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We scored a perfect weekend in the Wildcard round going 3-0 and 14-0 on a unit-basis. This weekend we have picks in all four Divisional matchups.

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: Indianapolis at Baltimore (Saturday 1/13 4:30 PM Eastern)
Pick: 5 units on Baltimore -4

This is a classic match-up of offense vs. defense for the right to advance to the AFC Championship game. The Colts, while not the offensive juggernaut of years past, still features a potent offensive attack. They manhandled Kansas City last week which has the betting public backing them here. The problem they are facing is that this week they face a real Super Bowl contender and a Baltimore defense that gave up just 36 more points than the Superbowl version of 2000-01. The public loves offensive teams because they are exciting to watch and full of stars at the skill position. The betting public always prefers to be on that team that can score on any possession. But in the end, the boring defensive teams are where the money is made in the NFL playoffs. If you need confirmation of that here, let's examine the proof. In looking back through the NFL playoff teams that led the league in fewest points allowed that were equal to or less than the 201 that Baltimore allowed this season, you find gold. The fact that few teams even qualified is a statement unto itself about this defense. Since 1978 there have been only five teams that were this stingy. Those five teams won four Superbowls! Those teams played in 10 playoff games prior to the Superbowl and outscored their opponents 244-74! The average score was 24.4 to 7.4. It gets better. In the games that were played featuring these defensive stalwarts, nine of their ten opponents scored 10 points or less. Six of the ten teams never got into the endzone! Does defense matter in the post-season? The answer, when that defense is as good as Baltimore's, is a resounding yes. In fact, you'd have to be nuts to invest a dollar against it. Sure, Peyton Manning is a stud and this offense is great. But this game isn't in cozy Indianapolis agianst a patsy opponent like Kansas City. This game is in Baltimore against the best defense in the league. Indy's weak run defense gets exposed, Peyton struggles and the Colts get hammered here.

Let us take you back to week three of this season on Monday night, September 25th. The New Orleans Saints were hosting the Falcons in the first home game in the Superdome since Hurricane Katrina. The stage was set. We were on the Saints big time in that game for one primary reason - emotion. Anyone who watched that game, or even just the pregame show, knows what emotion can do for an NFL football team. That place was absolutely electric and seething with positive emotion. The Falcons never had a chance.  New Orleans recorded five sacks in that game and limited Atlanta to ten first downs. So now we have a repeat of sorts. The playoffs and the emotion and energy that they bring on their own are big. Home teams in this round enjoy a very big advantge. That will combine with the same emotional energy that was present on September 25th. Not only is this the first home playoff game in seven years, it is being hosted in a city that was nearly anihilated last year. The Saints aren't just playing for themselves. They are playing for a city. This should be the strongest home advantage this weekend. It's not just about emotions here though. New Orleans came out of nowhere this year to end up one of the NFCs top teams. Drew Brees has led the NFL's top rated offense back into the playoffs. Brees has been nothing short of spectacular. In true Tom Brady fashion, he has taken a no-name receiving corp and made them look like Pro Bowlers. This year the Saints handled all the NFC playoff teams, beating Philly at home, and destroying the Giants and Dallas on the road. Philly can boast a resume that has shown them dominating their division by going 6-1. The one loss was after having the Giants left for dead, but giving it up with a huge second half rally by New York. The problem for Philly is not the success they had in their own division, but the lack of success outside of it. Outside of the NFC East, they were just 5-6! The 5 wins? Houston in week one (a team that started 2-6). San Francisco in week three (started 2-5). Green Bay in week four (started 1-6). Atlanta in week 17 that was 2-6 going into that game, and a win vs Carolina. So they were under .500 and the wins came over bad teams that were playing at their worst. They did not beat a team with a winning record outside of their own division and lost to some pretty poor teams as well. They barely got by the Giants last week to get here. The Giants are really not very good so that win means just about nothing. Philly underperformed last week in a home game they should have won by double-digits. New Orleans has a passing offense and weapons that put 383 yards through the air up in Baltimore. They scored 3 TD passes and racked up over 400 yards vs. the league's best defense. They did all that in spite of a time of possession of only 23 minutes for the game! They will score a ton of points on the Eagles this week. Defensively they are average, ranked #11. But they defend the pass which is Philadelphia's bread and butter. New Orleans sacked a more mobile Donovan McNabb three times in their regular season game, and we see them going after Garcia hard here. Philly has not had any success on the road come playoff time as they are just 2-6 since 1985. They are also a horrible 1-10 ATS after yielding 150+ yards on the ground. New Orleans is just a better team on both sides of the ball, and you can be sure the X-factor here, emotion, is on their side. They've also had an extra week to rest. The Eagles will be hard pressed to match the Saints in skills or emotion. It's been a nice Cinderella run for Jeff Garcia but it's coming to an end as the Saints win big.

