St. Louis over Detroit: upsets the last two weeks. I think bradford is for real, and the defense is getting on track.
Chicago over Carolina: Battle of the crappy qb’s. I give Chicago the edge because of Peppers and their ability to stop the run, which is just about the only thing Carolina can do.
Tennessee over Dallas: Tennessee is a lot better team than their record reflects, while Dallas is a lot worse.
The tough calls this week for me are Jac vs Buf and Indy vs KC. I went with the favorites (jak and Indy) but both are really hard calls. Jac needs Garrard to be even halfway decent, which he hasn’t except for last week. KC has Indy’s weakness: a great running game. Both of indy’s losses came when the other team pounded the ball on the ground.
But, handicappers’ spreads are more a prediction of how people will bet than they are a prediction of the game results.
Perhaps a clarification: The spreads change as game day approaches not because one team is becoming better in comparison to the other, but because the money in play is becoming lopsided. The same principle influences the initial spread. That’s exactly the thing that a successful bettor uses: find the games where “psychological factors” or whatever are skewing the spread, moving it against logic.
That’s classic Belichek. He’ll get some draft picks for him. Moss had 0 catches and only 1 target last week. (I know, my Fantasy opponent needed 12 lousy pints from him to beat me… )
Sounds like a Belichick vs Moss ego battle that’s been building for a while. It’s just fucking stupid that they can’t get their shit in order, they’ve got a good thing going.
With that, the Pats still make a profit off him. They got three 1000+ yard years out of him, plus a single season TD record and trade him for a pick one round higher then they paid to get him.
And then there’s the other picks in the draft that NE owns. Can’t remember which teams they are from, but they now have at least two picks in each of the first three rounds of the next draft.