Tag: Frank the Tank’s Football Parlay

Frank the Tank’s BlogPoll Week 7 Ballot, Football Parlay and Open Thread – 10/15/2010

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports136 Comments

OK, Husker fans.  I’m a believer now, or more to the point, I’m a believer in Taylor Martinez.  Also, I’ve buckled on the Boise State/TCU debate – Boise State may very well be #1 in the BCs rankings released on Sunday night, but the TCU defense is just stifling in a manner in a way that I don’t think Boise State can match.  Out of the non-AQ schools, I think that TCU is the best.

Here are this week’s parlay picks (with home teams in CAPS and odds from Bodog via Yahoo!):

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

  • MICHIGAN STATE (-7) over Illinois – Incredible beatdown by Illinois over Penn State last that I didn’t see coming at all.  I just wish this week’s game was being played in Champaign.  With Michigan State’s defense holding Denard Robinson in check last week and Illinois effectively having a poor man’s version of Michigan’s offense, I don’t think the Illini are coming out of East Lansing with a win.  Fortunately, Illinois is going to have a very favorable schedule for the rest of the season and it would be a legitimate disappointment if we don’t make it to a bowl this season (which I wouldn’t have said a month ago, when I didn’t think we’d even have a chance at bowling).
  • LOUISVILLE (+3) over Cincinnati – Taking the points with the home team.  Nothing more and nothing less.
  • Arkansas (+3.5) over AUBURN – I think that LSU is the real deal out of the SEC, but I still have a lot of reservations about Auburn.  Arkansas has also been underestimated by Vegas for much of the season. 

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Illini Games for the Season: 2-2
Overall Season: 6-11-1

NFL FOOTBALL

  • Seahawks (+6.5) over BEARS – The Bears shouldn’t be getting anything close to a touchdown spread based on what we’ve seen so far.  This will be a win for the Bears since Seattle is hellabad on the road, but the score will also be close enough that Lovie Smith will continue to be the coaching chopping block in the minds of Chicago sports talk radio callers.
  • VIKINGS (-1.5) over Cowboys – I can’t tell you how much I’m delighted by Brett Favre falling on his 4-inch sword this week.  People that I know that have spent a lot of time around Green Bay have told me plenty of stories of #4’s adulterous womanizing douchebag ways that have been ignored over the past two decades by a media that insists upon pushing the facade of their All-American golden boy.   Good for Deadspin (an outlet I’ll always be grateful to for linking to this blog regularly when fellow Illinois alum Will Leitch was running it) for pushing to the forefront a clear incident of sexual harassment in the workplace that the mainstream media that just wants to pass off as a tabloid takedown of a “hero”.  (OK, so it might be tabloid takedown, but it’s deserved in this instance.)  That being said, I don’t know how the bookmakers continue to give the Cowboys so much credit – that’s a BAAAAAD team.  It also took the league’s best secondary to keep the newly formed Favre-Moss combo in check on Monday night and they still were able to connect for big plays late.  The Cowboys certainly don’t have anything close to the Jets’ secondary and Minnesota is an extremely tough place to play on the road.
  • Raiders (+6.5) over 49ERS – Good thing that Bay Area fans have the Giants in the NLCS to take their minds off of this craptacular metro area football fest.

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 2-1
Bears Games for the Season: 2-3
Overall Season: 7-8

As always, feel free to use this post as an open thread for the weekend’s games and non-expansion college sports news.  If you want to talk about conference realignment in general, please continue the discussion on yesterday’s Through the Wire post.  Have a great weekend!

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111 and Facebook)

Frank the Tank’s New Facebook Page, BlogPoll Week 6 Ballot, Football Parlay and Open Thread – 10/8/2010

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, NFL Football, Sports117 Comments

First off, the Frank the Tank empire is expanding.  In addition to the already-existing Twitter feed @frankthetank111, I’ve created a new Facebook page for the site, so you can “Like” (or “Dislike” on the Wall) the blog to your heart’s content and maybe figure out what some of the commenters here look like.

