Place Your Bets: Week 7

If you live in Nevada, Oregon, Montana or Delaware, you're in luck. Otherwise, go to Canada or Europe, or those rogues in New Jersey and get your bet on for the NFL weekend! All games are Sunday unless otherwise noted.

1. St. Louis at Carolina (-6.5) — OK, so the Rams demolished the Houston Texans last week. Then again, does that really mean anything anymore? I'm starting to think not. Cam Newton is hitting one of his hot streaks, and the Panthers are at home. All of this spells bad news for the Rams.

2. San Diego at Jacksonville (+7.5) — For the second straight week, we're taking Jacksonville. They came through last week, and they should again this week. The Chargers have the dreaded noon kickoff as a West Coast team traveling to the East Coast, which is never a good recipe. Justin Blackmon is setting the world on fire since coming back from his four-game suspension and the Jaguars get back their tight end this week, which should further help the cause of Maurice Jones-Drew. The Chargers will win the game, but it won't be by more than a touchdown.

3. Cincinnati at Detroit (-3.5) — The Bengals defense has been a wreck, and that's never a good thing to say about a team that is about to play Matthew Stafford and Megatron. Calvin Johnson played last week and should be on the field again this week. On their home field, the Lions should win this game by a fairly comfortable amount.

4. Dallas at Philadelphia (-2.5) — If the Cowboys were healthy, this would be a different story. But they're without DeMarco Murray (almost certainly) and could also be without DeMarcus Ware. Nick Foles will be under center for the Eagles, but he threw for nearly 300 yards and tossed three touchdowns last week in a win against a good Tampa Bay secondary. It's going to be an uphill battle for the Cowboys with a lot going against them.

5. Denver (-6.5) at Indianapolis — You generally don't like to take road favorites, especially when it's two decent teams going at it. But Denver is more than a decent team and there's that whole Peyton Manning returning to Nap Town to face his former team thing. Colts GM Jim Irsay had some interesting words about Manning this week, saying he wanted "more than one Super Bowl" so he let Manning go and went after Andrew Luck. This one's going to be a shootout.

Last week: 2-3. 2013 season: 11-14*