Don’t be an idiot: NFL picks against the spread Week 11

One trick to sports betting is to not be stupid. Here’s your smart person’s guide to betting on this week’s NFL games.

Nov 16, 2014, 1:01 PM UTC

Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports

I got off to a blazing start last week. I was feeling great going into Sunday Night at 8-3 and all I needed was two close games from the Bears and the Panthers. Those two games reminded me just how little I actually know about football, which is always a welcome reminder to help keep me from spending too much money gambling on it. Even though I ended up 8-5 for the second week in a row, those last two defeats were statement losses and I’ve got no momentum heading into Week 11.

Overall, Week 10 featured a lineup of pretty terrible games, but this week they should be a hell of a lot better. Seattle/KC, Philly/Green Bay, and New England/Indy are three pretty awesome match-ups that might pump the breaks on the year of the blowout.

CLEVELAND -3 over Houston: Idiots overvalue Patriots backups. Belichick is a tremendous coach, but handing the keys to your franchise to someone just because they spent a couple of years in Foxboro is like someone who goes commando buying the Fruit of the Loom corporation because they’re owned by Berkshire Hathaway. At least with Hoyer the Browns had no grand illusions of making him the starter right off the bat, but he’s grown into his role nicely.

Man, I would be pissed off if I was Jim Sorgi. All of Brady’s lousy backups get big contracts and starting opportunities -- I call it the Cassel doctrine -- but Sorgi’s only job opportunity was on the Colts serving as the perfect Sage Rosenfels and Kerry Collins simulator on the scout team.

We are all witnesses of the dawn of the Ryan Mallet era in Houston. I predict it to go very similarly to the Ryan Fitzpatrick era.

WASHINGTON -6 over Tampa Bay: As much as I hate the “Us against the world” narrative that plagues sports from high school to the professional level, I can’t help but agree with it when it comes to Washington. This has nothing to do with their controversial name, or their shit head owner, but rather the Robert Griffining of RG3. He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t in every respect possible. He’s found out the hard way that there is no more clickable link than one that mentions “RG3” and “leadership” in the same headline. Yeah, he threw a bad pass in the fourth quarter against the Vikings, but he also looked pretty damn good for most of that game, and the team has a habit of punishing terrible teams at home.

Ryan Kerrigan is among the best OLB in the NFL right now, and no one is talking about him.

NEW YORK GIANTS +4 over San Francisco: I hate talking football with anyone who has any sort of strong position on Colin Kaepernick. It could go in either direction and I would absolutely hate the conversation that we would have. If you hate him because of his tattoos and his hat or headphones or instagram, well, I couldn’t really take you seriously beyond your oversized Taz t-shirt or cell phone holder anyway. If you absolutely LOVE everything about Colin Kaepernick and his “swag,” then you are equally as annoying as your counterpart and you two deserve the tired debate that you will have that will culminate in you both agreeing that Michael Crabtree is a crap-ass bum.

The Giants are pretty bad but they don’t deserve to be 4-point home dogs to a schizophrenic 49ers team.

CAROLINA (pick ‘em) over Atlanta: Last week I stumbled onto the hypothesis that the Atlanta Falcons suck at losing. They are a quietly terrible team that was good two years ago. They’re 1-6 against teams not named the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

I don’t know if Cam Newton is healthy enough to make it through the season and I don’t really care in terms of this bet. I would take a 60 percent Cam Newton or a 100 percent Derek Anderson at QB to beat the Falcons at home.

Seattle +1 over KANSAS CITY: I generally make one pick a week where I look like an idiot and this is it. The Chiefs are pretty good at home and Seattle hasn’t been themselves on the road, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Kansas City win this one outright. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m taking Seattle mostly because they won the Super Bowl 10 months ago and that this is a terrible reason to bet on them. But I also know better than to bet on Andy Reid in a big game.