As for this week’s BlogPoll ballot, I had been holding off on moving Oregon up to #3, but I couldn’t any longer after that dominant performance against Stanford.  Granted, I’m still skeptical of how the eye-popping offensive numbers would look against opponents with top tier defenses.  Note that plenty of people thought that Oregon was going to score at will on Ohio State in last year’s Rose Bowl, but the Buckeyes pretty much hammered the Ducks.

It appears that I’m destined to go 1-2 in my picks each week, which is fairly frustrating with a ridiculous number of games having the Vegas outcome determined by garbage points in the last couple of minutes (i.e. Virginia Tech-NC State last week, Illinois-NIU a few weeks ago).  This is why it’s a good thing that I don’t live within driving distance of a sports book.  Anyway, onto this week’s parlay picks (with home teams in CAPS and odds from Bodog via Yahoo!):

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

  • PENN STATE (-8) over Illinois – Direct quote from Ron Zook in today’s Chicago Tribune: “To me, it is exciting the fact we are going somewhere we have never won before.  All that does is make the percentages that much better that you’re going to win.”  As mentioned above, I’m not exactly a gambling savant, but I have a nagging feeling that’s not exactly how bookmakers determine the odds.
  • Arkansas (-6) over Texas A&M (neutral site at Jerry World) – I haven’t spent that much time in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but what time I have spent there indicates that the Rangers-Rays AL Division Series overlapping with the Arkansas-A&M game across the street for sure on Saturday and possibly the Cowboys-Titans game on Sunday will result in a Traffic Armageddon not seen since the combination of senior citizen and Pennsylvania drivers at Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa.
  • UCLA Bruins (+7.5) over CALIFORNIA – Am I missing something with this line?  Way too wide for my tastes for similarly performing teams. 

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Illini Games for the Season: 2-1
Overall Season: 5-9-1

NFL FOOTBALL

  • Packers (-2.5) over REDSKINS – Washington isn’t half bad, but let’s not get too carried away here.
  • BEARS (+1) over Panthers – If the Bears were playing ANYONE other than Carolina or Buffalo this week, the Todd Collins era would be an awful shellacking.  As it is, this was the right week for Jay Cutler to have a concussion.  In the meantime, the TV networks will have to update its “The Bears have had 697 starting quarterbacks since Brett Favre first started with the Packers” graphic for the next Chicago-Green Bay game.
  • Titans (+7) over COWBOYS – This feels like the Bears-Cowboys game in week 2 – way too much love from the bookmakers on Dallas here.

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Bears Games for the Season: 1-3
Overall Season: 5-7

As always, feel free to use this post as an open thread for the weekend’s games and non-expansion college sports news.  If you want to talk about conference realignment in general, please continue the discussion on yesterday’s Through the Wire post.  Have a great weekend!

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111 and Facebook)

Frank the Tank’s BlogPoll Week 5 Ballot, Football Parlay and Open Thread – 10/1/2010

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports206 Comments

 

I’m still swamped these days, but I promise that I’ll have some new views on the latest conference realignment-related stories soon.  In the meantime, for an old post that seems to be relevant again, here are my in-depth thoughts from back in February on why the Big East ought to go after TCU.  Here are this week’s parlay picks for both college football and the NFL with my obligatory Illini and Bears choices (home teams in CAPS and odds from bodog via Yahoo!):

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

  • ILLINOIS (+17) over Ohio State
  • NORTH CAROLINA STATE (+4) over Virginia Tech
  • BOSTON COLLEGE (+3) over Notre Dame

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Illini Games for the Season: 1-1
Overall Season: 4-7-1

NFL FOOTBALL

  • TITANS (-6.5) over Broncos
  • Redskins (+6) over EAGLES
  • Bears (+4) over GIANTS

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Bears Games for the Season: 1-2
Overall Season: 4-5

Once again, feel free to use this post as an open thread for the weekend’s games and non-expansion college sports news.  If you want to talk about conference realignment in general, please continue the discussion on the Big Ten Division-palooza post.  Have a great weekend!

