Dallas Cowboys VS Minnesota Vikings NFC Football Playoffs Pick

Dallas Cowboys VS Minnesota Vikings NFC Football Playoffs Pick: This game is holding pretty steady at -3 or -2.5 at every book I’ve seen, and everyone and their mother expect this to be the closest of the playoff match-ups this weekend. It’s a cool combination, the Vikings struggling toward the end of the season and the Cowboys easily playing their best football in a long time, on both sides of the ball. Both teams have 12 wins, the Cowboys just needed an extra game to do it. These teams are actually pretty similar, just as the numbers insist.

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The Cowboys averaged just about 8 more points than their opponents, while the Vikings averaged about 10 more. This number would be a little closer if the Vikings didn’t pour it on the hapless Giants in Week 17, but who’s counting? The Cowboys average about 20 more yards than the Vikings offense, 5 more through the air and 15 more on the ground. But the Vikings averaged almost a touchdown more per contest. The Cowboys rank 2nd in total offense, finishing in the top 7 in both rushing and passing. The Vikings rank 5th in total offense, but are the 2nd highest scoring team in football.

The Cowboys defense gives up about 12 more yards per game than Minnesota, but 4 fewer points. Both teams are stingy against the run as the Cowboys rank 4th and the Vikings 2nd. Both teams can run it, both can pass it, and both are better at stopping the run than they are at stopping elite passers, and both can bring pressure on opposing quarterbacks. Both have great quarterbacks (Brett Favre and Tony Romo) and dangerous receivers, which means they can make aggressive defenses pay.

This should be a great game, but in a close one, I’m taking the team playing better football down the stretch, and the Cowboys have really impressed me over the last handful of weeks, I’ll take them – but just barely, and I’m already rooting against myself.

Dallas Cowboys (+3) @ Minnesota Vikings

Baltimore Ravens VS Indianapolis Colts: AFC Divisional Playoffs Pick

As I said in my Just Picks Newsletter, I think Peyton and the Colts will find a way to win this game. And while only rarely do winning teams actually lose against the spread, I think this game will be one of those. The Ravens have everything you want in a touchdown cover team. They have a running game that runs roughshod over opponents, they have a defense that limits the opposing offenses opportunities, and they make big plays on both sides of the ball. Why do I think the Ravens will win? Well, they have Peyton Manning.

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This game has already moved down to -5.5 at one book, and it’s slowly getting lower and lower everywhere else, as only one of the major books I “shop at” holds this game as the Colts favored by a touchdown. So far, 51% of the total bet coming in are on Baltimore to cover, but I see a couple books still show a huge public percentage taking the Colts, between 65 and 70% at some major books. With the spread shrinking and the public bet still staying close to 50%, I’m liking my Ravens pick.

The Ravens have only lost two games by more than 6 points, and their mid-season loss to the Colts wasn’t one of them, as they fell at home to Indy by just two points. They lost to Green Bay by 13 and Cincinnati by 10. And even those games were close. There are a lot of reasons to take the Ravens in this one, and at 7 points, they are always a safe bet.

Baltimore Ravens (+7) @ Indianapolis Colts

Arizona Cardinals VS New Orleans Saints: NFL NFC Divisional Playoffs

How can the Cardinals play as well as they did last weekend? Kurt Warner almost had more completions than he did attempts, and that’s actually impossible. The Saints defense is tougher than it gets credit for, and though they will be missing their starting defensive end, as Grant’s out for the season, they will be as healthy as they’ve been in the secondary in a long time. That will play a big role in this weekend’s tilt with the Cardinals. Because, if I know anything, I know Captain Kurt will be winging that pigskin around.

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The Saints lost their last 5 games against the spread and actually lost their final three games straight up. They were 8-8 ATS this season, just 2-8 ATS over their last 10 games, which means, yes, they were 6-0 ATS to start the season. Aside from their first loss of the season, in Dallas in Week 15, the Saints dominated playoff teams, beating the Eagles 48-22, the Jets 24-10, and the Patriots 38-17. The question is, which Saints team will show up? The team that dominated both sides of the ball during the first 13 games of the season or the team that held on for dear life in the last 3 games, two of which they were actually trying to win?

