack of skilled runningbacks on the roster, but at 11.5 wins for this team, I think they will manage to eke out a small victory by season's end.

Houston Texans: Over 8.5 wins. With Indy's Peyton Manning seemingly fixing to miss potentially many games in the AFC South this year, that puts this bet over the edge for me into an Over. Houston has not had a ton of success before this point, but this seems as good a year as any for Matt Schaub and his potent offense including Arian Foster and Andre Johnson to combine with an improving defense to nab a better than .500 record on the season. Perhaps could a division title even be in the works?

Indianapolis Colts: Under 9.5 wins. This one is purely a Peyton Manning pick. Replacing Peyton -- probably the quickest release of any qb in the NFL over the past generation or so -- with Kerry Collins who just loves to hold the ball for as long as possible, is I think going to be a disaster for this team that has won at least ten games for what, 85 years in a row? Unless Peyton comes back early in the season, which I'm just not feeling right now given the news we are hearing on an almost daily basis, I think the Colts will have a very hard time winning 10 games in 2011.

Jacksonville Jaguars: Under 6 wins. I'm not sure how they did it last year, but this number looks temptingly low to those who followed the Jags' .500 season closely in 2010. That said, when I look at the schedule for 2011, there is just a huge stretch of games in the middle of the season where the Jags could go winless, especially having just cut their former quarterback David Garrard within a week before the regular season begins. A push would not shock me here, but if the team is not going to tie their number, then I think they're going a game or two under.

Kansas City Chiefs: Over 7.5 wins. This is another sexy pick for 2011, in that most pundits out there look to be picking the Chiefs for a down year after the franchise broke out of the doldrums in 2010 by winning the AFC West hands-down. I'm going against the grain, and with head coach Todd Haley, and picking another year of at least .500 football in KC.

Miami Dolphins: Under 7.5 wins. Here is another team with another head coach that nobody respects, even though Tony Sparano has managed to win more games than expected in each of the past two years with a clearly undermanned Dolphins squad. After screwing Sparano over this past offseason by actively shopping his job while Sparano was still hired, I'm predicting this year Sparano responds with a slightly lesser performance and a sub-.500 record in an always-tough AFC East. Not having anybody to throw the ball isn't going to help much either.

Minnesota Vikings: Under 7 wins. I am not hesitating with this pick. Donovan McNabb is going to be in a world of hurt trying to make something happen in Minnesota without anyone on offense other than the great Adrian Peterson. Even despite Peterson's clear dominance, we have already seen in recent years what can happen to this team when they do not get competent quarterback play, and D-Mac is very unlikely to be the guy in my eyes to help this team out of the hole they have dug themselves in 2011.

New England Cheatriots: Over 11.5 wins. I'm not looking at the schedule. I am simply taking the over with the Cheats to win at least 12 games this year. You figure one loss to the Jets in the regular season, but otherwise it's going to be hard any week to look at the schedule and peg New England for a loss. Even if they won't be able to record and steal their opponents' play calls.

New Orleans Saints: Over 10 wins. I think the Saints are poised to rebound somewhat after a bit of a down year following their amazing 2009 superbowl run. With the Saints having to go 9-7 or worse on the year for me to lose this bet, I simply cannot avoid the value of the Over with this pick. Add just a tick to this line, and at 10.5 I would really have to think about things, but at 10 flat this seems like another obvious prediction to me.

New York Giants: Under 9.5 wins. I don't know. Something about this year's Giants just seems like the team is going to take a step backwards. Eli Manning is decently proficient moving the ball, but the team lost Steve Smith to the Eagles which should hurt his production a little, the runningbacks are getting older, and like I said just something about the way this team has run the past couple of years has me thinking pessimistically for 2011. At 9.5, the value on this line seems clearly Under in my view.

