Well, I've decided to make?a career change. I'm going to make all of my money by picking NFL games. You'll see why that's funny when you see all of the red below.

• Pittsburgh 31 (-3), Cincinnati 17 (46 O/U) [P: $6.80, S: $10.00, O/U: ($10.00), T: $6.80]: My sole correct pick, and that (most likely) was only because Carson Palmer went down early on in the game with a torn ACL and MCL. He'll be out for a while. Due to that, Jon Kitna had to come in, and actually did a pretty decent job. But it wasn't enough, The Steelers won this game because they played their game - they didn't panick, even after going down by 10 early. A lot of coaches do, but Pittsburgh stayed with the game plan, and ended with 30+ rushes - over 60% of the offensive plays. That's smash mouth football! On the other side, despite missing your quarterback and having Rudi Johnson in the backfield, he only touched the ball 15 times (2 were passes). Kitna put the ball up 40 times, including two picks. Why? Who knows, but Marvin Lewis is fairly inexperienced in the playoffs. A case of the gitters?
• Jacksonville* 3, New England 28 (-8.5) (37 O/U) [P: $2.85, S: ($10.00), O/U: ($10.00), T: ($17.15)]: If they could go back, would the Jags have played Leftwich in week 17? If he was available, he could have used the work out.?Give he was going to be rusty, why didn't they run the ball more? When healthy, Fred Taylor can be dominating, yet he only got 8 rushes. I can hear the excuses now though - they were down big, so they had to pass. Except it was 7-3 at half time - actually it was that same score half way through the third. There's no excuse for not running more than that. Even New England roughly split passes and rushes 50/50. And what was Tom Brady's comment about the Patriots being underrated? They were the favorite despite having a worse record, and they've won two Super Bowls in a row. How can they be underrated?
• Washington 17, Tampa Bay 10 (-2.5) (37 O/U) [P: ($10.00), S: ($10.00), O/U: $9.09, T: ($10.91)]: This was probably the best game this weekend, yet I couldn't get into it. It was the only one that was anywhere near close at the end of the game. Simms showed that he is inexperienced and threw 2 picks, which eventually cost them the game. But ultimately, it was the game plan that caused the loss. Simms, an inexperienced quarterback, threw 38 times. They ran the ball 22 times. Yes, they were down for most of the game, but not by a lot. This is an example of a coach changing their game plan because they were down early, when in reality, being down by 14 early in a game isn't really cause for alarm. Stick to your game plan! I thought Gruden was better than that.
• Carolina 23, New York Giants 0 (-2.5) (43.5 O/U) [P: ($10.00), S: ($10.00), O/U: $9.71, T: ($10.29)]: In my opinion, this was the shocker of the weekend. Not so much that Carolina won (even though I thought the Giants would win), but that they shut out the Giants. What's the best way to shut out a team? Keep the ball to yourself! Carolina held the ball for more than 42 minutes! It's tough to win when you don't get the ball. Of course, Manning didn't help with his 3 picks. But that was due to Carolina's ability to stop Tiki Barber. He only got the ball 13 times, but wasn't able to do much with those carries - he only got 41 yards. And before you think I'm going to jump on the Giants for only running the ball 13 times, Manning only threw 18 times. It's hard to score with your defense - you can do it, but Carolina was very good at grinding the clock down- they ran over 40 times!

Results Summary

• Picks (this week): 2 - 2 (50.00%) - Winnings: ($10.35): I completely missed the NFC picks. Neither worked out as I expected, so that hurt.
• Spread (this week): 1 - 3 (25.00%) - Winnings: ($20.00): Watching the Pittsburgh game, I thought for a while I was going to go 0-4. Luckily, they pulled it out.
• Over/Under (this week): 2 - 2 (50.00%) - Winnings: ($1.20): Over/under is just too hard to predict!
• Total Weekly Winnings: ($31.55): Not a great way to start the playoffs.

Well, this is late obviously. I'll have my picks for this weekend out shortly after this post is up!

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