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111)

Frank the Tank’s BlogPoll Week 4 Ballot, Football Parlay and Open Thread – 9/24/2010

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, NFL Football, Sports299 Comments

Unfortunately, this is going to be another short post because of time constraints, although I will note that my positioning of Oregon State at #4 instead of Oregon was evidence of my failure at basic click-and-drag skills.  That was a clear mistake that Brian Cook caught and it certainly was not my intent – the Ducks should be at #4.  I’ll have some views on recent conference realignment-related stories coming up next week.  Until then, here are this week’s parlay picks for both college football and the NFL (home teams in CAPS and odds from bodog via Yahoo!):

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

  • PENN STATE (-14) over Temple
  • Oregon State (+17) over BOISE STATE
  • Georgia (PK) over MISSISSIPPI STATE 

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Illini Games for the Season: 1-1
Overall Season: 3-5-1

NFL FOOTBALL

  • Lions (+11) over VIKINGS
  • Titans (+3) over GIANTS
  • Packers (-3) over BEARS

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 2-1
Bears Games for the Season: 1-1
Overall Season: 3-3

As always, feel free to use this post as an open thread for the weekend’s games and non-expansion college sports news.  If you want to talk about conference realignment in general, please continue the discussion on the Big Ten Division-palooza post, while the college hockey discussion should be under the Big Ten Expansion Hits the Ice post.  Have a great weekend!

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111)

Frank the Tank’s BlogPoll Week 3 Ballot, Football Parlay and Open Thread – 9/17/2010

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports165 Comments

 

SB Nation BlogPoll Top 25 College Football Rankings

Frank the Tank’s Slant Ballot – Week 3

Rank Team Delta
1 Alabama Crimson Tide —
2 Ohio St. Buckeyes —
3 Boise St. Broncos —
4 Oregon Ducks Arrow_up 7
5 TCU Horned Frogs —
6 Oklahoma Sooners Arrow_up 7
7 Texas Longhorns Arrow_down -3
8 Nebraska Cornhuskers Arrow_down -1
9 Iowa Hawkeyes Arrow_down -1
10 Wisconsin Badgers Arrow_down -1
11 Florida Gators Arrow_down -5
12 Arkansas Razorbacks Arrow_up 8
13 South Carolina Gamecocks —
14 LSU Tigers —
15 Utah Utes Arrow_up 4
16 Stanford Cardinal —
17 Michigan Wolverines Arrow_up 6
18 Auburn Tigers —
19 USC Trojans Arrow_down -7
20 Houston Cougars —
21 Miami Hurricanes Arrow_down -11
22 California Golden Bears —
23 Penn St. Nittany Lions Arrow_down -7
24 Arizona Wildcats —
25 Fresno St. Bulldogs —
Dropouts: Virginia Tech Hokies, Florida St. Seminoles, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, West Virginia Mountaineers, Georgia Bulldogs, Notre Dame Fighting Irish

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

I unfortunately don’t have time to explain my BlogPoll ballot or picks this week, so you can go ahead and fill in the blanks with any mocking/criticism of my opinions.  Here are this week’s parlay picks for both college football and the NFL (home teams in CAPS and odds from bodog via Yahoo!):

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

  • ILLINOIS (-7) over Northern Illinois
  • Texas (-3) over TEXAS TECH
  • Iowa (+1) over ARIZONA 

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Illini Games for the Season: 1-0
Overall Season: 2-3-1

NFL FOOTBALL

  • Bears (+7) over COWBOYS
  • Patriots (-3) over JETS
  • BRONCOS (-3.5) over Seahawks

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Bears Games for the Season: 0-1
Overall Season: 1-2

Once again, feel free to use this post as an open thread for the weekend’s games and non-expansion college sports news.  If you want to talk about conference realignment in general, please continue the discussion on the Big Ten Division-palooza post, while the college hockey discussion should be under the Big Ten Expansion Hits the Ice post from earlier today.  Have a great weekend!

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111)

Frank the Tank’s BlogPoll Week 2 Ballot, Football Parlay and Open Thread – 9/10/2010

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports329 Comments

Well, as evidenced by my BlogPoll ballot this week, I’m setting forth a complete mea culpa on both Boise State and TCU.  Granted, the Virginia Tech defense on that last Boise State drive had more potmarks than an Edward James Olmos side profile, but it was undoubtedly an incredible display of leadership by Broncos QB Kellen Moore.  Now, do I think that Boise State deserves to be in the national championship game as an undefeated team?  I’ll be honest – it would be difficult to rank Boise State over an unscathed SEC, Big Ten or Big 12 team with the strength of those conferences this season.  However, there’s no reason why an undefeated Boise State team should get jumped by a one-loss BCS conference school.

