NFL Week 14

by StockJockey

Saturday, December 06, 2008 - 2:31 pm

The weather if turning cold, but Kevin’s hand remains hot. Be sure to check out Eatdrinkandsleepfootball.com

Take it away, Kevin…

Heading into to the final quarter of the football year, I am 41-24-1 (63.1%) at picking games against the spread (ATS). In comparison, the best-performing “expert” has picked 53.4% of the games correctly. I’m not saying...I’m just saying.

In my week 14 picks, you’ll notice two common themes: NFC South home teams, who are 22-2 at home this season, and teams playing the NFC West bottom-feeders.

New England Patriots -4.5 (over Seattle Seahawks): The Pats were embarrassed by the Steelers last week 33-10. Even though the Pats are a good but not great 7-5 this season, you have to go back to weeks 9 and 10 in 2006 to see the Pats lose back-to-back games. Matt Cassel, who’s about to become a very rich man in the off-season, had back-to-back 400-yard games before last week when he faced the #1-ranked Steelers’ pass defense. This week, he faces the league’s worst-ranked passing defense. He may not light them up for 400+ yards, but I would expect another huge week for Cassel.

New York Jets -4 (over San Francisco 49ers): Mike Singletary is one of the greatest MLBs in the history of the NFL. As the 49ers interim head coach, he began his tenure by mooning his players at halftime. Some argued that he did (or was going to) lose his team, but it looks like it’s working. The Niners are 2-2 since that game and playing much better. However, the J-E-T-S laid an egg last week against the Broncos and I see them running all over the 49ers (literally). Thomas Jones has 487 rushing yards and 6 rushing TDs in the past 4 games. In those games, he’s been consistent rushing for 100+ in 3 out of 4. The other was 96-yard performance. Look for the Jets to rebound this week and beat the 49ers easily.

Arizona Cardinals -14 (over St. Louis Rams): The Cards have lost back-to-back games against NFC East teams. Kurt Warner has commented about how difficult it is to be one-dimensional against good teams. Well, the good news for Kurt is they face the St. Louis Rams this week. The Rams have the 30th-ranked rush defense. The best performance by a Cardinals RB this season came against the Rams in week 9 when Tim Hightower had 109 rushing yards and a score. The Cards passing game speaks for itself. This is a big number (14 points), but this offense had 510 yards in their first matchup of the season. There’s no reason to believe they can’t do it again.

New Orleans Saints -3 (over Atlanta Falcons): Last week, using the NFC South-is-great-at-home strategy didn’t work. (The Bucs won the game by 3 points but missed covering by 1/2 of a point.) In any event, do you remember what happened the last time the Saints played at home? Without the versatile Reggie Bush, they lit up the Packers for a franchise-record 51 points on MNF. This game is going to be a shootout as neither team plays good defense. In fact, the Falcons defense (339 ypg) gives up just a little more than the Saints defense (338 ypg) does. With Reggie Bush back in the lineup, I like the Saints and Drew Brees in this shootout.

Carolina Panthers -3 (over Tampa Bay Buccaneers): The Bucs have given up the fewest rushing TDs in the NFL. Through 12 games, they have given up only 1 rushing TD. This week, they face the Carolina Panthers two-headed rushing attack in DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart. Williams is coming off a franchise-record 4-TD rushing performance and has 9 rushing TDs in the past 5 games. He has also tied a franchise record with scoring a TD in 6 consecutive games. This game will be a battle, but I expect the Panthers (who are 6-0 at home) to prevail.