The Spotlight On Today’s Sports

The Spotlight Picks Against The Spread for the NFL Week 7

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Top of the morning to you everyone…well I guess really it’s good evening to most of my readers and followers but I’m coming to you live from the United Arab Emirates.  Ever since I met my girlfriend, over 3 years ago, she has been talking about going to Dubai and so this year I finally made it happen.  With Dubai being a solid 8 hours ahead of us New Yorkers, the time change has really been killing us.  We sleep when we can for a few hours here and there but we usually aren’t tired until around 6 or 7 AM and then have trouble getting up any earlier than 3 pm…I say this but it really is only our second night here so hopefully it’ll get better.  In any event, tonight I fell asleep aroun 3 Am only to wake up a few hours later a bit after 5.  After tossing and turning for almost an hour, I threw in the towel and decided to come provide you guys with  the picks you’ve come to depend on each week on thedailyspotlight.com.

One thing that’s really interesting is that the NFL really isn’t much of an entity at all here in the middle east.  There is much more of an emphasis on Soccer and Rugby (and WWE for that matter but that’s another blog for another day) then the sports we follow in the states.  This is to the point that until moments ago I hadn’t even known the Royals won the pennant and that was only because I flipped over to espn to find the updated NFL injury report.  Now that I do have that report, what a segue way this is, let’s finally get into the reason you’re all here your top NFL picks against the spread.

Now it took until week 6 but we finally did hit double digits in losses on the year when I took two losses with both the Ravens ( who we can officially right off as a bad football team for 2015) and the Arizona Cardinals (who I can’t lie really surprised me in a bad loss last week to a number three quarterback).  Regardless we are still rolling after a 5-2 week 6 bringing our total up to 34-11 on the year.  I’ll be honest being on vacation, I considered taking this week off but my goal is to bring you winners every week and so I’m going to try to do just that yet again.  This is a tough week so proceed with caution but let’s hope Dubai brings us luck.  The picks for Week 7 in the NFL…

Cleveland Browns (+7) over The St. Louis Rams

On a tough week this game immediately jumped right out at me.  The Rams play hard for Jeff Fisher, no doubt, they are usually in ever game right down to the finish and often play up for division games.  But this isn’t a division game…and I can’t recall the last time the the Rams blew anyone out.  On the other side of things you have a Browns team that despite a 2-4 record has played every game close and almost beat the undefeated Broncos last week.  Josh McCown is playing at an elite level and always gives his team a chance.  Remember, I don’t picks underdogs that I think have no shot to win.  Don’t be surprised if the Browns do just that.

San Diego Chargers (-3) over Oakland Raiders

Talk about a team that shouldn’t be 2-4, how about the San Diego Chargers who have lost some real heartbreakers.  Phillip Rivers proved last week that on any given Sunday (great movie), he can compete with any quarterback in the league, even Aaron Rodgers in Lambeau, in what was arugably the best game of the 2015 season.  Now the Chargers have the Raiders coming to town with the season on the line and I like their chances.  Only a field goal, roll with it!

Dallas Cowboys (+3.5) over New York Giants

I was finally starting to believe in the New York Giants last week and then…bad Eli showed up!  Scratch that! Terrible Eli showed up.  Now the Cwobys come to town off their bye and it’s officially the Matt Cassell era in Dallas.  The Cowboys now know that Dez Bryant is probably one more week away and if they can just tread water until then the division is right there for the taking.  Will Matt Cassell fair better than Brandon Weeden?  Well he can’t fair much worse.  When a player has lost that many starts in a row, that losing stigma has to project in his confidence and in his leadership.  Cassell won’t fight Tony Romo for his starting job, but he’ll do enough to hang onto it until he’s ready.  Cowboys will rally around their new QB and may steal one at Metlife.  (Note: This was my final pick of the week. I was prepared to go Bills but they just have too many injuries so the Cowboys were my backup pick, take that for what it’s worth)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+3.5) over Washington Redskins

In a tough week, a lot of my picks here are being determined by that extra half a point.  The Redskins looked awful last week against the Jets in a game I watched all 60 minutes of.  The Jets are ight years better than the Bucs but the Bucs have some talent, in particular, on the offensive side of the ball.  Coming off their be this gives Mike Evans and Doug Martin a chance to get healthy and Lovie Smith a chance to get Jameis Winston two weeks of preparation.  Kirk Cousins just isn’t the answer at quarterback for the Redskins and if this becomes a close game, I’m going the other way almost every time.