Looking ahead, we’re jumping into one of my favorite weekends of the sports year: a full boat of marquee college football games on Saturday, the start of the NFL season on Sunday, baseball pennant races getting serious (or in the case of the White Sox, getting killed off – gawd I HATE the Twins), the US Open finals (with hopefully a Federer-Nadal matchup on Sunday) and even some quality golf here in Chicagoland with the BMW Championship.  (I attended last year’s tournament in Cog Hill, which seems like 8 decades ago since that was essentially the last time that Tiger Woods looked invincible and there wasn’t any thoughts of him banging IHOP waitresses.  The day that I went, he set a course record score of 62 with a 9 under par with an insanely massive and adoring crowd following him at every hole.  I’m getting a little frightened that we may start speaking of Tiger in similar tones as Bo Jackson as a freakish “what if” athlete as opposed to Michael Jordan, who completely reached his maximum potential.)  Here are this week’s parlay picks for both college football and the NFL (home teams in CAPS, odds from bodog via Yahoo! and note that the Illinois game is offline since the Illini are playing Division I-AA Southern Illinois):

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

  • Florida State (+7) over OKLAHOMA – I’m very surprised that Oklahoma is giving this many points after looking completely pedestrian in what should’ve been a blood money home game against Utah State last week.
  • Michigan (+4) over NOTRE DAME – The prospects of a Michigan turnaround this season was a bit more convincing to me compared to Notre Dame following last week.  I’ll take the points again in South Bend.
  • TENNESSEE (+12) over Oregon – This looks like a classic Admiral Ackbar “It’s a trap!” line – Vegas oddsmakers seem to be banking on people being smitten enough with Oregon’s 72-0 opening performance that they’ll give double digits points even though it’s a road game in a tough SEC environment with over 100,000 opposing fans.  I’m just taking all of the points that I can this week.

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-1-1
Illini Games for the Season: 1-0
Overall Season: 1-1-1

NFL FOOTBALL

  • BEARS (-6.5) over Lions – The Bears are probably going to be about a 9-7 team, which means that they aren’t necessarily going to be that good, but they also aren’t going to be as horrible as a growing number of national commentators seem to believe.  I still have some faith in Jay Cutler and am not going to stick a Jeff George label on him just yet.  Having Chester Taylor behind Matt Forte will vastly improve the Bears’ running depth and the defense has the ability to harass opposing quarterbacks with Julius Peppers added to the fold.  Now, the offensive line (or lack thereof) definitely scares the freaking bejeezus out of me and it wouldn’t surprise me if Cutler is decapitated by week 3, so that’s kind of a negative.  However, is that enough to dissuade me from my belief that we can at least pound Detroit at home?  Heck no.
  • Colts (-2.5) over TEXANS – There’s no franchise that has collectively wreaked more havoc (AKA fucked me) over the past 5 years on my game picks and fantasy football rosters than Houston.  I’m staying away from them until further notice, especially when Indy is involved.
  • Ravens (+2.5) over JETS – Oh, how I love virtually everything about Rex Ryan.  I love how the world found out via Hard Knocks that he’s exactly like his caricature on Kissing Suzy Kolber.  I love his speeches here and here.  (Just once, I would love to hear Lovie Smith call the Bears a “fucking slapdick team”.)  I love this in-depth piece about him that’s going to run in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.  I love his family lineage as the son of Buddy Ryan, who is the architect of the 46 defense and the defensive coordinator of the ’85 Bears.  However, I don’t love the amount of hype heaped upon a team that went 9-7 last year and definitely don’t love the QB play of Mark Sanchez (20 interceptions compared to 12 TDs last year).  Plus, Ray Lewis and the Ravens defensive unit has a mountain of bulletin board material from its former defensive coordinator.  So, I really like taking the points here since I believe Baltimore is winning this game straight-up.

Once again, feel free to use this post as an open thread for the weekend’s games.  If you want to talk about conference realignment, please continue the discussion on the Big Ten Division-palooza post.  Have a great weekend!

