NFL picks – week 11 – Soups on Hockey

ANOTHER losing week. 2-3, this is getting annoying. Tough time of the year to pick games, and combine that with good bounces at the start of the year it doesn’t add up to a lot of wins. But on the plus side, I’ve never had worse than a 2-3 week and I’m still 29-21 on the season. It will turn, and hopefully this is the week it turns. As you can tell I’ve lost my swagger with my NFL picks. No longer bragging about the record, not going to call going 5-0 this week, I’m like Roberto Luongo at playoff time! Head down, keep grinding. Actually that’s not what Luongo did, he finally won a big game against Tim Thomas and then proceeded to beek off in the media about how he would have stopped the one shot that got by Thomas. Luongo then went 0-2, got yanked in game 6 and fell flat on his face in game 7….Ok so let’s hope I’m not Luongo.

Cleveland at Dallas

Cleveland +8

I see a tight game here. The Browns are playing teams tough, and they’re coming off their bye week. I’m bigger on the Cowboys than most people, and they’ll win this game, but they’ll struggle to do so. It’s just something that the Cowboys do. They’ll have a convincing win like they just had against the Eagles, then they’ll have a let down at home against a Browns team that people assume they should just blowout. Trent Richardson will be tough to stop and the Browns defense will be tough to score against.

Green Bay at Detroit

Green Bay -4

The Pack are coming off a bye just like the Browns. Love teams coming off a bye, love them even more when they’re just putting it all together like the Pack are. The Lions just can’t get back to where they were at the start of last season. That was a brutal effort against the Vikings last week. Now they get the Pack at home with their season on the line and if you recall last Thanksgiving this matchup when horribly wrong for the Lions. Rodgers will destroy that defense, and while I’m still big on Mathew Stafford and Calvin Johnson they just haven’t been consistent all season. Colin Cowherd and the Vegas sharp’s think the Lions in this game, but I believe they’re looking too much at statistics here and not at the fact that the Packers are coming off a bye and are a MUCH better team. Add to that, they took the Lions at +3.5 and I’m going with the Pack at -4, I’m a dice roller in this one!

Tampa Bay at Carolina

Carolina +2

I HATE the Panthers! Cam Newton was overrated. This team was overrated. But I can fully admit that Newton and the Panthers have played much better of late. Yes I know they got boat raced by the Broncos, but the Broncos are one of the best teams in the NFL right now. Josh Freeman isn’t Peyton Manning and the Bucs don’t have anywhere near the defense the Broncos do. The Bucs have had a tough schedule of late, this is the 4th different city they’ve played in the last 4 weeks, that’s a lot of travel. Add in that divisional games are always tougher and tighter and I like the home team getting points in this matchup.

Indianapolis at New England

Indianapolis +9

The Colts will have had 10 days off, and in case Vegas hasn’t realized it yet Andrew Luck is getting better and better. The Pats likely win this game, but it will be kept close. The Colts believe they’re a playoff team. The Pats meanwhile are winning, but other than the Rams win the Pats haven’t won any game easy this season so I don’t see why a hungry and rested Colts team would be any different. Big fan of this pick, been on the Andrew Luck bandwagon for a long time now and won’t be getting off anytime soon!

Baltimore at Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh +4

Loving this pick. Call me crazy but I think I know exactly how the Steelers will play this game. No Big Ben, so they’ll grind it out on the ground with Dwyer and Redman, and people still don’t seem to notice that the Ravens run defense just hasn’t been that good. It will be a very heavy dose of them 2, and don’t sleep on Leftwich. He can get the job done in the short term. He can hit Mike Wallace deep, no Smith or Webb will help that even more. The big thing for him is to get protection. So basically I’m saying that 4.5 is too many points. This is the Steelers and the Ravens, outside of opening day last year this is always a tight contest.

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