The 5-teamer, Week 10

In my never-ending quest to beat the wise guys at their own game, here's what to look for in the NFL tomorrow:

Buffalo -2.5 at Miami
Cincinnati +4.5 at Baltimore
Washington -2.5 vs. Philadelphia
Dallas -1.5 at the Giants
IND/SD under 48.5

One of the problems with betting on the NFL this year is that there are so many terrible teams, and even more mediocre teams, that you have to bet on one of them when you're picking a parlay. It's even worse when New England has a bye week.

My rationale here is that Miami is just pathetic and the Bills are at least a field goal better than them on the road, the Bengals should score enough to stay close to the offensively challenged Ravens, the Skins are tough at home and the Eagles are terrible everywhere, the Cowboys are one of the few teams you can feel good about no matter where they are playing, and the Colts will keep the ball on the ground enough (if they watched the game films from Adrian Peterson's evisceration of the Chargers last week) to keep that game under its inflated total.

By the way, if you're interested, my friend Smooth Jimmy St. Paul turned me onto a fascinating article about betting lines on nationally televised games. The gist of the article is that sports books will crank up both the spread and the total because people like to bet on games they're going to watch, and they like to bet on favorites and on the over (because who wants to root against points being scored?). So the smart money on most Sunday and Monday night games is on the dog and the under, or so the theory goes. Food for thought, at least, and perhaps it figured into my Colts-Chargers under pick.