We went 2-3 on Sunday and now stand at 3-3 on the week and 11-13 on a unit basis. It all comes down to Monday Night as look for a winning week with a win in the Cincinnati/Indy game.

RESULTS: Last 5 Years NFL Full-Season Profit $100 per unit players have made $7,881 $500 per unit players have made $39,405 $1000 per unit players have made $78,810 View more results: last 12 months & detailed by season

NFL Straight-Up Picks - Office Pool Picks & Computer Predictions
Looking for straight-up (not against the spread) picks for use in your office pool? Check out our NFL football office pool picks. Each game is picked with an assigned value. We also have NFL computer predictions for every game on the board. A NOTE FOR POINTSPREAD PLAYERS: these are NOT my official picks - they do not take into account anything other than raw stats (emotions, situations, etc). They are useful for office pools and as one input to handicapping but should not be played blindly.

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We rate each pick 1 to 5 units with 5 being the strongest play (read about units).
Risk 1% of your bankroll per unit (never risk more than 5% of total bankroll on any pick).

Game: Cincinnati at Indianapolis (Monday 12/18 8:30 PM Eastern)
Pick: 4 units on UNDER 54.5

Who can forget last year's matchup between these two teams? There were 943 yards and 92 points. It's all anyone can talk about this week as it relates to this game. Most expect the same thing here but not us. It's not the same teams and the situation is different. Indianapolis is scoring much less (averaging just 22 ppg over their last five games). Indy has always considered an "OVER" team but in spite of the bad run defense, they have gone UNDER more this year than OVER. We are not saying they have a good defense but note that they are tied for the #1 pass defense in yards allowed per game. In 04-05 Indy played in 11 games (counting two playoff games) with a total in the 50s. Last year they played in just three, and this year 0 until this game. The totals are dropping because their offensive production is dropping. They are 12-7 UNDER in their last 19 while Cincinnati is 16-13 UNDER in their last 29, or 58.3% UNDERs. Another reason this total is a bit inflated because of the 375 yards Indy game up last week on the ground. While the Colts defense really is bad, they have not given up more than 24 points at home all year. The average points allowed here at home? A fairly superb 18.3 ppg. Cincinnati's defense, also known as a pourous one, is actually ranked 8th in the league this year in points allowed per game (19.2). They have held opponents to 17 or less in eight of twelve games this year and over the past four games they have allowed just 8.3 points per game. Coming back to Indianapolis' performance last week - it was downright embarrassing. They allowed the second-highest number of rushing yards ever since the merger. They heard "375" this week about a billion times. The men on the Colts defense, if they have any pride, have taken that to heart and will play much better this week. When it gets as bad as it did last week for them, that's usually rock bottom and there's only improvement after that. If for no other reason than pride, we expect Indy's defense to step it up a lot as compared to last week. Cincinnati's offense is clicking for sure but note that this will be the highest total Cinncinati has played to since 11/08/87 when they played Miami at home and lost 14-20. The Bengals have gone UNDER in four of their six road gams this year and they are 12-3 UNDER on the road in their last 15 games with a total set above 45 points. The four highest posted totals in Indianapolis games this year all have gone UNDER: Dallas, New England, Tennessee, and the Giants. The total is just too high thanks to the hype of last year's game, Cincinnati's hot offense and Indy's 44 point defensive performance last week. But that sets us up nicely for value on the UNDER.