Here are the two charts with lines from Tuesday morning. This will be the last edition of power ratings and cheat sheet for the regular season. There are no look ahead lines for Week 17 and the point spreads could be way off based on starters resting for the playoffs.

One note is the Packers have been eliminated from playoff contention so there’s a chance Aaron Rodgers doesn’t play when the Packers host the Vikings on Saturday night. With Rodgers my rating makes Green Bay and Minnesota a pick ’em but if Hundley started I would make the Vikings as a seven-point favorite.

This looks to be another tough week with picking game so I will write something later in the week on here or Twitter about the games that interest me the most.

I mentioned on Monday that nothing jumped out at me this week. I was able to find one game I like and tweeted out Seahawks -2.5. Might add another game so I will tweet it out before Sunday if I do.

Here are the two charts for this week:

Week 14 set up to be a NFL slate with a lot of value and I was able to go 3-0 on the week with wins on the Falcons, Chiefs and Eagles. Improved to 21-12-1 on the season with the sweep.

The main takeaway from the week was the importance of look ahead lines. The Falcons, Panthers, Broncos and Eagles were all favorites before the Week 13 results. All four were then instilled as underdogs at some point before Week 14. All four teams ended up covering the closing number and winning straight up. I have been preaching all season to take advantage of these look ahead numbers to help find line value. Here’s an early look at the numbers for Week 15: Continue reading →

Two charts for this week and a preview of the 14 games that currently have a line as of Wednesday afternoon. Check out @SharpestSquares on Twitter for picks I make official.

Analysis

Saints -1.5 at Falcons

We have a 4.5-point line move between the look ahead and current number for a massive NFC South battle between the Saints and Falcons. The Saints crushed the Panthers and the Falcons fell to the Vikings at home in Week 13. Despite the result from the two games I don’t think the drastic line move was warranted. I expected the Saints to play well against an overvalued Panthers team and the Falcons ran into one of the best teams in the NFL. While I think the Saints are also one of the top teams in the NFL, I expect the Falcons to bounce back on the short week at home. I think the wrong team is the favorite here.

Bengals -6 vs Bears

This game is probably the least favorable scheduling spot and situation for the Bengals. It was always going to be a tall task for the Bengals to play well six days after playing their most hated rival in primetime. A Sunday afternoon game against an out of conference opponent would be an expected flat spot. The situation got even worse for the Bengals with how their game played out against the Steelers. Cincinnati squandered a 17-point lead and lost on a last second field goal. The loss pretty much crushed Cincinnati’s playoff chances and it was a very physical game. Unfortunately, it’s hard to confidently fade the Bengals here because of how poorly the Bears have played since their bye week. They have been 0-4 in that stretch and it’s almost a certainty that John Fox won’t be back in Chicago next season. I’m going to pass this game but would take the Bears if I needed to pick a side. Continue reading →