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Nfl Football Prediction - August 09, 2008Below is our annual primer on how to bet the preseason, as well as four picks for the Thursday through Sunday games. We'll let you know Monday if we have a pick in the Monday Night game. Good luck! NFL Season Win Totals Picks  Today's NFL Football Picks: It is going to be difficult psychologically for bettors to look at a New England game and resist them as just a mere 5 point favorite at home. What we must do however is keep this in perspective. This is an exhibition game! The logo on the helmets and regular season success and failure do not come into play here. But the oddsmakers are forced by the hand of the betting public to consider a few extra points. Even with that said over 60% have already pulled the trigger for the Pats in this one. The Pats opened the season in 2007 scoring 30+ points in their first eight regular-season games. A great start, right? Consider however they did not reach 30 in a single exhibition game. Brady threw seven passes in the opener last season. The result was 10 total points scored and a Patriot loss. Their's no doubt this offense will turn it on come September, but the preseason is a different animal all together. The Patriots have been an elite team for years, but over the last three exhibition seasons they have been favored by 4 or more points three times and have not covered a single one. In contrast, we have the Baltimore Ravens with a first year coach in John Harbaugh. What does that mean? First year coaches are new for a reason - their teams were bad last season - bad enough to fire their head man. New coaches come in for one reason - to change things. They want to win from the start, more than entrenched coaches, and especially more than coaches of teams so good that have nothing to prove to anyone (i.e. the Pats). These first-year coaches want to change the culture of losing and as such, they put more of an emphasis on winning in the preseason. Does Harbaugh want to win here? Yes! Does Bellichick? He could really care less. The Patriots have dropped two of their last three ehibition home openers outright. We will back the more motivated Ravens here to keep this one close, or even steal one. Game: San Francisco at Oakland (Friday 8/08 10:00 PM Eastern) Pick: 2 units on San Francisco +2.5 (-110) (risk 2 to win 1.8) If there's such a thing as a preseason rivalry, this is a good one as the Battle of the Bay takes place in Oakland this year. Raiders fans have not left this one happy on too many occasions. Since this series has started, eight games have been played with Oakland coming away with the cover just twice. We don't think things are going to change much here. There seems to be more emphasis on this game by the Niners, as they won just one preseason game last season and that was in this game. Even though it was only the second exhibition game, Mike Nolan had Alex Smith and Trent Dilfer play almost the entire game, piling up 26 points for the win. One important note here is the addition of new offensive coordinator Mike Martz for the Niners. Martz, known as an offensive wiz, came over in the offseason from the Lions. If you look at Detroit's offense in the preseason under Martz, they put up 27 points in game one a year ago and 20 in the opener the year before. We also don't think the Raiders, with their historically terrible team and many new cogs, should be favored in their first game out. We look for the San Francisco offense to show the Martz influence here, and continue their exhibition dominace over the Raiders. Game: Buffalo at Washington (Saturday 8/09 7:00 PM Eastern) Pick: 2 units on Buffalo +5.5 (-110) (risk 2 to win 1.8) Most people look to game three of the preseason as the game where coaches open it up and play the starters for most of the game in order to come out feeling prepared for the regular season. While as a rule this is true, some teams don't wait for game three. The Bills have covered their last five preseason openers and all three under Dick Jauron. Last year Trent Edwards and J.P. Losman threw 17 of the 24 passes the Bills attempted. Two years ago in game one, Losman threw 24 passes. It seems as though coach Jauron wants that first game to be a win. Even if it doesn't mean much in the scheme of things, it counts towards his teams' (fragile) ego. Washington has a game under its belt after defeating the Colts in convincing fashion in the Hall of Fame game. They are content and playing on short rest. They already have their "W" so we expect to see a lot of different Skins jerseys on the field for this one. This is a lot of points for an NFL-X game and the way Jauron has handled the opener as the Bills head coach, we expect more effort from the visitor here. Game: Tampa Bay at Miami (Saturday 8/09 7:30 PM Eastern) Pick: 2 units on Tampa Bay +2 (-110) (risk 2 to win 1.8) The Dolphins travel to face the Bucs in an intrastate exhibition rivalry in Florida. This has been an ultra-competitive series with seven of the last nine decided by 3 points or less. Miami has only covered one of the last six, and over a 10-year period the Bucs have been a dog just twice, winning the game both times. John Gruden has always seemed to get the Bucs to play harder than you'd expect in preseason games, as they have gone 15-8-1 ATS in his last six years as Bucs coach during the NFL-X. Tony Sparano takes over for the Dolphins, who were horrible last season at 1-15. They were bad the year prior too. Despite their team's obvious problems, and the recent results in this matchup, the Fins are marked the favorite. We view that as a soft line and we'll grab the Gruden and the Bucs. Results: 3-1 NFL Football Picks Resources:
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