The Cardinals rarely put two solid games together all season long. They won a few big games against big time opponents (okay, they only playoff team they beat during the regular season was Minnesota) but most of their good wins were either surrounded by losses or followed by them. I expect the Saints to play their best football of the last 6 weeks, and I suspect that will be enough to beat a Cardinals team that won’t be on fire like they were last week.

Arizona Cardinals @ New Orleans Saints (-7)

Green Bay Packers VS Arizona Cardinals NFC Wildcard Weekend Pick

Green Bay Packers VS Arizona Cardinals NFC Wildcard Weekend Pick: This is my favorite upset of the week, and it has been from the get go. However, looking at it now, it looks as though I’m not the only one picking the Packers to dismantle the Cardinals in Arizona this Sunday. 63% of the public betting on the spread like the Packers to cover, and those are the late numbers. Early percentages were so high that the books responded, moving this spread all the way to even in most sports books as I write this. I see experts taking the Packers at a 2 to 1 clip, and even ESPN’s Suomi likes Green Bay.

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If Anquan Boldin were playing, the Cardinals would have one advantage in this football game, but with him out, the only thing the Cardinals have over the Packers is experience. Arizona made it all the way to the big show last season, playing just one home game, and falling just a few seconds short of taking home the title. But I don’t see that same Cardinals team this season. Arizona has been very inconsistent all season long, and there’s something about the Packers final half of the season that has me admiring their team.

The Packers lost just one game over the final half of the season, as a touchdown pass by Ben Roethlisberger as time expired in Pittsburgh gave the Steelers a 37-36 win. But outside of that, the packers have dominated. During those 8 games, the Packers handled 3 playoff teams, winning by a combined 77-28. Green Bay’s offense has impressed me all year, but it’s their growth in that 3-4 defense that gives them the nod here. Great corners against a less than full strength Cardinals receiving corps, and pass rushers galore -yeah, I like the packers.

Green Bay Packers (+3) @ Arizona Cardinals

Baltimore Ravens VS New England Patriots: AFC Playoff Prediction

Baltimore Ravens VS New England Patriots, AFC Playoff Prediction: Like I said earlier in the week in my Just Picks newsletter, the Patriots rarely lose games against an opponent without an elite passing attack. Now, the Ravens are much better this season than they’ve been in years’ past, and Joe Flacco has definitely grown as a pro-quarterback in his sophomore season, but the Ravens are far from elite in the passing game.

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In the running game, they are as scary, if not more-so than ever before. Ray Rice has transformed into one of the game’s most explosive rushing/receiving threats out of the backfield, and Willis McGahee has shown brilliant flashes of his old self when given the opportunity to run the ball. As an offensive line, the Ravens have dominated the line of scrimmage this season.

The question will be, can the Ravens keep up with the Patriots offense. And that depends which offense shows up. Already, the Patriots will be without their leading receiver this season, as Wes Welker and his 120+ receptions suffered a bad knee injury in the season finale and will likely be out into next season. But Julian Edelman is a good young player in the Welker mode, and it will likely come down to Tom Brady and the great quarterback’s accuracy. Tom has had his ups and downs this season, a year after shredding his own knee on opening day, and it’s been tough to predict which Brady will show up, and how consistent he’ll be from half to half.

But I like the Patriots in this one. They have an underrated defense, and especially in the run-D aspect of it. They are sure tacklers and have a plethora of sound tacklers. If Brady can find the same holes in the Ravens secondary that other elite passers have found, the Patriots should win and cover at home.

