And then, to top things off of this shameful display, the Bengals didn’t even try an onside kick; they boomed it deep and watched the Steelers march while grinding down the clock to victory.

The lines are from Vegas and the home teams are in BOLD.

Houston (+3) over CLEVELAND
Brady Quinn has a broken finger and he’s no Tony Romo. Playing through the game as an inexperienced youngster will be detrimental to the team. As much as it hurts to say, the Browns have a better chance of winning with a healthy Derek Anderson under centre. Throw in that Kellen Winslow is injured again and the Texans look like a good pick.

Buffalo (-3) over KANSAS CITY
The Bills have to get off this slide sometime and there’s no better team to do that against (other than the Lions) than the Chiefs. Buffalo need this road win because their game next week is a “home” tilt in Toronto. Also, Lee Evans should avenge his 0-catch game in against a week KC defensive backfield.

TENNESSEE (-5) over New York Jets
Not only are the Titans undefeated, they haven’t lost against the spread either with a record of 9-0-1. This should be the game of the week since there isn’t too much else going on matchup-wise. It would be great to see the Titans win here if only to set up a winless-undefeated Thanksgiving macthup — which I’m picking (see below).

MIAMI (-1) over New England
Let’s all remember Matt Cassel’s record against Miami, 0-1. That’s just including his only start against them which was earlier this season but when you figure in how badly he stunk up the joint last season in Miami in relief of Brady, I’m figuring to bet against him.

San Francisco (-10) at DALLAS
Sad news for the Cowboys hearing that Felix Jones is now out for the season. That leaves the remarkably unremarkable Tashard Choice as Marion Barber’s backup. I’m really hoping I don’t see Choice in the game too much, unless it’s in garbage time to spell Barber. If Marion the Barbarian is out of the game for any length of time, the Cowboys playoff chances dim severely.

DETROIT (+8) over Tampa Bay
Let’s all just remember now that Tampa Bay on the road and at home are two completely different teams. Also, the Lions do have a pesky habit of scoring those garbage time points to cover the huge spreads they’re given. There is very little doubt that the Lions will still be winless when facing the (potentially) undefeated Titans on Thanksgiving next Thursday.

BALTIMORE (-1) over Philadelphia
I have another question about ties: What happens if you took the Eagles (or Bengals) in a survivor pool? Technically, they didn’t lose and are still alive but you could also argue they didn’t win so they don’t advance. Last week was pretty tricky for people in the gambling world, eh? And wait, so the Eagles couldn’t beat Cincinnati and now they’re favoured against a legitimately good team? What sense does that make?

Chicago (-8.5) over ST. LOUIS
Even Rex Grossman can look good against the Rams so that means Kyle Orton can do even better. If you’re a Rams fan, you’re just hoping this season will end so the misery will be over. Without Steven Jackson and two key offensive linemen, will St. Louis have any running game at all?

JACKSONVILLE (-2.5) over Minnesota
This one should be a rough-and-tough slobber-knocker. It would be entirely appropriate if this game was played in pouring rain and muck which is disappointing since the forecast only calls for a “few showers.” The Jaguars should be able to handle the Vikes.

Carolina (+1) over ATLANTA
Matt Ryan and the Falcons have been great at home and while the Panthers are sitting at 8-2, they don’t seem to hitting on all cylinders. This should be a great game to watch if you love rushing battles but it’s easy to see Steve Smith break a long reception for the eventual win.

DENVER (-9.5) over Oakland
It’s usually hard to give up this many points in a rivalry game but is it really a rivalry when one team owns the other quite routinely? The Broncos shouldn’t have any problem dealing with the sad, sad Raiders. Do you think Al Davis missed Mike Shanahan now?

SEATTLE (+3) over Washington
Clinton Portis sure looked good for a guy who was supposedly playing hurt on Monday night. Maybe playing in Seattle will help rejuvenate Shaun Alexander, but probably not since he’ll be stapled to the bench unless this gets out of hand. It won’t though and Seattle will use their tremendous home-field advantage to keep this one close.

