We should KNOW better...

..but we do it anyway. Here are our predictions for Week 9 of the NFL season and Week 17 of the CFL season...

CFL: We like Hamilton by a touchdown at Ottawa, who's playing well for a 2-14 team...Calgary will easily handle the sinking Winnipeg Bombers, who started the year 5-1 and have only won once since...As good as British Columbia has looked the last few weeks, the home field and value of the second place seeding will keep the Edmonton Eskimos from losing to the Lions Saturday...And in the game of the weekend, the second of the three-game round-robin pits Toronto at Montreal, and we like the Alouettes to win at home and send Toronto out of playoff contention.

NFL: This is one of those weeks where the oddsmakers have it right (insofar as they agree with US!). The only discrepancy we see is favoring the Saints on the road against a team from their own tier; we think the Carolina Panthers not only cover but win this game outright and definitively. 

Beyond that? Vegas has the Browns beating the Bucs by 6 1/2 (it should be more), the Cowboys over the Cardinals (have to, because they're in Dallas, but I'm not betting against Arizona!), the Eagles by just 2 over the Texans (we'd go higher), the Chiefs by ten over the Jets (we'd go higher IF we thought KC could score), the Bengals by twelve over the Jaguars (about right), Dolphins by one over the Chargers (in Miami, so that's how we'd play it, too), Vikings get the three point home field edge over the Skins (they're even teams, so that's right), the 49ers by ten over the Rams (yep), the Broncos by 3 1/2 over the Patriots (who cares? Just enjoy Manning v Brady!), Seahawks by fifteen over Oakland (we have no confidence in Seattle right now; take the points, except DON'T GAMBLE!), Steelers by 1 1/2 over the Ravens, in Pittsburgh (hmm...I don't know about that one...), and the Colts by just 3 1/2 over the Giants on Monday night (no way. Andrew Luck in prime time? At least a TD...)

So, to summarize the NFL "bets" (which we refuse to actually BET on), we'd go with the Panthers, the Browns, the Eagles, the Raiders, and the Colts. And only the Panthers v Saints actually fails to match the quintiles we've set up, so it's the lone prediction we give with confidence.