Baltimore Ravens @ New England Patriots (-3)

Philadelphia Eagles VS Dallas Cowboys: Wild Card Saturday Pick

Philadelphia Eagles VS Dallas Cowboys, Wild Card Saturday Pick: This is a tough one for me because either one of these teams can come out and drop a little nugget right down their collective pant legs, if you know what I mean. And while Dallas has proven their worth by smacking Philly twice already this season, on the road and at home, it’s hard for me to take the Cowboys as a 4 point favorite.

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I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense, I’m just saying it’s tough for me to do it. The Cowboys have turned their “late season swoon” right around, winning their last three games, including handing the Saints their first loss of the season. But prior to the Dallas game, it was Philly playing like the best team in football, climbing from mediocre to a win away from a 1st round bye. What a difference a game makes, eh? Philly came out with no pop, got dominated on both sides of the ball, and now they are playing a first round game in Dallas as a 4 point underdog. Their biggest underdog spread of the season.

But that’s part of the reason I’m taking Philly. The spread is inflated because of the substantial beatdown Dallas put on the Eagles last week. The Cowboys are hardly the best team Philly has faced. Philly won 6 straight prior to losing in Dallas, and I don’t think there’s anyway the Eagles play as poorly as they did last week.

Now I’m throwing a little caution to the masses here, the Eagles have just one win all season long against a team with a winning record. And that team, Atlanta, didn’t make the playoffs at 9-7. Interesting, huh? I still like Philly, but be careful.

Philadelphia Eagles (+4) @ Dallas Cowboys

New York Jets VS Cincinnati Bengals: AFC Wildcard Playoff Game Pick

I got this game when the Bengals were favored by just a single point, a little while after they opened at -4, and before the line moved by up to -3. Right now, you can find the line anywhere between the Bengals being favored by 2-3 points. And as the line has moved around with haste and ferocity, the public percentage has moved around as well. Right now, the Bengals are seeing about 61% of the bets, but the early money was on New York. Not that any of that stuff matters.

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I wonder what this line would have been had the Bengals sat their starters for Sunday’s entire game. Even if the Jets had won easily, in that case, I think the Bengals would have been favored by a couple more points – but maybe not. Either way, it’s hard for me to put too much weight into one single game. The Bengals have played better with Cedric Benson running the ball. His strength and aggressiveness is a huge part of Cincinnati’s offense, and he’ll be back on the field this week, that should help the Bengals get things going. And while Cincinnati definitely got pushed around by the Jets solid run-defense, it’s hard for me to foresee that happening again this Sunday.

Both these teams are good, both are tough, and both bring it on both sides of the ball. The difference in these two teams is at quarterback where the Bengals have Carson Palmer and the Jets have a rookie, Mark Sanchez. That give the Bengals the advantage in my book. When you add that to the reality that Cincinnati played their worst football of the season last week in New York, and the Jets played one of their best all around games all season long, I think you get a Bengals victory at home. Extremes like that often have a way of evening themselves out. It’s tough to beat up a good football team twice in one year, let alone twice in one week.

New York Jets @ Cincinnati Bengals (-1)

2009-2010 NFL Free ATS Picks Review for the Regular Season

This is the ultimate review. All season long I’ve been picking every single game that was played, and this is my regular season end game. It was one of my best years since I started writing sports articles, and sharing my knowledge with thousands of people weekly. It’s been an amazing season, in a lot of different ways, but here’s a review of my free picks. I lay out my records for every single week of the season – the winning weeks are in bold – and I must say, there’s a lot more records in bold than not.

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2009-2010 NFL Free Picks Review

Week 1: 11-5
Week 2: 10-6
Week 3: 6-10
Week 4: 6-8
Week 5: 7-7
Week 6: 9-5
Week 7: 9-3-1
Week 8: 7-6
Week 9: 8-5
Week 10: 8-7
Week 11: 9-7
Week 12: 9-7
Week 13: 7-9
Week 14: 9-7
Week 15: 8-7-1
Week 16: 10-5-1
Week 17: 8-7-1

The closer you look, the more you see – and you’ll see I had 3 losing records in 17 weeks of free picks. I had 1 push. That means I busted out 13 winning weeks while picking every single game. My final record for the NFL regular season was 141-111. I hope you enjoyed the free picks, took advantage of the newsletter that started later in the year, and appreciate all the writing at luckylester.com. It was a good year indeed!