New York Giants (-3) over ARIZONA
A battle of division titans out in the desert. Kurt Warner won’t look like an MVP against this defence. Brandon Jacobs might have been held out of the late parts of last week’s game but he’s been fine in practice so look for him to run over the Cardinals’ front seven.

Indianapolis (+2.5) over SAN DIEGO
Other than the fact that the game is in San Diego, I don’t see why they’d be favoured. Indianapolis is putting it together week after week while the Chargers are finding ways to lose as evidenced in Pittsburgh.

This week: 0-1
Last week: 9-5
This season: 74-59-2

My next quarrel with this tie involves the teams “Winning percentage.” Now, I have always taken that percentage in the standings to be the given teams winning percentage but now I have my doubts. How could it be that the 5-4-1 Eagles are at .550 instead of .500? Should their percentage of games won not be made from the standard equation of (five games won divided by ten games played). Ties should not count as half wins as suggested in the standings. And if there are playoff implications because of this draw, there should be a ton of ire raised.

For tonight’s game, I feel as if I’m already getting tired of these Thursday night affairs. Really, they’re an inconvenience to a writer like myself and the teams involved who are playing on extremely shortened weeks. The only time that teams should play on Thursdays are at Thanksgiving and that’s it.
As for my pick, I’ll take Cincinnati (+11) over PITTSBURGH. The Steelers were much healthier when they routed the Bengals earlier this season and in case you haven’t noticed, the woeful Bengals haven’t lost a game since October. They’ve even played decent teams to; look it up.

Last week: 9-5
This season: 74-58-2

In case you were wondering, which I’m sure you are, my ballot would have looked like this: 5. Pedroia, 4. Carlos Quentin (I know he missed a month), 3. Kevin Youkilis (), 2. Justin Morneau (they got that right) and 1. Joe Mauer. Catcher is the toughest position to play, he won a gold glove and was the best hitter in the entire AL. Had Minnesota (won that one game) and made the playoffs, I’m very certain either Mauer or Morneau takes the award.

Two question about the ballots as well:
It was probably someone from L.A. but who voted Francisco Rodriguez as 1st place, but seriously how do you give that vote to someone who was in the game for an inning per night tops?
And who in the hell gave Jason Bartlett a single vote — let a lone a fifth place vote? Whoever did that should just give up his right to participate in anything baseball related. I mean, check out his stat line! It’s average at best!

In the NL, Albert Pujols was the right choice for MVP. He’s a threat every time he steps to the plate but I still don’t believe how good is because I think I’m taking him for granted. He’s so consistently good that he really deserved the award because the two other top candidates had a major flaw. Ryan Howard was as cold as the weather during the World Series when the season opened and managed to best his MLB record for strikeouts in a season. Manny Ramirez only spent half of a (spectacular) season with the Dodgers so you can’t really count him in.

The Chicago Cubs re-upped their biggest free agent by inking Ryan Dempster to a four-year, $52 million deal. That’s pretty much what I would’ve expected to happen when you consider the market and how much he meant to the Cubs this past season. But all-in-all, he had the best season of his career in a contract year and is a converted closer. Can he really be counted on to replicate his numbers for four seasons? I think not.

Congratulation to Jeremy Affeldt for becoming the first free agent to sign this offseason. The Giants needed bullpen help as much as anyone so why not grab a guy who isn’t terrible at a reasonable price? High marks on that move.

This is just plain smart and I don’t know why more people, especially women, don’t attempt this. A 16-year old girl was recently drafted by a Japanese team after she taught herself a pretty mean knuckleball. Tim Wakefield is still out there past 40 years old proving you don’t need a big arm to throw this pitch. So why don’t more people start trying it out?

And according to television reports, the Yankees — already having offered a massive deal to CC Sabathia — have thrown a five-year, $80 million deal at former Blue Jay A.J. Burnett. You don’t have to know too much about baseball to know that this is overpaying for A.J. He didn’t even play so great for the entire season, only really turning it on after the all-star break, I’m sure after his agent reminded him it was a contract year. Well, at least with the Yanks he’ll be able to sport an ERA of around 4.00 and still be one of their better starters.

