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Top pick this week was DA BEARS. Bears win 41-3. Enough said.

No pick for Sunday Night. San Diego Chargers @ New Orleans Saints (-3.5) is a toss up to me. If you want to play it, you’re better off flipping a coin. I’m taking the Chargers +3.5 in the pick ’em league, but not putting my money on it.

I already made a killing thanks to DA BEARS and stand to gain even more if I hit on the Texans tomorrow night.

Bet with honour [sic] gentlemen.

…

Your boy Brandon Phillips is back! He had a 4-1 ATS record on Saturday with Utah State, Clemson, NC State, and Notre Dame. He essentially went as far as calling out an NC State upset over the #4 Florida State Seminoles. In the previous week he hit 2-of-3. 6-2 ATS in the last two weeks… well done sir. He could have even went 5-0 ATS this week if he would have hit on Missouri, but Missouri lost their starting QB in the first quarter of the game and their backup was completely worthless.

Last week, my NFL picks went 10-4 ATS, my best weekly record of the season. A lot of home dogs have been spoiling everyone’s picks in the first three weeks, but the road favorites got back to domination last week. I tried sticking with home favorites last week who let me down, and I passed on some road favorites that I wanted to take, but my teaser picks kept me in the game. I then hit back-to-back winners in the night games thanks to  Bears (+3.5) and Rams (+2).  If you would read my writes ups from those games, the key points being made were spot on.

Heading into Sunday, my favorite pick is the Chicago Bears (-5) over Jacksonville Jaguars. When you have the 32nd ranked offense vs. the 3rd ranked defense, the Jaguars should be hard-pressed to score. I expect the Bears to attack the Jaguars like they attacked the Cowboys and the Jaguars offense should be completely shut down. They’ll maybe score 10 points tops. I have faith in Cutler, Forte, and Marshall to take care of business on the road and put this one away in the 3rd quarter …

We delivered back-to-back winners on Monday and Thursday Night by going with the dogs. We played the Bears (+3.5) and Rams (+2) to take down some easy wins to build up the bank roll heading into week 5 of the NFL. There’s a lot of road favorites this week that I like. In weeks 1-3, the home dogs dominated, but that all changed in week 4 when a lot of road favorites got easy covers (49ers, Patriots, and Bengals). Is this the week the road favorites continue domination or will we be stunned once again by the unpredictable home dogs? We’ll find out this Sunday. Here’s what’s on tap.

Houston Texans (-9) over NEW YORK JETS — Confidence: 8/10 — The Jets have one of the worst offenses in the league, 28th in yards and 23rd in points to be exact. We saw how terrible their offense was against the 49ers defense. 145 total yards, 9 first downs, 4 turnovers, 23 minutes of possession, 2-of-13 on third down — and they failed to score a single point. It was pathetic. They also lost WR Santonio Holmes to boot.  This should be the exact same story when they face the Houston’s 1st-ranked defense. The only difference is that this game is on Monday Night. That’s not going to be enough to give the Jets a shot in this one as I’m calling a blow out. Houston wins in the ballpark of 27-6 in my opinion.

Chicago Bears (-5) over JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS  — Confidence: 8/10 — When you have the worst offense in the league taking on one of the league’s best defenses in the Bears, I’ll take the Bears every time. The Bengals dominated the Jaguars 27-10 in Jacksonville last week …

ARIZONA CARDINALS @ ST. LOUIS RAMS (+2)

I’m taking the Rams tonight. This is solely a situtional play for me here. 60% of the public likes the Cardinals. The Rams are at home twice in a row where they start the season 2-0. They found a win over the Seahawks and beat the Redskins at home thus far this year. The Cardinals aren’t going 16-0 and they should have lost to the Dolphins last week. I’m smelling a let-down game in the air for the Cards tonight.

Tannehill looked like the second coming of Dan Marino (absent the interceptions) by passing for over 400 yards last week. The Cardinals have played at home twice in a row and now have to travel to St. Louis on a short week to take on a Rams team that has looked solid thus far at home. Although the Rams topped the Seahawks last week, their lone touchdown came from a fake field goal. The rest of their points were on 4 field goals. The Seahawks have a strong defense though, so it’s no surprise that the Rams were stymied offensively last week.

What was impressive was the job that the Rams defense did against the Seahawks.  Picking off Russell Wilson three times, holding him to 160 yards, and allowing just 2-of-9 third-down conversions. The Rams defense has improved and Bradford has had two really strong games against the Lions and Redskins. Bradford is a much better quarterback than Kevin Kolb, which is another reason I’ll stick with the Rams at home. Kolb was sacked 8 times and he threw 2 INTs last week.

