St. Louis at Washington

I know, I know. How can I back St. Louis here? Our lone loss from last week's seven picks was the Rams. And it was a bad loss - 28 to nothing. Well, these are the kinds of teams I back, so get used to it. Looking at the St. Louis offense in week one, it's easy to convince yourself that they won't win a game this season. They fell behind early and were forced to the air, and at that point the game was pretty much over. But last week's performance won't keep me from backing the Rams in what I think is a great situation this week. Thanks to that performance, they are getting double digits. I expect to see a lot of Stephen Jackson early this game to take the heat off of Bulger. Washington is off a huge divisional rivalry game vs. the Giants and have the Lions on deck. They probably feel like if they just show up they will be 2-1 after three weeks. For years, the Redskins have been a bad team when they installed as a huge home favorite. I went all the way back to 1991 and found out the Skins have been a double-digit home chalk just 12 times. How often does a team lose in the NFL when they are favored by 10 or more? Well, the Redskins have done it 67% of the time! That's right, in eight of the twelve games in which they were a double-digit favorite, they lost straight up. In two others, they won by just a field goal. They have covered the large number just once in the last 15 years! The problem for Washington is that their offense has scored 17 or less points in nine of their last 12 games, and 13 or less in six of their last 10. The past history and recent offensive ineptness shows that it will be very difficult for this team to score enough to beat a big number.