New York Jets: Over 10 wins. I was all set to pick the Jets to go under this year, but then I looked at their schedule and I actually think they might back their way into a solid regular season for a change. The team that has made a career these past couple of regular seasons of playing down to the level of their competition gets very lucky with the schedule this year, as the play the AFC West but managed to land the Chargers and Chiefs at home, while they travel to the lowly Broncos and Raiders fairly early in the season. They also play the tough NFC East, but although the Eagles game is in Philly near the end of the season, they otherwise also lucked out with both the Cowboys and the Giants at home. The favorable schedule seems to me to be destined to lead the Jets to double-digit victories in 2011.

Oakland Raiders: Under 6.5 wins. I looked hard to find 7 wins on the Raiders' 2011 schedule after the team ran roughshod through the AFC West in 2010, but try as I might, I'm just not seeing it for this team that is still questionable in a lot of the skill positions on both sides of the ball, and who probably got a little worse overall in the offseason. The kicker for me is the final stretch of the regular season, where Oakland faces off vs. Chicago, at Miami, at Green Bay, vs. Detroit, at Kansas City, and vs. San Diego to finish things off. Something tells me the Raiders won't survive that run of opponents with quite 7 wins overall.

Philadelphia Eagles: Over 10.5 wins. This line I don't even really understand. I mean, the Eagles basically win more than 10 games almost every year -- at least before they bench everyone at the end of the season when it really doesn't matter -- and this season saw the team improve dramatically in particular on the defensive side of the ball where the Eagles' clear weakness was in 2010. Although I have my doubts about Mike Vick's ability to remain on the field through the majority of another season given the way he plays and the team's still shaky offensive line, 11 wins should be very doable for this team that appears to be the cream of the NFC along with the Packers in 2011.

Pittsburgh Steelers: Over 10.5 wins. The Steelers might be getting a little old in their receiving corps, but otherwise Pittsburgh is as strong as ever -- they have an amazing gameday quarterback, a great running game, and always one of the league's best defenses to boot. 11 wins should be a cakewalk for the Steelers in 2011.

San Diego Chargers: Over 10 wins. I can't believe I'm picking the Over with a Norv Turner team, especially when I go through the schedule and I keep coming up with 9 or 10 wins. But the Chargers' defense was so, so solid last year, and Phillip Rivers is so, so solid with the ball in his hands on offense, I'm going to go with my gut here and expect at least a push by the time the dust clears in 2011.

San Francisco 49ers: Under 7.5 wins. I'm a big John Harbaugh fan, and I expect the Niners' new head coach to take this team places over the next several seasons. But probably not this year. As I look at the team's schedule -- and their paltry roster, in particular in the skill positions on offense -- I keep counting up and not getting over 7 wins, max. The final seven games back to back of vs. Arizona, at Baltimore, vs. St. Louis, at Arizona, vs. Pittsburgh, and then at Seattle and at St. Louis to end the season, looks to me to be a bit much to overcome for this already low-talent team to finish the season at .500.

Seattle Seahawks: Under 6.5 wins. Amazingly, last year's NFC West winner is predicted to go well under .500 this season, and yet I still think it is too optimistic. The Seahawks played over the heads to even back embarrassingly into the playoffs last year, and the loss of Matt Hasselbeck should be enough to tip this team over the edge into the 6 wins or fewer club in 2011.

St. Louis Rams: Over 7.5 wins. I'm going out on a limb here and picking the Rams to contend for the NFC West title along with the Cardinals in 2011. I don't think the Rams are necessarily winning 11 games or anything, but I loved the team's progress last season, I'm a huge fan of Sam Bradford and the St. Louis wide receivers, and I love generally head coach Steve Spagnuolo's approach, both on the offensive and defensive side of the ball. I think at least a .500 effort is forthcoming this year for the recently former worst team in the NFL.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Over 8 wins. I was all set to go under again with the Bucs this year after last year's breakout performance, but the schedule simply does not support the team winning under 8 games. They play the AFC North, but they lucked out and have the Colts at home early in the season when Peyton will likely not be playing, and they also got Houston at home while they travel to play the lowly Titans. The Bucs also play the NFC North, but again they picked up the Lions and the Bears at home, while the late-season game at Green Bay was probably going to be a loss either way. And, unlike so many of the other teams on this list who end the 2011 season with a brutal stretch, check out the Buccaneers' last six games of the year: at Tennessee, vs. Carolina, at Jacksonville, vs. Dallas, at Carolina, and at Atlanta. I'm seeing another over-.500 season for Rahim Morris and his boys in Tampa Bay.