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111)

Frank the Tank’s Football Parlay and Open Thread – 9/3/2010

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Sports120 Comments

I’m bringing back my weekly parlay picks this year, where I pick 3 college football games and 3 NFL games each week against spread (always making a pick on the Illinois and Bears games, if applicable).  Basically, it’s an ongoing experiment/validation that it’s a good thing that I don’t live within driving distance of Vegas and how no one should EVER play a parlay in real life.  Here are my picks for the college games this week with hazy illogical reasoning (home teams in CAPS with odds from Bodog.com via Yahoo!):

(1) Illinois (+12) over Missouri (neutral site in St. Louis) – This is just a feeling based on the line itself (because frankly, there’s no good concrete evidence to support putting money on the Illini).  It simply seems like too large of a spread for a neutral site rivalry game when the favorite just “permanently suspended” a star player.  Besides, I have to get the homer pick out of my system early since Illinois probably won’t cover for the rest of the season.

(2) Purdue (+11) over NOTRE DAME – My initial impression is that Purdue is going to perform a bit better than expected this season and the weird overconfidence vibe that I’m getting from South Bend (that Brian Kelly is somehow miles different than the previous 3 Notre Dame head coaches) could turn this into a trap game for the Irish.

(3) Virginia Tech (+1.5) over Boise State (neutral site in Landover) – I know, I’m going to be called a non-believer in Boise State.  However, Virginia Tech is not some Pac-10 team with a gimmicky offense or an overconfident power school heading into a bowl game.  These 2 schools are neck-and-neck in the rankings, yet the Hokies have been placed as underdogs despite being the virtual home team.  I’ll gladly eat my words (and adjust my BlogPoll rankings) if Boise State proves me wrong, but as of now, I love taking the points here.

Feel free to use this post as an open thread for the weekend’s games.  If you want to talk about conference realignment or the Big Ten divisional setup, please continue the discussion on the Big Ten Division-palooza post.  Have a great Labor Day and enjoy the actual football action!

(NOTE: There’s no real reason for the posted picture, other than it needs to be exposed for the world to see and will be my laptop wallpaper for the next 15 years.  Yes, I’m about as street as the Kenny G look-alike from Color Me Badd.  Why do you ask?)

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111)

(Image from Rap Radar)

Frank the Tank’s Super Bowl XLIII Parlay

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, SportsLeave a comment

71465420MS005_Arizona_Cardi

As much as I’d love to pick the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII solely because they feature the long snapper/placekicker combo from my college days (which goes to show you how little performance in college really matters in terms of predicting success at the pro level –  my undergraduate time in Champaign coincided with the worst four year stretch in Illini football history, including a one win season that was followed up by a winless season, yet the special teams tandem from that team are playing together for a chance at the world championship), I simply have to believe that Mike Tomlin is going to do what the Eagles should have done two weeks ago and make sure that Larry Fitgerald is covered by at least two men at all times without exception.  If Philly had used its second half zone defense for the entire length of the NFC Championship (instead of allowing three first half touchdowns by Fitzgerald), we would be looking at an all-Pennsylvania Super Bowl.  The bottom line is that Pittsburgh has proven from the the beginning of the season until now that it is one of the best defenses ever to play in the Super Bowl, particularly considering how much scoring is up this season.  I have faith that they will find a way to shut down Fitzgerald and, ergo, the Arizona offense in general.  At the same time, I have noticed that most of Vegas has dropped the line on the game from the Steelers being a 7-point favorite to only 6.5, which must mean that way too much money is flowing in Arizona’s direction right now.  I’ll take my chances betting against the rest of America here (and in favor of the house).  Since a single pick does not make a parlay, here’s a whole slew of sports predictions for Super Bowl Sunday (home teams in CAPS, if applicable, and all prop bets are actually offered in Vegas):

  • Pittsburgh Steelers (-6.5) over Arizona Cardinals
  • Under 46.5 combined points for the Super Bowl
  • ILLINOIS FIGHTING ILLINI (-11.5) over Iowa Hawkeyes
  • LeBron James rebounds and assists (+5.5) over Arizona Cardinals points (-5.5)
  • Anquan Boldin receiving yards (+14.5) over Michigan State Spartans points (-14.5)
  • Highest scoring quarter by Steelers and Cardinals (+1.5) over Paul Pierce points (-1.5)
  • Under 38.5 for the jersey number of player to score the first touchdown

If I were anywhere near the Strip this weekend, I would be hammering those Super Bowl/basketball combo prop bets.  The long-promised Bulls midseason rant is forthcoming (it’s just going to end up being an extremely long piece).  In the meantime, enjoy the Super Bowl!

