2017 Big 12 Football Predictions with Betting Odds and Expert Analysis
by Robert Ferringo - 8/30/2017

The Big 12 has five teams currently in the Top 25, and a sixth (TCU) is the next team off the list. The league has only 10 teams. So if six of them are among the best 26 squads in the country then that makes the league the densest group of talent in the nation. And because the Big 12 plays a true round robin format, with every team playing one another, there aren't the same gaps and unbalanced schedule-laden mirages in this league that you get with some others.

2017 Pac-12 Football Predictions with Betting Odds and Expert Analysis
by Robert Ferringo - 8/29/2017

Perpetually underrated, the Pac-12 enters the season with a pair of national title contenders (USC, Washington), a proven powerhouse that is a sleeper threat to make the College Football Playoffs (Stanford), and a load of potential spoilers that have the talent and coaching to make a surprise run (Oregon, Washington State, UCLA). I feel that the Pac-12 North is the best division in college football (edging out the ACC Atlantic) and I think this league will have one of the most competitive and entertaining conference races in the nation.

2017 Big Ten Football Predictions with Betting Odds and Expert Analysis
by Robert Ferringo - 8/28/2017

Here's how good the Big Ten was last year: the team that represented them in the College Football Playoff didn't even win their division. Ohio State lost a tiebreaker to Penn State in the Big Ten East and watched the Nittany Lions use an amazing comeback to take down No. 6 Wisconsin in the league championship game. And when the dust settled on the season, the Big Ten finished with four teams in the final Top 10 rankings, more than any league in the country.

2017 SEC Football Predictions with Betting Odds and Expert Analysis
by Robert Ferringo - 8/25/2017

The best and worst thing that ever happened to the SEC was their outstanding run from 2008-2012, in which they won five straight National Championships. That period helped establish the false media narrative (fake news!) that the SEC was some otherworldly football conference playing at a level that was beyond the realm of normal men.

2017 Green Bay Packers Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/16/2017

Aaron Rodgers put on one of the all-time great quarterback displays for about three months last season and carried Green Bay to the cusp of the Super Bowl. As long as Rodgers is still under center, the Packers have to be considered one of the favorites to win the NFC and a legit Super Bowl threat. But will (or more importantly can) absolutely anyone on the Packers roster raise their level of play to match Rodgers? If not, it's been proven over the past two "underachieving" seasons that Rodgers can only carry this team so far.

2017 Seattle Seahawks Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/16/2017

By making the playoffs five straight seasons, winning and losing a Super Bowl along the way, and taking part in the postseason in 11 of the past 14 years, Seattle has solidified itself among the best and most consistent franchises in the NFL so far this century. And with the foundation of this current Seahawks group still intact, there is nothing to suggest that they won't continue to be a force in the NFC.

2017 Minnesota Vikings Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/16/2017

Things went sideways awfully quick for the Vikings last year. Hopes were high coming off their 2015 playoff appearance. But then Teddy Bridgewater's leg exploded in the preseason and sent this squad scrambling. They managed to find a capable replacement on the fly with Sam Bradford and actually started the season 5-0. But then Mike Zimmer's eye issues flared up, offensive coordinator Norv Turner quit, injuries started to mount, and Minnesota was forced to drag its carcass through a 3-8 close and a .500 record.

2017 Chicago Bears Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/16/2017

For the last eight years the Chicago Bears experienced relative "stability" at the quarterback position by employing one of the worst in the game. But finally, mercifully, Jay Cutler ended his injury-prone stay in the Windy City, fleeing for retirement (and then Miami; but not in that order) and taking his nonexistent leadership skills and turnover-happy style with him. Yet now the Bears find themselves in unfamiliar - yet completely familiar - territory: smack-dab in the middle of a quarterback controversy.

2017 San Francisco 49ers Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/16/2017

San Francisco has been floundering since the 49ers' ridiculous schism from John Harbaugh following the 2014 season. After one season of comically inept Jim Tomsula, the 49ers tried to get crafty, bringing in Chip Kelly. That went about as well as expected, with Kelly's utterly ill-fitting scheme leading to a 2-14 campaign. The 49ers wisely decided to move on from Kelly after just one year.

