Bengals back in their comfort zone

Pitchers and Catchers in 4 months, give or take a week. Batting Practice for the Astros is scheduled for Monday at 1:00. I don’t know why Garner only bunted his runners to second base. His guys proved they couldn’t get a hit with a runner in scoring position. Worse, the probability of strikeouts increased (exponentially, it seemed) as a runner moved around the bases. They needed to bunt or steal all the way around .

Type/Last Week/Season
NCAA/1-1/8-5
NFL/0-5-1/13-16-1
Invest/0*/-2.5*

INVEST
**Cincinnati 31 (-9) Green Bay 21. The Packers offense is reduced to QB Brett Favre and WR Donald Driver. WR Javon Walker and RBs Ahman Green and Najeh Davenport are all out for the season. Walker’s replacement was Robert Ferguson. He’s out 4-6 weeks now. The Bengals have lost 2 in a row, but both were to solid AFC teams (@ Jacksonville, Pittsburgh). Now they get back to their comfort zone (they defeated Minnesota and Chicago by a combined 61-15 tally) playing against NFC North foes. The risk in this investment is that the Bengals are without a couple of starters in their secondary, so Green Bay could engineer a back-door cover like they did against Carolina on Monday Night a few weeks ago.

SATURDAY (All Times ET)
3:30 CBS HD #19 Florida 16 (-4) #13 Georgia 10. Unbeaten Georgia starts Joe Tereshinski at QB following the loss of D.J. Shockley to injury. The Bulldogs have struggled against the Gators in Jacksonville, losing 13 of 15. Florida’s new spread offense has struggled against the better SEC defenses, so I expect this game to be a low-scoring affair.

The other undefeated teams aren’t expecting much opposition but can’t afford to suffer a loss. #1 Texas and #2 Southern Cal play winless (in conference) foes this week. Texas plays Oklahoma State on TBS at 7:00 while SC plays Washington St. on ABC (Regional) at 3:30. #5 Alabama hosts Utah State (2-4, 1-3 in WAC) and UCLA visits Stanford (4-2, 3-1 Pac-10) which has recovered nicely from an embarrassing loss to new I-A member UC-Davis. Those games aren’t available on any of the national broadcast or cable outlets.

SUNDAY
1:00 FOX HD Detroit 19 (-3) Chicago 9. If this game doesn’t end in a tie, an NFC North team will have a winning record for the first time since the opening week. Detroit has turned over to the reigns to QB Jeff Garcia who led the team to a 13-10 road victory at Cleveland. His most important stat: 0 interceptions. Demoted QB Joey Harrington threw 5 in the week 2 meeting between these two teams. Bears rookie QB Kyle Orton has done well protecting the football, but I’m not ready to pick the Bears on the road just yet.

7:30 ESPN HD NFL PrimeTime 8:30 New England 30 (-9) Buffalo 13. The Patriots pulled an NFC North maneuver last week, moving into sole possession of first place by having a bye. They may get LB Tedy Bruschi back from a stroke for this game; their defense is playing like the 2002 edition and not the Super Bowl Championship units. The Pats can’t afford to look ahead to next Monday’s marquee game against the Colts, instead they need to bury their AFC East opponents in order to restore order and prepare for a playoff run, which will include road games. In Belichick I Trust.

9:00 ABC HD Pittsburgh 20 (-10) Baltimore 3. The Steelers earned an impressive victory against the Bengals last week and have the opportunity to bury the Ravens this week. Baltimore is without S Ed Reed and QB Kyle Boller. While Boller may not be even an adequate QB, backup Anthony Wright isn’t at that level. LB Ray Lewis and RB Jamal Lewis are slowed by injuries. The Steelers power running game will face more resistance this week, but QB Ben Roethlisberger’s presence will prevent the Ravens from stacking the line solely against the run.


1:00 FOX HD N.Y. Giants 27 (-2 ½) Washington 21. Both of these teams are off to stronger than expected starts and could maintain their pace for the course of the season. Giants QB Eli Manning is directing a strong offense, even if it has slowed the past 2 weeks (against good defenses). The Redskins were playing great offense before posting 52 points on the Division I-A 49ers. QB Mark Brunell is playing like it is 1999 again. WR Santana Moss is making the offseason trade of #1 WR’s with the Jets (for Laverneus Coles) look like the biggest ripoff since the Cowboys-Vikings Herschel Walker trade (well, almost).

4:00 CBS HD Kansas City 24 (+6) San Diego 26. This game probably won’t have more than a few punts, but I’m not sure that the score will get up into the 30’s. Chargers HC Marty Schottenheimer is more comfortable with scores in the teens or twenties. Both teams will run the ball with their All-Pro runners, Holmes for the Chiefs and Tomlinson for the Chargers. That will keep the game clock moving and keep the number of plays low. While Chiefs HC Vermiel is associated with high-powered offenses in his return to the NFL (StL and KC), it is Mike Martz who is pass-heavy. The Rams ran the ball a lot more last week when Martz wasn’t on the sidelines.

4:15 FOX HD Denver 31 (-3 ½) Philadelphia 20. The Broncos have to be stinging mad after losing a 23-10 4th quarter lead in the Meadowlands to the Giants last week. The week before New England scored 17 unanswered second-half points to place the outcome in doubt until the end. Once, an isolated incident. Twice, a trend. Three times, bad things happen. The Broncos will use their punishing ground game with RBs Mike Anderson and Tatum Bell to control the line of scrimmage. They’ll probably call more running plays on 1 drive than the Eagles will call all game.