Kansas City Chiefs (-1) over Pittsburgh Steelers

Ben Roethlisberger is officially out on Sunday which means that Landry Jones will be in at quarterback and the reason this line is so low is because Landry Jones looked pretty good in a shocking win over the Cardinals last week.  Don’t get me wrong, Landry Jones gives the Steelers the best chance to win in Big Ben’s absence but also understand that the reason he looked so good last week was because he was playing a team that spent all week preparing for Mike Vick.  Andy Reid should have the Chiefs prepared for the rookie quarterbac who has the uneviable taks of heading to Arrowhead.  If the Chiefs can’t find a way to win this week, they may no win a game the rest of the season.

Atlanta Falcons (-6.5) over Tennessee Titans 

Well you knw it was going to happen that at some point the Falcons were going to flirt long enough with dangers in the fourth quarter to not allow Matt Ryan to pull out a comeback for the win and that happen last week at the Superdome.  Honestly, that loss was probably the best thing that could have happened to the Falcons and the worst thing that could have happened to the Titans.  This should light a fire under the Falcons collective asses as they now had 10 days to think about it.  To make matters worse for the Tennessee Titans, they’ll be starting the selfie loving Zach Mettenberger at quarterback.  Forget all this talk about a trap game, Falcons should win this one running away,

LOCK OF THE WEEK: New York Jets (+10) over The New England Patriots

What were you expecting something else.  Call me a homer, call me whatever you want but I’m taking my New York Jets in Foxboro this week.  This should be a tight division game between two teams with one loss between them and this line is just plainly disrespectful.  If you don’t think the Jets and their number one defense smell blood and want to take down the undefeated champs then you got another thing coming.  I won’t say the Jets are going to win but damn it I don’t think that defense will let them get blown out.  I’d understand 7 but 10 really is a slap in the face.  I’ll be rooting for them and maybe this is a heart pick but the Jets are my lock of the week and I haven’t lost one of those yet!

That’s going to do it for me but be sure to give me a follow over on twitter @TommyOnTheSpot which is where I’ve been dong my picks the last few weeks and where I make many announcements on this site.  Also I always welcome your feedback either in the comments section below or via email at thedailyspotlight2@gmail.com, I respond to all questions so send them in.  Until next time, best of luck everyone.

The Spotlight NFL Week 4 Picks Against The Spread

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Hello everyone it is bright and early here in the East Coast and about an hour ago I woke up to take my girlfriend to work.  I took a run over to the corner store like I often do, to get her some coffee and breakfast.  When iplaced my stuff down on the counter, I turned to my right only to see a steak and a six pack of Corona placed on the counter.  Figuring it mayve been a little early for steak and beer, I looked up to my right only to see a man chuckling a bit as he said “Sorry my brotha, we got football in 2 hours!”  My man is right, this week in New York, we get to see how the West Coast lives as in just under an hour, at 9:30AM, the Jets and Dolphins will face off live from London.  While I know it’s probably very hard for players to travel overseas and play football, I love when the NFL goes to London and we get bonus football.  I remember a few years back when the Raiders played after midnight on the East Coast and one year when there was Tuesday Night Football, I enjoyed them both.  If so inclined today, the football fan can sit down and watch a complete day of 4 games of football.  It’s no wonder when my girlfriend jumped out of the car for work, he kissed me goodbye and told me to have fun!  This is going to be a lot of fun so let’s get right into it.