2017 Detroit Lions Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/16/2017

How the Lions perform this season will likely come down to two things: how the much-maligned offensive line holds up and how their linebackers perform. But how you feel about the Lions heading into this season really comes down to one thing: how you think of quarterback Matt Stafford. Where is Stafford on the spectrum of NFL quarterbacks? This guy has thrown for 27,000 yards over the last six seasons.

2017 Arizona Cardinals Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/16/2017

Last year at this time I felt the Cardinals had one of the best rosters in football and that they were a true Super Bowl threat. Things didn't work out that way. Instead Arizona suffered through an incredibly frustrating, underachieving season that left them below .500 but also below the radar coming into 2017.

2017 Los Angeles Rams Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/16/2017

If HBO's "Hard Knocks" did anything last year it was pull back the curtain on the fact that the Rams were going to be awful in their first season in Los Angeles. They were exactly that, winning just four times and being outscored by nearly 11 points per game. That debacle led to the firing of coach Jeff Fisher, and now the Rams are attempting to sell a fresh start to their fractured fan base for the second season in a row.

2017 Atlanta Falcons Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/14/2017

It is going to be there through every snap and every second of their season this year. Every fan is thinking about it. Every commentator is talking about it. There is no escaping the fact that the Atlanta Falcons should be entering this 2017 season as surprise Super Bowl champions. Instead they are entering it as the victims of the biggest choke in NFL history.

2017 Carolina Panthers Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/14/2017

We've all fallen victim to a savage hangover before. And one of sports' worst hangovers bit the Panthers last year: the Super Bowl hangover. Carolina saw its 2015 win total reduced by more than half, tumbling from 15 wins down to just six. The Panthers had their streak of three straight division titles snapped last year and were essentially a nonfactor just months after falling in the Super Bowl.

2017 New York Giants Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/14/2017

The Giants have traditionally been one of the easiest teams in the NFL to handicap. When they are posted as an underdog or not expected to do anything they always show up and overperform. And when they are faced with expectations and heaped with hype they always manage to underachieve.

2017 New Orleans Saints Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/14/2017

Sean Payton is moving dangerously close to Jeff Fisher territory. Payton, owner of a 94-66 career record and a Super Bowl title, has now led the Saints to a 7-9 record in three straight seasons, and, if you include the 2012 season in which Payton was banned, New Orleans has suffered a losing mark in four of the last five years.

2017 Tampa Bay Buccaneers Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/14/2017

I was ahead of the curve last year, jumping on the value of the Tampa Bay Bucs as an under-the-radar money team in 2016. They proved me sage, finishing 9-7 on the season and easily eclipsing their 2016 Las Vegas season win total. Now the word is out on the Bucs. Some splashy free agent signings and a tour on HBO's "Hard Knocks" has cast an even brighter spotlight on this squad.

2017 New England Patriots Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/10/2017

Somehow, the Patriots actually got better in the offseason following their thrilling Super Bowl victory last February. And not just a little better; the Patriots got a lot better. Brandin Cooks was added to bolster an already loaded receiving corps. Stephon Gilmore is a stud cornerback set to take over opposite Malcolm Butler. Tony Ealy was picked up on the cheap to rush the passer. Mike Gillislee jumped over from Buffalo to give the running game some thump. And then the Patriots absolutely stole David Harris from the rival Jets.

2017 Dallas Cowboys Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/10/2017

Never forget that the Dallas Cowboys have been seeped in the stench of loser for most of the Jerry Jones era. Sure, they had a nice little five-year run back when VCRs were still a thing. But over the last 30 years the Cowboys have had a winning record less than half of the time. Dallas is coming off 13 wins last year, their best regular season since 1992. But they have won 10 or more games just five times in the last 18 years, and I don't see them doing it in back-to-back seasons.

2017 Washington Redskins Season Win Total Picks
by Robert Ferringo - 8/10/2017

By finishing 8-7-1 last year, Washington finished above .500 in back-to-back seasons for the first time in 20 years. In 1996-97 they went 9-7 and then 8-7-1, the same records that they posted nearly two decades later. The Redskins haven't posted three straight winning years since the end of the Joe Gibbs era in 1992, and the last time they won two straight years they followed up with a 6-10 stinker.