We're off a 3-4 week. Our NFL picks have slowed a bit as we've posted two small losing weeks out of the past three. But we've won 3 out of the last 5 weeks and 11 of 16 overall in the regular season. The regular season picks stand at 54-38 and 169-115 on a unit basis as $100 bettors are up $4,250.

Update: Season OVER/UNDER bets win big! Also as we enter the final week, we have already won eight of our season OVER/UNDER bets (see article here). We have won on our bets on Green Bay, Miami, Arizona, Baltimore, Minnesota, NY Giants, NY Jets, Tampa. We've lost 3 bets (New England, Detroit, New Orleans) and two are still up in the air (Cincinnati, Houston). So we are looking at a best case record of 10-3 and a worse-case 8-5 mark. Hope you got in on these back in August!

Five picks this weekend.

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: New York Giants vs. Washington (Saturday 12/30 8:00 PM Eastern)
Pick: 4 units on Washington +3

The Giants are favored here but we think they lose this game. That team is an utter mess. The coach is gone after this season and everyone knows it. He has no respect from his players who never miss an opportunity to openly bash him whenever a TV camera is rolling. Players are also throwing each other under the buss and one came out this week and admitted that some players just want to go home and don't want to make the playoffs. Their QB is crushing under the pressure and getting worse as the season goes on. Their best defensive player, Michael Strahan is out. When he's not in the lineup, this team just doesn't win. With him in the lineup this year, the Giants are 6-2. Since he went out, they are 1-7. Over the past three seasons, with Strahan out of the lineup, the G-Men are 2-13! New York won the first matchup this season but Joe Gibbs is 8-1 ATS revenging a road loss. This Redskins team is 7-0 ATS the past three seasons in that situation. We'll take the points as a little insurance but we see New York laying down and Washington winning this game.

Will this be Bill Cowher's last game as a Steelers coach after 15 years? Maybe. If it is, do you think his players want to send him off on a winning note? We do. Cincinnati has playoff hopes alive but they need a loss by the Jets to the hapless Raiders or a Denver loss and KC win. The pressure to win hasn't helped the Bengals the past few weeks so why today? Pittsburgh is off a humiliating 31-7 loss last week to the Ravens. They are going to come to play and lay it all out there. This team has pride and they don't want to make a bad season worse by losing their finale, especially after losing so badly last week. The Steelers have beaten the Bengals 12 of the last 15 times here in Cincinnati including three straight. There will be no intimidation here. Pittsburgh sends Cowher out with a bang here as they likely win this game outright! We'll take the points as insurance but love the Steelers' chances here.

Jacksonville owns the league's #2 defense (yards) and is #4 in points allowed. Kansas City is ranked 9th in points allowed at 19 per game. At home they are allowing just 17.3 per game. Take out games against good offensive teams (Cinncinnati, Seattle and San Diego) and that drops to 10.8 ppg. Jacksonville averages just 18.4 points per game on the road - a full 8 points fewer than what they put up at home. Their defense relaxes on the road too but KC is not an offensive powerhouse this year. Both of these teams have pounding running games with Larry Johnson on one side and the emerging Maurice Jones-Drew on the other. Both like to run the ball and as a result, this clock should move quickly. Kansas City is 12-4 UNDER in games played in the second half of the season the past two years. We look for this one to be low scoring.

We faded St. Louis in a big way a few weeks ago on Monday night when they were getting 6.5 points from the Bears. If you recall that pick, we talked about how bad St. Louis really is. They had 5 wins going into that game but they were squeak-out wins against very bad teams. Without the help of a huge positive turnover margin, they wouldn't have even won half of those. They were crushed by the Bears but have since won two straight games. One was a close overtime win last week vs. Washington. The other was a win over Oakland - again with the help of a +5 turnover ratio! The bottom line here is that St. Louis is probably the league's worst 7-7 team. Without a creampuff schedule and +12 turnover ratio, they could easily be 3-11. Minnesota has their own problems which is why they are a home dog here. After starting 4-2 they have lost 7 of their last 9 games. The last two were very damaging as they got spanked by a Jets team they were supposed to beat and they lost in primetime to Green Bay, scoring 7 points. But Minnesota is the better team! They are allowing 5 points per game less than St. Louis. The Rams have allowed 30+ points eight times already this season - more than half of their games! On the road this season they are averaging 16.9 points per game. Were these good teams they faced on the road? Not for the most part as their road opponents included San Francisco, Arizona, Green Bay and Oakland. Minnesota's offense has struggled all year long but they have faced some superb defenses including Carolina, Buffalo, New England, Miami and Chicago twice. Against the remaining teams they averaged a respectable 20 points per game. QB Tavaris Jackson has another full week under his belt as the starter. St. Louis is technically still in the playoff hunt but their hopes are dim. The reason for their recent success has been Steven Jackson. Unfortunately for the Rams, Minnesota has the best run defense in the entire league. The Vikings are 19-7 ATS as a home underdog and we like them a lot here to cover this number.

Chicago at home laying just 3 points? Of course it is because they have home field locked up and Green Bay may have something to play for here. Green Bay is the play here if you assume they are fighting for the playoffs and Chicago is going to lay down in a big way. But can we count on both of those happening? We think it's not so likely. If the Giants win on Saturday, Green Bay is out of the playoffs. Even if the G-Men lose, does Green Bay have what it takes to go into Soldier Field and keep it close? If Chicago was to rest all starters, maybe. Maybe not. But, we can try to predict a bit what Chicago will do. On ChicagoBears.com, Lovie Smith wrote some things that lead us to believe they will be taking this game seriously. He said, "The most important thing for our team is that we play our best football of the season right now. You wonder when you should peak and ideally that happens in your last game heading into the playoffs." He goes on to say "We’re playing the Packers and we want to beat them because they’re our No. 1 rival, no more than that. But this is also a last opportunity before the playoffs for us to fine-tune some things and just play our best." If Chicago's defense comes to play, Green Bay is in trouble. They are an offense susceptible to errors. Brett Favre can kill you if he starts hucking the ball in the air and against a pressure defense like Chicago's, that's what may happen. Smith said, "What concerns me the most at this time is how we’re playing defense, specifically our pass defense." We think based on all of these comments that Chicago will want to put forth a good showing. That they will have starters play defense to work through the troubles in recent games. We think they want to beat the Packers to go into the playoffs on an upnote. If they do in fact come into this game with this attitude, it could be a very long day for Favre and the Pack. If this were a normal game, Chicago would be laying close to double-digits. Hard to pass up on a small number like this.