Tennessee Titans: Under 6.5 wins. No matter how I slice it, I keep coming up with no more than 6 wins as I walk through the Titans' 2011 regular season schedule. I have a lot of respect for Chris Johnson of course and the impact he can have on a football game, but this team is going to have its work cut out for it, playing the AFC North including the Ravens, Steelers and Browns all in the first five weeks (two of them on the road), and the NFC South including games at Atlanta and vs. the Saints in the second half of the season.

Washington Redskins: Under 6.5 wins. Like the Giants, I am predicting another down year for the hapless Redskins, probably the single worst franchise in the NFL over the past decade or so. Although getting rid of McNabb at qb should not hurt the team, being left with the choice of Rex Grossman over John Beck does not do much to inspire confidence in this NFL fan. With the Eagles and the Cowboys I think improving from a year ago, it's going to be tough times I think for the Skins to amass 7 wins in 2011.

So, that is 15 Overs and 17 Unders, for a slightly pessimistic take overall on the Vegas lines for 2011. Now, can anyone still bet sports online securely from a U.S. location?

2011 MLB Over Unders

So another Major League Baseball season is upon us, and once again I am late in posting my over-under predictions based on the Vegas line for all 30 MLB teams. Before the season gets too far away from me -- we are what, four or five games in to a 162-game season at this point -- I want to get my predictions up here to memorialize them in stone heading into what I am expecting to be a very interesting season in one of the only professional big-money sports we have left in this country that is not currently or very soon to undergo a work stoppage of one form or another.

Unlike in past years, I just don't have the time right now with work obligations and all to do a detailed write-up of my expectations for every team, so instead I am going to simply cut and paste the list of teams and the Vegas over-under for each, along with a "U" for me picking Under, or an "O" for me picking over this numnber of total wins on the season. If I have a one-sentence thought on the team I will add it below, but otherwise it's just the teams and my over-under wins pick this time around. And, given that I actually made these picks a week ago before the season started, some of my picks and explanations will already look and sound pretty stupid, as a few teams are already way off the pace I am predicting below, but what can I do, the truth is the truth:

ARI 85.5 U I have no idea why this team is expected to win 86 games but I am not seeing it.
ATL 82.5 O I have no idea why this team is only expected to barely break .500, but I think they will with an improved roster from 2010.
BAL 70.5 O Buck Showalter comes in and makes this team the winningest team in the vaunted AL East for the final third of the season last year, and now we're looking at 71 wins? I'm taking Buck and the Over here.
BOS 94.5 O This team improved dramatically in the offseason and the number is a very makeable 95 wins.
CHC 81.5 U Anything near .500 and I'll take under with a depleted Cubs squad.
CHW 82.5 O I think this line is really quite close but I will go with the crazy coach and predict just a win or two over the line here.
CIN 79.5 O Again, this team comes out and wins the NL Central out of nowhere last year, and this year they're picked to go under .500 again in a weak division? Easy over two years in a row for the Reds.
CLE 83.5 U And somehow the Indians of all teams are picked to finish over .500? These numbers must be wrong.
COL 80 O I'm not huge on the Rockies after they disappointed last season, but I'm game to predict them to finish the year .500 or better.
DET 80.5 U Something tells me that the Tigers are looking at a bit of a down year in 2011.
FLA 79.5 U Usually a perennial "over" target, I am thinking the Marlins will finish just a hair under 80 wins this year in an NL East where mostly every team improved in the offseason.
HOU 76.5 U The Astros are always an Under these days, especially when they stink and their line is somehow in the mid- to upper 70s.
KAN 74.5 U The Royals are another team that is basically always an Under pick, no matter how low the number gets. When they trade away their best pitcher in the offseason in exchange for prospects, this is only made all the more true.
LAA 87.5 U I'm almost flipping a coin here and just going Under with the Angels, even though I respect the hell out of their coach. 88 wins just seems a tad too high for this team playing in a tougher AL West than in recent seasons.
LAD 84.5 U Somehow the Dodgers are still showing as needing 85 wins this season to cover, even though the team seems to me to be in breakdown mode, and will probably be looking to be sellers and not buyers around the trade deadline as it is.
MIL 81 O I think this line is pretty decent at .500 for the season, but I will put stock in the team's offseason improevments -- mostly notably adding Royals starter Zack Greinke to the rotation -- and look for a slight Over here.
MIN 85.5 O Always take the Over with the Twins. Rod Gardenhire remains probably the best manager in baseball today, and he is playing in a division without another great team like his is.
NYM 89 U This one I am convinced cannot be right, as this Mets squad was a lot closer to winning 60 games than 90 games last year. Although the replacement of an idiot GM and loser coach will likely signal the end of the Mets as the doormat of the NL East, no way I am picking them to win 90 games this year even if they do bounce back a bit from last year's embarrassment.
NYY 96.5 U I was surprised to see the Yanks ahead of the Red Sox in terms of predicted wins, but then I remembered how New Yorkers tend to bet these things into the stratosphere and I think I have my answer. I like the Yankees to make a solid run this year, but I can't in good conscience pick them to win 97 games.
OAK O 81.5 I expect the As to take a very good pitching staff and finish over .500 on the 2011 season.
PHI 89.5 U Here is a line I referred to in a post a week or two ago, but I think the Phils' injury problems combined with an increasing vulnerability on offense to keep this team from winning 90 games this year, even with the addition of Cliff Lee and the best starting pitching rotation ever assembled.
PIT 68.5 U This line is so low that it is laughable, after 19 straight losing seasons out of the yellow and black. I'm still going Under for this season as well.
SDP 68.5 O Did we not learn anything from last season? Now I know the Padres fell eventually and ended up missing the playoffs entirely, but 69 wins? Come on.
SFG 79.5 O Here is another ridiculous line that I am convinced must be an error. The Giants look to me to be the team to beat in the National League this year, and I expect them to ride that pitching staff to an easily over-.500 record by the time the smoke clears on this season.
SEA 79.5 U I still cannot explain what made this team play so bad with Felix Hernandex and Cliff Lee in their rotation to start the 2010 season, but with Lee gone now I am more comfortable taking the Under and expecting a similar outcome here in 2011.
STL 84 U I can't quite put my finger on it, but something tells me the Cardinals are looking at a down year in 2011. 84 is a bit low and ultimately I think is probably very close to where this team finishes the season, but since I think the team will have an off year I will take my chances with another Under pick.
TAM 87.5 U Everyone loves the Rays this season, but with the Yankees looking strong, the Red Sox clearly improved, and the Orioles coming on, I will take a slight Under with this number and expect to squeak one out in the final week of the season this autumn.
TEX 77.5 O This may be the worst line in the entire list, as I think the Rangers are looking to post a very strong year on the back of one of the most potent offenses in the league. Even without Cliff Lee -- who only pitched mediocrely for the team in 2011 -- 78 wins should be a shoe-in for the best team in that division.
TOR 78.5 U Every year the Blue Jays are predicted to wallow in the uber-tough AL East, and many years they end up surprising on the upside. Not this year though with all the improvement in that division.
WAS 65.5 O I'll take the Over here against an impossibly low number, as the Nats added Jayson Werth who will win a few games both behind the plate and in the field, as well as Brice Harper from Vegas who should join with Steven Strasbourg to bring some much-needed excitement to our nation's capital.

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.