Let's get this out of the way quickly: Seattle is awful. OK, maybe not awful compared to the teams staying home for the postseason. But, compared to the playoff teams still around, they are terrible. They do not deserve to be in this round. If Tony Romo doesn't botch that snap, Seattle is watching from home this week. Chicago is not without its warts and in some games this year they have looked worse than Seattle. But, the similarities begin and end there. There will be a lot of hedgers out there that will be scared to death of Chicago and particularly Rex Grossman. He has looked like an MVP quarterback in some games, and like a taxi-squad QB in others. In the end, know that despite any problems Grossman caused, Chicago won 13 games and earned home field advantage for the playoffs. What many people will forget is how many good games the Bears have put together this season. Of their 13 wins, nine have come by double digits and they have played the bulk of their schedule committing one turnover or less (9 games). Seattle in contrast completed just 3 games out of 16 with 1 turnover or less. The Bears have even fared well when they have turned the ball over, playing one of those "stinker" games. They generated just six first downs vs. Minnesota, committed five turnovers and won by 10 points! That's how good their defense can be. Yes Chicago has the potential to play bad. But this team has played more "clean" offensive games than they have bad ones. When they play those types of games, which is the majority of the time, they win by huge margins. When they play the bad offensive games, their defense is good enough to bail them out more often than not. Even on an off day, this team acan win by double-digits. Their defense has forced multiple turnovers in 13 of 16 games, so there is certainly a greater likelihood of the defense making a difference than of Grossman coughing it up. Lovie Smith is no dummy and he is not going to put Grossman in a position to lose the game. He is going to put the pressure on the Seattle offense and we don't see them competing in this one. Seattle is injured, tired, and lucky to be here. Prior to last year, this was a team known most for being horrible and fragile on the road. Last year they improved their road play. But this season they are back to their "soft" selves. They have been outscored on the road this season by 28 points. That's not exactly a recipe to win a playoff game in someone elses building. They have not beaten a single playoff team on the road this year. They were outscored by the two playoff teams they did play by 72-34! They came to Chicago and got hammered 37-6. This game has blowout written all over it. Seattle can't play with or beat Chicago unless something very out-of-the-ordinary happens. Their only chance here is if Chicago beats themselves, which as we stated above is much more of a minority proposition. The Bears should destroy a team that is not even in the same league here. Go Bears.