If you’re not following along with me on twitter, I would urge all of you to do so as the last two weeks I’ve been unable to post my picks on their but have done so on their.  Same as usual, I’ve been posting my weekly picks as well as my primetime picks for every Thursday, Sunday and Monday night game.  This season we couldn’t have asked for a better start (and a little bit of luck along the way with games like Baltimore on Thursday night) as we currently have a record of 19-6 on the year all against the spread.  While we’ve been hot remember that as hot as the Summer gets, the Autumn is always soon to follow.  This is a tough week of games and while I believe I can get you through it but proceed with caution.

The Picks

1) The Oakland Raiders (-3) over The Chicago Bears

I’ll admit that I will feel a lot better about this one if Jay Cutler doesn’t play because if that happens, the Bears offense is all on the hsoulders of Matt Forte and while the Raiders defense isn’t the Seahawks, he saw how that went for the Bears offense last week.  That said, even if Cutler plays he isn’t going to be 100% and neither should Alshon Jeffrey.  The Raiders on the other hand, may have finally found some real players with Derek Carr, Latavis Murray and Amari Cooper.  Other than that, they also finally won on the east coast in Cleveland last week and I don’t see them slowing down this week.  The Bears defense is banged up and now they’ve gotten rid of Allen and Bostic to boot.  Hold your breath kids, we’re going to believe in the Oakland Raiders.

2) Carolina Panthers (-3) over The Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Has anyone realized that the Panthers are 3-0.  While their offense isn’t world beating, Cam Newton has found a way to get it done and now he leads the Panthers to inconsistent Tampa Bay to face Jameis Winston and the fighting Bucs.  The Panthers went out of their way to add Jared Allen to an already stout defense.  I don’t like rookie quarterbacks against good defenses, even moreso than I hate picking road favorites.  This one should be easy for the Panthers.

3) Cincinnati Bengals (-4) over The Kansas City Chiefs

It’s the regular season and so you know I’m on the Bengals and so far they haven’t let me down.  Really like them at home this week against a Chiefs team that honestly I’ve found to be pretty overrated to start the season. Sure the Chiefs have played Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers the past two weeks but Andy Dalton hasn’t been far behind this season.  Chiefs are also banged up and the Bengals offense may in fact be the most complete in all of the NFL.

4) Philadelphia Eagles (-3) over The Washington Redskins 

I’ve gone back and forth a million times here on this pick because I was tempted to go with one of these underdogs like the Texans +7 or the Browns +7 but I don’t like to go with teams that you’re betting to hang in the game.  If I don’t see a way that a team is going to win the game, i don’t like picking them because they’re going to keep it close.  The numbers here would actually have you pick the Skins especially with a good amount of rest but I think the Eagles had something click last week and if they can get their high octane offense going, the Skins will be looking to keep up and they’ll have to do it with Kirk Cousins.  I feel like if the Skins are dependent on Cousins to win or keep them in a game, he’s likely to turn the ball over, they’re likely to lose and I think they will again here.

LOCK OF THE WEEK: New York Jets (-2) over the Miami Dolphins 

On the one hand, I hate picking the Jets because they’re my favorite team and because I’ll never bet against them.  Yet on the other hand,  Miami has looked like the worst team in the league this season.  They lucked their way into a victory week one and lost to the Jaguars two weeks ago and got manhandled by the Bills last week.  So much for that Dolphins week schedule to start the season, eh?  I think the Jets are just the better team and they’ll have both Chris Ivory and Eric Decker back this week.  Miami is the home team but that’s only by technicality as the game is in England.  i hope my Jets bounce back and I’m confident they will.

That’s going to do it for me now but I’ll be back later today with my sunday night football pick against the spread.

