Lions Betting

With emotions running high on both sides of the ball, one team (Florida) will benefit greatly. The other will suffer an embarrassing loss on New Year’s Day. Cincinnati is playing without former head coach Brian Kelly, who led the Bearcats to significant success in recent years

We really felt that Baltimore would play better Monday night at Green Bay last week but too many mistakes and penalties cost them the game. Joe Flacco has to stop thinking he is Joe Namath, start to play within himself as he did last year

Virginia coach Al Groh has beaten the Cavaliers’ arch rival Hokies just one time in his nine years at UVA. He and the Cavaliers look to make that number two and possibly avoid his firing this Saturday in Charlottesville. The Hokies are in a down year at 8-3 and will not contend for the ACC Championship,

Not quite the same allure as the Red River Rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma, but this week’s Bedlam Rivalry game is Oklahoma State’s Super Bowl. The Cowboys have had a tremendous season so far and Oklahoma is sitting at 6-5, ensured of its worst season since 1999

Boise State doesn’t play too many home games where they are only 14 point favorites, but that is exactly what they are this week when Nevada comes to play on the blue turf. Boise State needs a win this week, and badly. Though the Broncos are 11-0, their only hope for a BCS appearance

Despite an 11-0 record up to this point, Alabama still realistically needs to win its next two games to get into the National Championship. With Florida a perfect 11-0 as well, the Crimson Tide will need to beat Auburn this week and Florida in the SEC Championship

At first glance you might think that it was quite a shocker that Oakland beat Cincinnati last week, but at we said the Bengals were coming off their biggest win in years and might be flat. We also felt that Jamarcus Russell was hindering the Raider offense and the switch to anybody but he was the correct move

The Rams had to win sooner or later; it just might as well have been against the Lions. The Seahawks played O.K. against the Cowboys but were never in the game. This is another one of those, mid season, who cares games

The bloody Steelers had to choose last week to open up the offense, and shock the Chargers. You have to believe that they will come back to earth this week.

Both of these teams have problems. Miami really can’t play offense at the N.F.L. level. They look like a college or high school team at times, with their “Wildcat” offense and their quarterback who throws the ball like a shot put. Another quarterback, who has a funky delivery is Phillip Rivers

The next 2 games that we are picking, we are going a little bit out on a limb. There are 2 home dogs that both played very well last week as huge underdogs. Both teams had opportunities to win outright but didn’t.

The Falcons must have thought a lot of wide receiver Roddy White, who finished 2008 with 88 receptions for 1,382 yards and 7 touchdowns.