NFL Underdog Picks – Week 6
Published October 14, 2010 | 
Week 5 was another dominant week for my underdog picks. Going 4-1 with underdogs winning with Jaguars (+2.5), Chicago (+3), Pihladelphia (+3.5), and Tennessee as massive +7 dogs. The Loss was St. Louis (+3) over the Lions. They were dominated.
Last week was a crazy week for straight up predictions where we saw huge meltdowns by 4 favorites late in games: Green Bay meltdown to Washington, Bengals meltdown to the Buccaneers, New Orleans meltdown to the Cardinals, and the Chargers meltdown to the Raiders. Interesting that 3 of those QB’s are top 5 QB’s behind Manning and Brady (Rivers, Brees, Rodgers in that order). And Carson Palmer USED to be #3 behind Peyton and Tom.
Luckily, my predictions had the 4-1 on underdogs, to go 8-6 overall for the week. Week 5 cause 40 out of 60 computer systems tracked at thepredictiontracker.com do worse than .500. And a week that saw TeamRankings.com throw out a fat 4-10 (lower than all 60 tracked systems).
Week 6 I have 6 more underdogs predicted to win:
I definitely hate seeing 6 predicted underdogs to win in any week with my algorithms. There is a reason that the teams are underdogs on the Vegas line.
Ravens (+4, +165) at Patriots
The Ravens have played some of the best football in the NFL this season, making QB after QB look like Matt Cassell every week, and firing on all cylinders on offense. New England just traded Moss, which will make them a more efficient offense in theory. But losing that deep threat and matchup difficulty for teams to deal with will make Brady look more human again like he did before he got Moss and his stats exploded.
Falcons ( +2.5, +120) at Eagles
Vick is out, or is he? Reid is keeping that pretty much to himself, and taking it day to day. That will force Atlanta to game plan for both. Vick wants to play versus his old team. And if he does play, I won’t agree with the prediction just based on Vick’s hunger and his need to prove something o Atlanta fans. It’s a small line, but it’s still a little strange given the Falcons success this season. That being said, the Falcons could have easily lost the last 2 games versus the Browns and the Saints.
Buccaneers (+4, +165) vs. Saints
Buccaneers are at home and are playing really well under Josh Freeman, who has an 85 QB rating this season. The Saints kind of have their backs to the wall and are probably going to try and make this a statement game. That being said, the Buccaneers have the 6th ranked pass defense this season, and can take a huge leap in the division with a win over the Saints.
Cowboys (+1.5) at Vikings
It’s unclear how Favre will react to a tough week last week and the ongoing Dong picture investigation. With Moss there he sure will throw up some jump balls. I expect one huge TD for Moss and one forced INT to Moss from Favre. It’s a small line, I’ve got Cowboys as 75% favorites on the road. This is a must win for both teams and who ever loses almost certainly misses the playoffs.
Chiefs (+4, +165) at Houston
Houston has played very well at home this season, including beating the Colts in week 1. Outside of Matt Cassell, the Chiefs have been great. Last week Cassell wouldn’t have been that bad if Bowe didn’t drop 4 key passes. Kansas City will continued to be very well coached and very much underrated all season until they win that division.
Raiders(+6.5, +230) at San Francisco
Huge line against Oakland even though they are playing an 0-5 team. Niners owner Jed York has guaranteed the division win and playoff berth for the 49ers. Oakland isn’t terrible this year, much to the dismay of the Patriots who hold their 1st round pick. 49ers haven’t looked terrible, they just have awful game strategy game management. Those issues simply don’t go away in 5 days and they are still in offensive coordinator transition.
Get Your Popcorn Ready: NFL Is BACK
Published August 8, 2010 | 
The NFL pre-season kicked off tonight with the annual hall of fame game in canton, Ohio. The Bengals took on the Cowboys in a fairly typcial pre-season game.
The X-factor that made it interesting was Terrell Owens. His sudden departure from the Cowboys a little over a year ago made headlines and surprised no one but T.O. (he even said after the game he still thinks he should be a Cowboy).
T.O. is now catching Carson Palmer’s passes in Cincy alongside Chad OchentaCinco.
Say what you want about T.O. and his antics, but if you are one of those people who think he has lost two steps and doesn’t still ahve a top 15 WR game, you are wrongly mistaken. He put up pretty good numbers for a losing team with the most untalented batch of QB’s I’ve ever seen.
T.O. and OchoCinco will be impossible to cover, and will help Carson Palmer come back from a year that saw the Bengals be the 26th ranked passing team in the NFL. Strange enough, the Bengals had their worst passing year, and had one of Carson Palmer’s two best years.
It is just pre-season and no one really cares except head coaches and 4th string defensive backs. But the excitement is back and the NFL season is just on the horizon.
Check out the game’s Box Score.
Jerry Jones Dissing Parcell & Tebow, on Phone Camera (Video)
Published April 14, 2010 | 
Jerry Jones got drunk and started talking to some fans at the bar while they were recording him on one of their camera phones. The video is a pretty low quality video hosted by ESPN on youtube, but it’s defeinitely worth a watch and it’s pretty funny.
Wehn Jones was asked by the fans if the Jaguars would draft Tebow just to sell jersey’s he replied: “That’s the only reason I brought in [Bill] Parcells.” Followed by “Bill’s not worth a s***. I love him… But he isn’t worth a ****.”
On Tebow, when asked if he would take Tebow in the thrid round, he said: “WHY? I couldn’t get him on the field…” (amongst laughter) “I can’t get him out there.”
Check out the video clip:
Saturday Night Pick: DAL at NO
Published December 19, 2009 | 
Saints go into the game 13-0 this season looking to keep their perfection and keep up with the Colts. And if you aren’t living in a small secluded box somewhere in Guatemala, you’ve probably noticed its December. Well that means awful, just terrible things for the Cowboys as they are 4-8 since 2007 in December. Its worse than that though. They blow their playoffs seeding nearly every year and then go into the playoffs and wrap up the playoff game in a nice little bow and hand it over to their opponent for Christmas.
Well this time it may be different. Although the Cowboys lost another December game last week, this week they have a chance. The Cowboys clearly aren’t driven by playoff depth and success since they’ve had none. But maybe spoiling 65 guy’s lives by ruining their perfect season is just the thing to motivate Romo and the ‘Boys. By this point, the undefeated season is within reach for the Saints and starting to hit home just how important this feat could be. This could leave them looking ahead to week 17 and the Superbowl already.
I like the Saints to win still, but they are going to have to scrap for this one too. Trust the game will be within a TD at the end, and the Cowboys cover the 8 point spread and potential win a spoiler.