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Conference Championship Games: 1-1
Playoffs Overall: 6-3
Bears Games for the Season: 3-10-1
Overall Season: 27-25-3

(Image from Daylife)

Roundball Thoughts and Frank the Tank’s NFL Conference Championship Game Picks

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bulls, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, NBA Basketball, SportsLeave a comment

mike-tisdale-illinois-fighting-illini

It has been a pretty good week for basketball in the world of Frank the Tank.  The Illini beat Michigan for program win number 1,600 and face the next test on their brutal start to the Big Ten season by heading to East Lansing to play Michigan State (which has improved over the past month to shape up into the conference’s one true national title contender).  Frankly, it’s a bit much to believe that Illinois will come out of there with a win, but I actually have a pretty good feeling about the game overall (particularly with how they played Purdue on the road in the Big Ten opener).  Meanwhile, the Bulls continue to confound me by beating probably the best team in the NBA in the Cavs (and without question the best player in the league in LeBron James – the man has been maniacal on the floor this year).  I’m in the process of putting together a complete analysis of the Bulls roster (hint: I like one guy a lot and the rest can pretty much suck it), so you’ll be seeing that come through over the next week.  (At least Vinny Del Negro has figured out one correct move in his player rotation, although me and 99.9% of other Bulls fans could have told him this back in training camp in October.)  In the meantime, here are some quick picks for NFL’s conference championship games (home teams in CAPS):

  • NFC Championship Game: Philadelphia Eagles (-4) over PHOENIX CARDINALS – I’ve done pretty well with the underdogs so far this postseason, but it has got to end at some point.  While I’m not enthralled at all about the prospect of taking a road favorite of over a field goal, it’s tough for me to fathom Philly handing over a multitude of turnovers and allowing Larry Fitzgerald run amok in the same manner as the Buzzsaw’s last two opponents.  The question is really whether the Eagles will provide its fans with a soul-crushing bombing this weekend or in the Super Bowl.  I’m thinking that it’s going to be the latter.
  • AFC Championship Game: PITTSBURGH STEELERS (-6) over Baltimore Ravens – I have a problem with the Steelers having to lay 6 points against an all-world defense, but if the general rule of gambling is that you shouldn’t bet on an underdog that you don’t believe you can win, then I’m for Pittsburgh all the way.  If the crowd noise at Heinz Field is as loud as it appeared to be last week (even my wife mentioned how great the Steelers fans were, although I wonder if this might partially due to the sound technicians at CBS Sports since the crowd noise on their SEC telecasts seem to have the same prominence), then I have a hard time believing the Ravens will be able to do much considering that they were still in prime position to lose last week even with every single possible thing going their way.  For as great as the Ravens defense might be, I still think that the Steelers can run the ball and can open up the passing game a bit with Santonio Holmes and Hines Ward.  On the other hand, the Steelers have almost as good of a defense at the Ravens and get to face a rookie quarterback in Joe Flacco in a hostile environment.  I like the Steelers to cover here.

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 3-1
Playoffs Overall: 5-2
Bears Games for the Season: 3-10-1
Overall Season: 26-24-3

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

Frank the Tank’s NFL Divisional Playoff Picks

On By Frank the TankIn NFL Football, SportsLeave a comment

Here are some quick picks for NFL’s Divisional Playoff Weekend (home teams in CAPS):

  • Baltimore Ravens (+3) over TENNESSEE TITANS
  • CAROLINA PANTHERS (-9.5) over Arizona Cardinals
  • Philadelphia Eagles (+4) over NEW YORK GIANTS
  • PITTSBURGH STEELERS (-3.5) over San Diego Chargers

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 2-2
Bears Games for the Season: 3-10–1
Overall Season: 23-23-3