The Spotlight NFL Week 3 Picks Against The Spread- Thursday Night Football- Redskins at Giants 

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Quicker than a hiccup Week 3 in the NFL kicks off later on tonight when the 1-1 Washington Redskins head to MetLife Stadium to take on the New York Giants. We are 12-3 here on our spotlight picks against the spread through the first two weeks of the season including every prime time game of the year, but I’m not confident about this game whatsoever.

 If NFL games were only 59 minutes long instead of 60, the Giants would be 2-0 and looking pretty good with wins over the Cowboys in Dallas and over the exciting Falcons at home. Instead, the Giants have had back to back heart breaking losses and they were also bad because the Giants didn’t only lose at the last second but they blew 10 point fourth quarter leads in each of their first two games. At some point these type of losses have to effect a team’s psyche! Honestly for me the Giants woes stem from the play calling and the fact that the Giants have lacked that killer instinct. It’s almost as if Eli Manning’s interception woes the past few seasons have made the play callers for the Giants forget that Eli is an Elite quarterback in this league. The Giants O Line is stacked with talent and have only allowed Eli to get sacked 3 times thus far. Furthermore Eli now finally has the weapons around him to air it out, SO LET HIM DO IT!!! Instead the Giants continue to run the ball with lackluster backs and play not to lose instead of to win and you can’t do that with defense that’s as bad as theirs is right now. 

On the other side of th field you have the Washington Redskins who had about as low expectations as any team coming into the season but have actually look pretty good during the first two weeks, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. Don’t be fooled by the loss to Miami, that was due to one bad special teams play, the Redskins dominated that entire game. Over the first two weeks the Redskins defense has only allowed 1 offensive touchdown per game and last week they stifled a Rams team, (who just beat the Seahawks) holding them to only 2 3rd down conversions the entire game. This has allowed Kirk Cousins and the offense to win the time of possession game in that the Redskins offense is averaging close to 38 minutes time of possession, which is really impressive and good for second in the league. Of course, last week the Redskins may have also found a force in rookie running back,Matt Jones who rushed for 123 yards and 2 touchdowns. With he & Alfred Morris, the Redskins offense should be able to take some of the pressure off of Kirk Cousins. 

At the end of the day, with Tony Romo’s injury, this division game means that much more to both of these teams because the NFC East is wide open.  The Giants are definetely the more desperate team and need this win at home or the talk about this team is going to get even worse. Thus, I think the Giants will find a way to win this game but I’m not confident enough to say that they’ll win by much, so my pick for Thursday Night Football is The Washington Redskins (+4). Like I said with the Broncos & Jets last week, don’t be too surprised to see the Redskins win the game outright. 

That’s going to do it for right now but I will be back with my picks of the week tomorrow morning. I’ll be also back with my best knockout pool picks of the week so be sure to check those out as well. 

The Spotlight NFL Picks Against The Spread- Monday Night Football- Jets At Colts

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Hello everyone,  first off I just wanted to apologize for being off the grid these past few days.  It was actually my three year anniversary with my girlfriend and so I was away for the weekend.  We did a variety of different activities from checking out a lobster bake at Penthouse 808 in Long Island City to boat riding at Central Park to checking out Matilda on Broadway.  They were all a lot of fun and you can expect reviews of each one of those in the coming weeks.  Due to this,  I was unable to give you guys the usual Picks entry you’ve come to expect but will return with that this Friday.  However, what I was able to do was post some of my picks over on twitter (@TommyOnTheSpot) throughout the week.  I hate missing more than one but I missed two this week, including our lock of the week- the Detroit Lions who got manhandled by the Minnesota Vikings.  It looked like Adrian Peterson was able to knock off some of that rust from week 1 and Matt Stafford just doesn’t look like himself.  I also missed badly on the Titans (-1) over the Browns.  This was a game that I wouldn’t have touched had Josh McCown been starting for the Browns but I got suckered in when I heard Manziel was starting.  While I’m not a believer in Johnny Football,  I should have realized a rookie quarterback on the road in Cleveland so early in the season wasn’t going to be able to do much.  Like I said in my preseason predictions, there will be growing pains with Marcus Mariota.