Firstly, all of those rumours about Cuban being interested in buying the Chicago Cubs will never come to fruition now. With a red flag in his past like this, it’s hard to believe that MLB owners would ever let Cuban into their old boys club. Word was that they already weren’t too hot on Cuban joining their ranks so now he can kiss his dream goodbye.

Secondly, Cuban is — of course — challenging this suit being brought against him. From everything I’ve gained about this case it comes down to a he-said, she-said type deal and you don’t have to watch Law And Order to know how iffy those can be. I don’t see this ending up with Cuban on the losing end but this might be drawn out, much to his ire.

Finally, when you look at how sketchy some NBA owners are, there’s no way that Cuban will be forced into selling his team. Jerry Buss, owner of the Lakers has been charged with drinking and driving; Clay Bennett stole an entire franchise from its loved ones; even Michael Jordan, part owner of Charlotte has a checkered past involving gambling.

And of course, all of this post is pretty much just hearsay on my behalf. Like I said, I’m no financial expert, I’m just going on what I’ve learned thus far.

So the Titans are still undefeated and are getting it done when teams have started to shut down their vaunted running game. Hmm, a team adjusting as other teams try to take away their strengths? That sounds an awful lot like the Patriots of last year. The Pats passed like it was nobody’s difference and ran the ball when it was ineffective, the Titans are now doing that in reverse. The biggest difference is that the Titans actually have a good coach who doesn’t cheat and won’t run up the score.

What a bizarre end to the Steelers-Chargers game. I’m still unclear as to why Polamalu’s fumble return on the botched lateral didn’t count but in the end it doesn’t really matter in the standings. The only thing is that it’s was quite a swerve for gamblers. The difference between the one point win and a eight point win would’ve had the Steelers covering instead of the Chargers beating the spread.

How about them Bucs? They looked impressive against the Vikings on both offence and defence. They consistently stuffed the Vikes running game and ran up the middle against the Williamses like nobody has done this season. If only they can take that act on the road and dominate away from the Bay. Maybe they were just trying to impress Tiger Woods, who was there on the sidelines.

Quickly: You know it’s a bad blow out when network affiliates switch away from your game like they did when Green Bay turned it full-on against the Bears … The Colts own Sage Rosenfels … So apparently Miami can win, but I’ll never trust them to cover big spreads, that’s for certain.

I don’t usually comment on NCAA football unless something big happens in a bowl game but this outcome was surprising to say the least. Houston 70, Tulsa 30. Why is this surprising you may ask (if you don’t follow college football that is)? Well Tulsa happened to be the 23rd ranked team in the country and had a record of 8-1. Houston was and is unranked with a record of 5-4 going into the game. How in the world does a top-25 team lose a team that’s just barely over .500? I guess it just proves that anything can happen in sports.

Finally, why was there any doubt that Brock Lesnar couldn’t beat Randy Couture? The guy is a monster and had almost every physical advantage possible over the defending champ. When a fighter outweighs his opponent by 45 pounds, is two inches taller and 14 years younger, those are huge advantages. Not to mention Couture hadn’t fought in 15 months as well. Also, how does a guy not defend a title for over a year? There should be a minimum time you can hold a title and not defend it — 15 months of inactivity is way too long.

The Cowboys and especially Marion Barber played like a good team should last night. They visited their rival and defeated them in prime time. They looked fresh coming off the bye week and kept on getting better as the game went along. That’s what you need to do as a potential playoff team and as Tony Romo heals while playing, he’ll only become more confident. I’m pretty certain that his first pick was a bad throw resulting from his finger while the second was because TO was blasted while catching the ball, causing to pop out.

And silly me, I totally forgot to pick the Monday Nighter this week. I’ll take Cleveland +5 in Buffalo. Edwards has not looked sharp under the centre the past few weeks and while safety Donte Whitner might play, the Bills are still missing Aaron Schobel. Brady Quinn covers it.

This week: 8-5
This season: 73-58-2