Pinnacle Pulse

Bills face stiff test from Bears
The Buffalo Bills climbed back up to the .500 mark with a 17-12 home win over the Minnesota Vikings last week. In order to get over that mark this weekend they’ll have to do what no other team has been able to this season – beat the Chicago Bears.
The Bears ran roughshod over the Seattle Seahawks in the Sunday Night game last week, getting two touchdown passes from Rex Grossman and two touchdown runs from Thomas Jones in the 37-6 victory. Chicago easily covered the spread at home versus Seattle, and now sit at 3-1 against the spread (ATS) on the season.
Buffalo is also 3-1 ATS in 2006, thanks to their win over Minnesota last week. Bills quarterback J.P. Losman went 23-of-32 for 222 yards passing versus the Vikings, with one touchdown and no interceptions. Willis McGahee ran for a score for Buffalo, and Peerless Price had the team’s TD catch.
To improve that ATS mark today, the Bills need to keep the score close. Oddsmakers at http://pinnaclesports.com/ have the unbeaten Bears pegged as large 11.5 point +106 (bet $100 to win $106) home favorites for the 1:00pm ET contest versus Buffalo. The Bears are 2-0 ATS at home this season, and 3-1 ATS as favorites. The Bills are 2-0 ATS on the road in 2006, and 2-0 ATS as the underdog.
The total for Sunday’s game is currently sitting at 34 points. The combined score of last week’s Bills/Vikings game fell UNDER the posted total, and Buffalo is 1-3 OVER/UNDER on the season. Chicago has a 2-1-1 OU mark in 2006 and the Bears almost single-handedly cashed the OVER against the Seahawks.
The last time Buffalo and Chicago met in September 2002, the Bills came away with a 33-27 home victory as 3-point favorites. The combined score of that contest went OVER the day’s posted total. The Bears haven’t beaten the Bills since December 1997, when they came up with a 20-3 home victory as 1-point underdogs.
And then there were three

You expect this perfect-record stuff from Indianapolis. It seems Peyton Manning and his Colts gallop out to a 5-0 or 10-0 start every season, making headlines each time.

But the Bears? Or the Ravens?

Only three teams that charged unbeaten into Week 4 survived the weekend. Two Super Bowl contenders were humbled last week as the defending NFC champion Seahawks were mauled 37-6 in Chicago, while the 3-0 Bengals were pummeled at home by the Patriots.

If you listen closely, you can hear early whispers of a Chicago-Indy Super Bowl. And of the three surviving unbeaten teams, they look like the best bets to stay that way through Week 5, while the surprising Ravens, who finished off the 2-0 Chargers at home, have a tough task in Denver.

Widely recognized as the largest online sports book in the world, www.PinnacleSports.com is known for taking action from all players big or small. Whether it’s $1 or $50,000, www.PinnacleSports.com has earned an industry leading reputation for being the destination of choice for seasoned professionals and sports betting novices alike.

Offering up to 60% better odds on NFL sides than other bookmakers, the oddsmakers at www.PinnacleSports.com list Indianapolis as a whopping 18.5 point (+102) favorite at home to winless Tennessee, while the Bears moved quickly from -8 to -11.5 (+106) favorites at www.PinnacleSports.com to handle the Bills.

The Ravens, meanwhile, opened as 3.5-point -101 (bet $101 to win $100) underdogs to the 2-1 Broncos, who are coming off a bye week. Denver is 5-1 ATS in their past six at home with the extra week of rest.

While teams at the top of NFL food chain are changing, it’s the same old teams providing the steady diet of wins at the bottom.

Tennessee, Oakland and Detroit are joined by Tampa Bay as the only winless teams, while the 49ers and Cardinals (both 1-3) have done little to shed their reputations as perennial losers.

The Cardinals are 0-4 ATS, punishing fans and bettors who bought the early hype that this year would be different in the desert. It’s looking exactly the same in Arizona, except for one significant change: The Matt Leinart Era begins much earlier than most anticipated.

A 1-3 start and abysmal play by starter Kurt Warner has forced a change under center. The Cardinals host Kansas City, who clobbered San Francisco 41-0 last week and look to make it two straight. Oddsmakers at www.PinnacleSports.com opened the Chiefs as 2.5-point favorites in the desert, but it moved to -3 -123 after plenty of early money poured in on KC.

In the Meadowlands, a fierce division rivalry between the suddenly explosive Redskins and the rested Giants is renewed, with New York coming off a bye week (where they are 14-5 ATS the last 19 games after a bye). Washington looks to the rejuvenated Mark Brunell to Santana Moss tandem to do more damage, after hooking up for three scores in last Sunday’s win over the Jags.

The Giants are 1-2, but deserve to be 0-3. In fairness, they’ve played three top teams in Philadelphia, Seattle and Indy, but they can’t afford to lose division games. Realizing this, bettors jumped all over the line at -3, pushing it quickly to Giants -4 -109.

In Miami, the alleged Super Bowl contending Dolphins join Carolina as the only other teams with 0-4 ATS marks. The Dolphins could be headed for a 1-4 start, but they get ten points from www.PinnacleSports.com oddsmakers who figure, if they can’t beat Houston, they can’t beat New England. The Patriots are listed as -10 +103 favorites to cover.

If you subscribe to the Letdown Theory, the Patriots may be primed for one after a thorough road win at Cincinnati. You could advance the theory further, believing that the Dolphins hit bottom in Houston and will rebound against a division foe.

However, Miami’s offense has been dreadful with Daunte Culpepper proving to be the next Jay Fielder instead of the second coming of Dan Marino, and Ronnie Brown struggling on the ground.

In Jacksonville, the Jaguars have covered four straight meetings with the Jets. But are these two teams headed in opposite directions?

New York has won twice outright as a road underdog this season, while losing tough games at home to New England and Indy. Can they de-claw the Jaguars and send them to a third consecutive defeat? The Jets opened as touchdown dogs and will have to make the most of their time on offense if Jacksonville’s ball-hogging ways continue. Jag’s QB Byron Leftwich and the offense have averaged 36 minutes in time-of-possession in two home games, an edge the Jets will need to counteract. www.PinnacleSports.com list the Jaguars as -7 -104 favorites for the tie in Jacksonville.

The contenders are distancing themselves from the pretenders early in 2006.