Everybody has a friend like my friend Bart. You know the one; the guy who will bet you on which bird will fly off the tree branch first. The guy that says, “let’s put a little something on this to make it interesting.” He gets in every confidence, survival and handicapping pool. He follows trends like “The Bears are 5-0 ATS (that’s Against the Spread to the non-degenerate gamblers) following a home loss to a below .500 AFC opponent.
So it was only fitting that when I wanted to add a handicapping segment to Bear Goggles On, I asked Bart. I asked him to send me his first submission last week, and when it didn’t show up in my Inbox, I figured he was off on another bender in Vegas. That was not the case. I’ll let him explain. In the meantime, I’ll post his latest picks until we get the proper security clearance to allow him to post on his own. Here are Bart’s Best for Week 2:
"If you missed my post last week, and you probably did, it wasn’t your fault. I sent it to the wrong brother. So instead of ending up on Bear Goggles On, Boomer’s brother got my picks and took them to Vegas and did pretty well for himself. (or maybe he went to New Jersey where betting on the NFL was allowed last week up to $3,000).Boomer asked me to do a weekly handicapping article. Last week, I gave 3 picks and the Bears game and I did fairly well. I gave the readers the following advice: take Baltimore and New Orleans giving 13, take Dallas giving 6, and take the Bears getting 3.5. As you can see, I ended up 3-1. I made the bold prediction that I will end up in the 60-69% range for the year. I’m off to the start I expected. Here are my picks for Week 2:Green Bay (-9) vs Cincinnati – I gave Lesson 1 last week – don’t be afraid to give a lot of points. This is Lesson 2 – you can’t bet with your heart. Despite my immense hatred of the Fudgepackers, they will play better this week at home than they did against the Bears. Cincinnati was bad against Denver and they will continue to be bad this week. Let’s not get confused, they didn’t blow a great game this past week, they were winning 7-6 and had just scored a touchdown in the last 2 minutes of the game. Green Bay is better than Denver. Sunday they will be more than 9 points better at Lambeau.New England (-4) vs NYJ – Oh my gosh, Mark Sanchez! Mark Sanchez! The Jets are going to the Super Bowl. New England almost lost to Buffalo – did you see that? They are not the same team. They looked terrible. Hmmmm, smells like a good one to me. I’ll take the Pats giving 4 on the road. You don’t think they were embarrassed about last week?San Fran vs Seattle OVER 39.5 – This pick has more to do with my lack of comfort in some of these other games this week than anything else. Watch your confidence pools and survival pools this week because there will be upsets this week – this week has a “stay away” feel to it. SanFran and Seattle are going to trade punches this week that call for an over pick here. Doesn’t it just scream out 24-17? I’ll take the over.Bears (+3) vs Pittsburgh – Defensive Leader’s out. Bears 1st Home Game. Cutler coming off a bad day. Big Ben threw a lot last week. Pittsburgh tries to re-establish the run – doesn’t work. Bears win. I’ll take the points to go with the W.Last week:Against the Spread: 3-1Straight-up. 3-1"
The picks given here are for entertainment purposes only. If you win any actual money with these picks, donations for new sod for Soldier Field should be sent to the Chicago Park District. Good luck!