NFL Free Picks Review: Week 17 Predictions Revisited

Well, the final week has come and gone, and definitely left its mark on us. A couple games went exactly how I figured, and I thought I was a genius. The other games had me scratching my head. The Houston Texans came in and beat the Patriots 1st team – as New England basically played their starters throughout the entire game. But it wasn’t by enough, as I finished a half point out of that win. I, of course, thought the Pats would sit their main guys most of the day. Wrong. Some others went well and a couple more went wrong, but in the end I finished 8-7-1, pumping out yet another winning week…

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Indianapolis Colts @ Buffalo Bills (-7) (WINNER) The Colts were playing in the middle of a blizzard, not only the weather, but a guy name Fred Jackson. Keep Fred’s name high on your off-season fantasy rankings, the guy will be the focal point of Buffalo’s offense next season. Just as I suspected, the starters in Buffalo are better than the back-ups in Indy.

New Orleans Saints (+8.5) @ Carolina Panthers (LOSS) I knew I was in trouble when Jonathan Stewart took it to the house before the game even really started. I got lost in the “we’re going to win, we’re the Saints” way of thinking and thought Mark Brunell could do enough. Wrong. The Panthers whooped the Saints.

Jacksonville Jaguars (+3) @ Cleveland Browns (LOSS) The Jaguars are unbelievable – how does a head coach of a team in the playoff hunt come into a must win game against a crappy Browns team and get a terrible performance from his team? There’s no excuse for that, I don’t care if you’re Tom freaking Landry, your ace should be jobless for a couple weeks after that garbage. My fault, I didn’t realize how high the Jaguars could turn up the suck.

Chicago Bears (-3) @ Detroit Lions (WINNER) Gotta give it to the Bears, they certainly made it interesting but pulled away when they realized they were playing against the Lions. That about sums it up.

New England Patriots @ Houston Texans (-7.5) (LOSS) Oh Bill, don’t you know that every move you have made this year has ultimately back-fired? When you decided to start your best guys and go for the win, you should have flipped the switch, picked tails over heads, gone opposite day psycho on us, I don’t know – but Wes Welker took the brunt of the whole thing. The Patriots lost, by just enough to cover, after they played starters 00% of the game. A mis-read on the playing time thing made it a tough game for a guy.

Pittsburgh Steelers (-3) @ Miami Dolphins (WINNER) The Steelers were a really tough match-up for the Dolphins, and they were playing with a little more jalapeno on their pepper jack, and came out victorious. But it was close, and it’s possible that if the Dolphins didn’t have quarterback trouble, health-wise, the Fins might have pulled the upset. But Pittsburgh won again, and pulled it out by 6.

New York Giants @ Minnesota Vikings (-7.5) (WINNER) The Giants had given up. Whew, that one made me sweat. I hope Tom Coughlin gets fired – wait, I don’t hope that really, I’d rather just hate the Giants and get to see them struggle again next season so I can see Tom and Eli have a stupid face competition for one more year.

San Francisco 49ers (-7) @ St. Louis Rams (WINNER) San Francisco tried to come out and lose, starting with no swagger, no push, no nothing. But the Rams could only put up a field goal during those early quarters, and San Francisco came out in the 3rd quarter and managed to finish the game on a 28-3 run. I wonder what Samari Mike did at half time to elicit that kind of football? Hmm…

Atlanta Falcons (-1) @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers (WINNER) The Bucs really improved this season, and it showed in the final week as they pushed the Falcons until the very end, making me realize that the oddsmakers weren’t actually crazy. But it ended right for me in the end as the Falcons won by 10 anyway – haha, books, take that!