The good new is that I absolutely cleaned up with the rest of my 1pm picks yesterday connecting on the Patriots (-1), the Cardinals (-2), the Steelers (6), the Falcons (+2) and the Bengals (-3).  I then ended then night out strong by picking the Packers (-3.5).  This brings our total over here this season up to 11-3 with our NFL Picks Against The Spread and we’ll attempt to keep the hot hand going with Monday Night Football tonight.  Remember with the Sunday night, Monday night and Thursday night games, I’m going to give you guys a prediction because they are the primetime games but I’m not including them in my picks of the week.  That said,  I do think the primetime games are a little bit easier to pick sometimes due to the fact that they allow you to focus in on one key game.  With that said,  let’s get into today’s game.

In the interest of full disclosure,  I’m a big fan of the New York Jets, I like them more than any team in any sport and have rooted for them my entire life.  You will very rarely see me pick against them as one of the picks I choose to place action on but since they’re playing on Monday Night, I’ll will remain as impartial as I can be when I pick the Jets (+7) tonight.  I’m not saying the 1-0 Jets are going to beat the 0-1 Colts in Indy but I expect them to keep it close.  The number one thing I look at here is the injuries that the Colts have. It remains unclear if Robert Mathis will make his season debut and also remains unclear if TY Hilton is going to play.  If Hilton is out this means that Andrew Luck is left with unproven Donte Moncreif and Andre Johnson, who he really didn’t seem to click with during Week 1.  Furthermore, I’m already pretty unimpressed with the Colts on the defensive side of the ball and now Cornerbacks, Greg Toler and Darius Butler have both been ruled out as well.  I’d look for Eric Decker to have a big game tonight and for Ryan Fitzpatrick to exploit the weaknesses that Indy has at the cornerback position tonight.

Thus, my pick is The New York Jets (+7),  I expect a close game and don’t be shocked to see the Jets win the game outright.  Until next time who were some of your winners and losers from last night?

The Spotlight Picks Against The Spread- Thursday Night Football- Broncos At Chiefs

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Week 2 in the NFL season will kick off in a bit over an hour with a clash of AFC West teams as Peyton Manning will lead the Denver Broncos into Arrowhead to take on the Kansas City Chiefs.

This reads like a tale of two teams who fans feel completely different about this season.  Everywhere you look you see people jumping on the Chiefs bandwagon.  It seems like the only thing that Andy Reid’s team was missing last season was a wide receiver.  They have an elite running back in Jamaal Charles, a quarterback who has won in the playoffs, a rising tight end in Travis Kelce and a stud defense.  Well enter Jeremy Maclin and the Chiefs came out firing in Houston with seemingly all pieces in place.

On the other side of the dime you have the Denver Broncos, the four time division champions are seemingly finished accoridngly to the public.  Peyton Manning hasn’t looked good since last season and last week he averaged under 5 yards per pass.  Denver also got destroyed in the process…what’s that?  Denver won last week?  They beat the Baltimore Ravens?!?! You’d never that the Denver Broncos are currently 1-0 based on everything you’ve heard all week.

So what do we do tonight?   I’ll admit it, I cringe every time I see Peyton Manning go down and go down hard. It’s hard to watch knowing his injuries and, let’s face it, his age.  The Chiefs will be coming at him all night long but this year it’s a different Denver Bronco team.  After three years of the Broncos being carried by Peyton Manning, he is now being carried by them.  The Broncos have a great defense and have a good running game now that the Montee Ball experience is over.  I know Arrowhead will be loud tonight and I know the Chiefs are the consensus pick but I’m not willing to give up on Peyton Manning just yet.  This game reads more like a pickem and if I’m getting points with Peyton Manning I’ll take them gladly.

The Pick:  Broncos (+3, if you can wait it should drop to +3.5,  though don’t be too surprised if the Broncos win outright)