Football Free Picks: San Francisco @ St. Louis
Added on Jan 01, 2010 by Jack Thurman in
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Of all of the bad teams in the NFL, the St. Louis Rams are most definitely the worst. There’s several teams that might be worthy of comparison, but even a 2 win team like the Detroit Lions or a 3 win team like the Tampa Bay Bucs look like playoff contenders compared to the hapless Rams. St. Louis football fans will mercifully see their season come to an end on Sunday as they host the San Francisco 49ers, a team that made good progress this year in Mike Singletary’s first full season as head coach. Due to the widely disparate mindsets of the two teams involved, this game presents a solid wagering opportunity for sports betting enthusiasts.
San Francisco at St. Louis
January 3, 10:00 AM Pacific
Keith Null is now the starting QB for the St. Louis Rams, and the team has scored a total of 33 points in three games with the rookie under center. He can’t feel too bad, however, since they weren’t any better with veterans Marc Bulger and Kyle Boller starting at QB. St. Louis has scored more than 17 points only twice this season, and they’re averaging 11.2 PPG over their last seven contests. There’s plenty of blame to go around on this pitiful football team, but their problems started long before Null took his first NFL snap.
And divest yourself of any notion that the Rams care enough to fight for a win for their home fans. St. Louis has lost 12 straight games at the Edward Jones Dome and are on a 9-19 ATS run at home. Basically, St. Louis is already on the clock for the first pick in the 2009 NFL Draft which provides another interesting subtext to this game–the Rams would put themselves in a better position for the future by losing. Should St. Louis go 1-15, they’ll automatically get the first pick in the draft. If they should pull the upset win, however, it’ll likely go to the Detroit Lions based on strength of schedule. Not that St. Louis has shown much interest in winning of late, they’ve got a pretty compelling reason *not* to win here.
It’s a completely different story for Mike Singletary’s San Francisco 49ers. They’ve had some ‘growing pains’ this year, but they’ve never lost their fight. Clearly that was the idea when Singletary was handed the reins of this team despite no prior coaching experience. As the defensive leader of arguably the greatest NFL team in history, the 1985 Chicago Bears there were few tougher and more fiery competitors than Singletary. Despite the ups and downs he’s experienced with the team, he’s done an impressive job communicating his commitment to the game to his players.
For NFL football betting experts, a coach that has his team fighting for every victory is a goldmine against the pointspread. Since he became head coach last year, the Niners are 14-6-3 ATS. This year they’ve lost against the spread only 4 times in 15 games (8-4-3 ATS). They destroyed St. Louis at home earlier this season, winning 35-0. Not that they haven’t dominated the Rams for a while now–San Francisco has covered against the Rams in 8 of the last 10 meetings and 11 of the last 14 in St. Louis.
Laying points on the road is never an easy thing to do in the NFL, but in a matchup between a team that has shown considerable fight under their fiery head coach and a team going nowhere–let alone considering that they’ve got some very compelling reasons to lose this game–this looks to be a good exception. Look for San Fran to win and cover with ease.
Bet San Francisco -7 over St. Louis