Philadelphia Eagles (+3) @ Dallas Cowboys (LOSS) Wow, the Eagles pulled a Cowboys… They finished the season just like Dallas did last year, but this time the Eagles get the luxury of a second chance – but instead of it being after a 1st round bye and in their house, they get to travel to Dallas next week. Maybe they should have tried this week?

Green Bay Packers @ Arizona Cardinals (-3) (LOSS) The Packers were the team looking like they had something to play for. And maybe that was what got me in the end. Arizona found out that Minnesota won, and they suddenly had nothing to play for. Green Bay came out trying to beat the piss out of the team they will be playing next week, and they certainly did that. But it was against back-ups for much of the game. We’ll see how it goes next week, something tells me the Cardinals will be playing starters…

Kansas City Chiefs (+13.5) @ Denver Broncos (WINNER) The Chiefs won outright, and made me feel really good about saying, “This game has upset written all over it,” among other things. The Chiefs had me looking brilliant as they ran all over the Broncos for the feel good end-of-the-year victory.

Baltimore Ravens (-10) @ Oakland Raiders (LOSS) The Ravens just didn’t push it enough to blowout the Raiders, even though Oakland got a guest appearance from JaMarcus “never cover the spread” Russell, apparently he didn’t play long enough. Oakland was impressive, but the Ravens never looked like they were going to lose despite the close score.

Washington Redskins (+4) @ San Diego Chargers (WINNER) The Redskins were up in the 4th and lost anyway, weird. Even against back-ups, the same stuff continues to happen. I wonder if Mike Shannahan will have that same problem? Either way, the Chargers didn’t win by enough, as the Redskins covered by a point. A big point, too, the win assured me yet another winning week.

Tennessee Titans (-4) @ Seattle Seahawks (Push) The Titans came out to get Chris Johnson as many touches as he could and get some records or hit some yardage milestones. Well, for the first time this year, the Hawks came and executed a play pretty well. They wanted to make life as tough as possible for Chris, and they hit him hard and often. Johnson still became the leading Titan single season rusher, scored a couple touchdowns, and finished the year with the best total yardage mark of all time – but he needed 36 carries to do so, and he’ll be grateful there’s no game next week so he can rest. He got hit hard. The Hawks tough play actually ended in a push, and I must say, I didn’t expect them to come out with any will at all. They must have fought the evil Jim Mora curse this week, goldbaum, chili powder, and alfredo will do the trick every time…

Cincinnati Bengals (+10.5) @ New York Jets (LOSS) I thought this game would be tough for the Jets as the Bengals always play close games, tough defense, and the Jets have a really hard time moving the ball offensively. I was wrong. Cinci came out playing thier starters, and tricking the public into believing they were playing to win. But Carson Palmer ended 1/11 for 0 yards and an INT – while Ochonacho finished without a catch for the first time in 125 games… Tough game for me, I thought it would be a lot tighter than that. The do-over next week in Cincinnati should be interesting…

Cincinnati Bengals vs New York Jets Sunday Night Football

The Jets had some awesome luck going against the Colts in Week 16 (undefeated yet didn’t care enough about that to actually play their starters, basically feeding the Jets a must-have win) and now they get another team “resting up” for the playoffs when Cincinnati comes to town with absolutely nothing to gain from a win and nothing to lose from a loss. Lucky. And you know what they say, it’s better to be lucky than good.

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And while I fully expect the Jets to win and all of a sudden take over the spot of “worst playoff team” I think it’s going to be close than double digits. The Bengals still have a solid offensive line and a bunch of young studs defensively. They can’t sit everyone, and you can bet those young guys will make some plays. Ten points is a lot for New York to outscore a good defensive team by, even if the starters play only a handful of snaps.

And the Bengals can run it. They will have Larry Johnson ready to take over for Cedric Benson when CB is ready to get his rest on, and that’s a pretty nice option to have for Bengals backers. This game is no guarantee, but I like it to be close – as Mark Sanchez will have a lot of pressure on his to succeed in this one, the playoffs rest on the rookie’s arm – no big deal, right?

Cincinnati Bengals (+10.5) @ New York Jets