Tonight Week 10 in the NFL concludes when the 3-5 Houston Texans head to Cincinnati to take on the 8-0 Bengals. So far this week we are 6-2 against the spread connecting on 5 out of our 7 picks and then closing out last night with a big win by the Arizona Cardinals. We missed at the very last second with the Cowboys and unfortunately losing our first LOCK OF THE WEEK of the season. Our Lock of the week was the Saints who made Kirk Cousins look like a 1st ballot hall of Famer. I think it’s time to officially write the Saints off this season and I have to wonder if Rob Ryan should get his resume together. 

As for tonight’s game, it’s pretty tough as the Bengals are again a huge favorite at -11 1/2. I hate choosing big favorites  in the NFL, even though the Bengals covered their big spread last week and actually are the only team this season perfect against the spread, I’m still rolling with the Texans tonight. A couple of things jump out at me here, for one, the Texans are a bad team coming off a bye and they joined three other under .500 teams coming off byes in week 9, the Lions, the Ravens and the Chiefs. My feeling is that when a bad team goes on a bye, they don’t get to vacation, but instead they spend those two weeks busting ass and preparing for their next opponent for two weeks, so let’s look at it. The Ravens lost to the Jaguars, which is obviously awful, but the Jaguars offense is sneaky good and they lost it at the very last seconds of the game. The Chiefs turned Peyton Manning over four times and destroyed the 7-1 Broncos in their building. Lastly, the Lions went into Lambeau and beat the Packers for the first time since 1991. Do you notice a trend? Next, you have to figure that with Andrew Luck down for 6 weeks, the Texans feel like the division is right there for the taking, so while I still expect them to lose, they should play inspired ball to keep it close. Lastly, Vegas is rarely wrong for all that long and usually adjust to teams that are undefeated against the spread. The 2007 Patriots, for example, went 8-0 against the spread to start their 16-0 regular season but they only finished 2-6 ATS the rest of the way. 

Thus all of that being said, while I’m not flying out to Vegas tonight to drop a huge wager, I like the Houston Texans +11.5 tonight. That will do it for me for now but in just 48 hours I’ll be back to kick off Week number 11!