The Chargers bring in a 14-2 record into this game. All season long they have been a team that has steamrolled through their competition. They have a high octane offense with the best player in football running the ball. Relatively, New England is under the radar. But not to us. This Patis team 13-4 and boasts a very good defense. Many believe this Pats team is not of the same calibre of the teams that captured three recent Super Bowls. We believe that they are. The last two times they took home the Lombardi Trophy, they had a dominating record. But don't forget, they were 11-5 in 01-02 and still ran over everyone including the high octane St. Louis Rams that no-one gave them a chance to stop. We need reiterate something we mentioned last week when we took the Pats to bounce the Jets. This New England team has given up less points than any under the Bellichick era! They have the second best scoring defense in the league behind Baltimore. That's the kind of team you want to back in January. But what about offense? Not so good, eh? Think again. New England has proven that they can score, and they can score against anyone. They went down to Jacksonville in a meaningful game, and scored 24 on a Jaguars team that was giving up a very stingy 8 ppg at home. It was the most anyone scored on the Jags at home all year. Brady is as good as it gets in finding open receivers - no matter the name on the back of the jersey. This offense is as healthy as it has been all season. New England has reached 30+ points six times and over the past four games they are scoring 35.3 ppg. That's as good as it gets and surpasses even the output of the vaunted Chargers. Many argue that New England does not have the play-makers it has had in the past at wide receiver. But ask yourself how many Hall of Famer's or future Hall of Famer's  Brady has thrown to in three Superbowl wins - or for that matter his entire career? The answer is zero. That makes what he has done even more special. The Pats thrive in January and this team is firing on both sides of the ball right now. The last four games they have turned the ball over just once, while they have 10 takeaways. You may be a bit nervous to back them on the road, though, especially after they lost to Denver last year. Do they need the Foxboro January cold to win in the postseason? No! The fact is that they have been on the road for nine playoff games since 85-86 and have gone 6-3 ATS and won 5 of the games outright. In a league in which home field advantage in the playoffs is huge, that is nothing short of incredible. But we haven't talked much about San Diego yet. This is afterall the favored team to win it all. They are great, right? They are an excellent football team. How will New England stop LaDanian Tomlinson and Phillip Rivers? The San Diego offensive numbers are astounding and it would appear on the surface that no one can stop them. But we like to dig below the surface. Here we see a different story. San Diego to their credit beat 14 of 16 teams on their schedule and had a great regular season. That road however was paved with cupcake opponents week after week. They played four playoff teams the entire season. Two of those playoff teams (Seattle and KC twice) arguably didn't deserve to be in the playoffs however. The only top team they played this year was Baltimore. They ended up going 2-2 vs. the playoffs teams, but the numbers are very revealing. They gave up more first downs, they scored just an average of 20.0 ppg, and averaged just 334 yards a game. They squeaked one out vs. a mediocre Seattle team 20-17 even though they had a +2 turnover advantage. They gave up four more first downs in that game as well, even with two extra possessions. Shouldn't a dominant team win big in that situation? The only real test the Chargers had was Baltimore and San Diego lost that game even though they had a +2 turnover advantage! We mentioned above New England reached 30 points in six games. Consider that the vaunted Super-Charger offense reached the mark 7 times. San Diego reached that 30 point mark in 6 of their first 10 games, but just once in their last six. That's not peaking. That's slowing down. Yes, there are 14 wins here, and yes the offense is tops statistically, but consider that they feasted on very weak defensive teams. They scored 48 against #32 San Francisco. They scored 40 on #31 Tennessee. They put up 27 on #29 Arizona and 38 on #28 St. Louis. They got 32 against #22 Cleveland. Now let's look at the other end of the spectrum when they played defenses that were at least in the top half of the league. They got just 13 vs #1 Baltimore. They had 24 vs #10 Buffalo. They scored 27 and 20 vs. #11 Kansas City. They had 23 vs #12 Pittsbrugh. They did score big vs. #9 Denver, but Denver's numbers are skewed. Were they really the #9 ranked defense? They gave up 7 ppg in their first six games, but during the stretch between the two San Diego games, they were averaging 27.2 ppg allowed - goot for one of the worst defenses in the league. This 2006-2007 San Diego team reminds us of the 04-05 Chargers. That team faced the NY Jets in the playoffs. San Diego came in winners of 9 of their last 10, averaging over 30 ppg in the stretch. In that year too they had played a weak schedule, though. No one gave the Jets a chance but New York held San Diego to 17 points and won the game. We would rather be on a defense come NFL playoff time than an offense. So the edge there goes to the Pats. But the nice thing about New England is that they have both. They also have arguably the best QB-Coach combination in NFL history with Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. If there is one coach in the NFL that can figure out how to stymie LaDanian Tomlinson, it is Belichick. Belichick lives for this kind of challenge (think what he did to the mighty and apparently unstoppable Peyton Manning in years past). This guy always finds a way to take your strenght and limit it. Both teams are very good and this game should be very tight with a field goal from either side likely to decide things. That makes 5 points very big, so we will take the Pats here.