As I said before, the Rams looks like the play here solely as a situation play — they’re at home …

The survivor pool that I am in is already down to 3 teams from 50. There was a flury of upsets in week 3 — Chiefs beat Saints, Raiders beat Steelers, and Titans beat Lions. Hopefully, you went with Bears over Rams in week 3. Our week 4 survivor pool pick was Ravens over Browns. Let’s recap which teams are out for us:

Week 1 – Houston Texans over Miami Dolphins
Week 2 – Cincinnati Bengals over Cleveland Browns
Week 3 – Chicago Bears over St. Louis Rams
Week 4 – Baltimore Ravens over Cleveland Browns

There are a few games to choose from in week 5. As you can see, my favorite strategy for survivor pools is to take whatever team is playing the Cleveland Browns. This week that’s the New York Giants. I’m always hesitant to pick the Giants since they ended my 2011 survivor pool after getting upset by the visiting Seattle Seahawks. The Giants simply tend to not play up to their full potential against weaker opponents.

Other options for you to choose from are the Green Bay Packers over Indianapolis Colts, but the Packers are on the road this week. The last option that I see is the San Francisco 49ers at home over the Buffalo Bills.

I don’t think you can miss with either the Giants, Packers, or 49ers, it’s simply a matter of personal choice. If we look ahead to future weeks, Atlanta Falcons over Oakland Raiders in week 6 seems like the pick. In week 7, you’ll like want to take the 49ers at home over the Seahawks. In week 8, you with the Green Bay Packers at home over the Jaguars.

Since I am trying to save the 49ers and Packers …

It was a wild Sunday for me. After being thunderstruck by home dogs this year, I took a pledge from taking a week off from betting against any home dogs. In doing so, I passed on some spreads that I really wanted to take such as Patriots (-4) over Bills, 49ers (-4) over Jets, and Bengals (-2.5) over Jaguars. The home dog didn’t get there way in those games and they were all easy winners.

Instead, I tried to identify the strongest home teams and took the Falcons and Cardinals. I lost those two plays against the spread, but I decided to hedge my bets by teasing those spreads down so the spread wasn’t a factor. I hit my teasers and ended up Sunday in positive territory after going 3-for-3 on Saturday thanks to Brandon’s two picks and Texas over Oklahoma State. I managed to hit my teasers thanks to a last-second field goal in the Falcons game and an overtime win in the Cardinals game, which proves that it’s better to be lucky than good. Let’s get into Monday Night’s game.

CHICAGO BEARS (+3.5) @ DALLAS COWBOYS

Dallas hasn’t been very impressive the last two weeks. After scoring just 7 points against Seattle and pretty much getting rocked by the Seahawks, the Cowboys managed a mere 16-10 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on their home turf.

I like taking the Bears and the points tonight. This game is all about defense. Chicago’s defense has been tremendous this year. The Bears rank 1st in sacks and 2nd in takeaways. Dallas has a pretty solid defense themselves. With the over/under at 41.5, I think the opportunity can be taken to tease the over/under to under 48.5 to pair up with …

I went 7-2 ATS at 1:00 and 9-4 ATS after the 4:00 games. Unfortunately, my top pick at 1:00 was one of my two losses. I was high on the Falcons after they’ve dominated their first three games. I knew the Panthers would have some fight in them, but thought their defense would let them down just like the Giants game. I was forecasting a 10-14 win by the Falcons, but the Falcons barely squeaked by with the victory.

Good thing I said to hedge your bets as I recommended two teasers: Falcons/Cardinals and Falcons/Broncos, which both hit. The pundits who said take the points rather than lay the points were right and I’m glad I listened right before kickoff. Hopefully, you were also able to jump on those teasers. I also played a third teaser of Cardinals (+3)/Broncos/Packers (-0.5) at 4:00, which I also hit by the skin of my teeth thanks to a lot of luck. I got incredibly lucky hitting all three teasers as the Falcons and the Cardinals both should have lost — they both came from behind to win — but sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.

As Andy Reid always says after a disappointing loss, “we have to find a way to get better.” The home dogs have royally screwed up my head. I should have been all over the Patriots, 49ers, and Bengals this week, but I saw a home dog and avoided them like the plague — looking solely at home teams this week. If it wasn’t for a hot start for the home dogs, I would have made all of them my top plays instead of opting for the Falcons or Cardinals. My teasers bailed out my misses …