Cleveland Browns vs St. Louis Rams Point Spread Picks

Jeff Fisher is a fine coach and the Rams had a good offseason. They haven't had a great preseason yet, but St. Louis is 6-0 against the spread in week three of the preseason. There is plenty to prove for this game after losing to Green Bay 21-7 last week. They have a new defensive coordinator in Greg Williams and both he and Fisher preach physicality on both lines. The Rams have a good QB rotation with Sam Bradford, mobile Austin Davis and veteran Shaun Hill. And they are getting healthy, getting defensive tackle Michael Brockers, right guard Rodger Saffold, middle linebacker James Laurinaitis and defensive end William Hayes back at practice this week. All the talk in Cleveland is on the QB battle, but Johnny Manziel doesn't look like an NFL starter right now and Brian Hoyer has been awful. Remember, Hoyer (a career backup) was impressive as a starter last year but it was only three games before he got hurt. The offense scored 12 points in the opener and had 17 before a Hail Mary TD at the buzzer Monday. It's a short week for the Browns, having played on Monday night, and neither Hoyer nor Manziel has looked good against starting defenses. Take the points on the Rams.

If you consider 3 points the marker for home-field advantage then the oddsmakers are saying the Rams with their 1 win on the season are the better team here. I agree with them. Ben Tate and Arian Foster ran for over 250 yards against the Browns’ run defense last week. Stephen Jackson is also healthy and running well this season at over 5 yards per carry. That will likely be the difference as there is no Peyton Hillis nor Montario Hardesty for the Browns once again, and they simply have no playmakers on offense. Chris Ogbonnaya and THomas Clayton combined fro 38 yards of offense last week. The Rams should be able to get to Colt McCoy, making for a long day for the Browns. Cleveland hasn't been favored much over the last four years, and are just 3-8 ATS when they are favored in their last 11. They are also 2-9 ATS overall the past two seasons at home. This could go down as the Ugly Bowl, but St. Louis is least ugly here.

Most people are surprised to see this Cleveland team at 3-3. Without a missed field goal as time expired vs. Oakland, they'd be 4-2. The bigger surprise is seeing St. Louis coming into this one 0-7. They are off a 33-6 beat down last week. The combination of these three things have resulted in the unthinkable: Cleveland favored on the road at St. Louis. If you had to guess this pointspread in the preseaosn, you would have guessed St. Louis by 7-10 points. Sense where we are going with this? Derek Anderson has been a feast or famine QB for Cleveland as he has 14 TD passes, but has also been picked off eight times. Jamal Lewis has done a good job with his new team, but his 4.9 ypc average is a bit tainted. He broke one for big run for 66 yards and without that he's a smidge over 4.0 per carry. The Browns may be without him Sunday as he will be a game time decision. The offense is not deep but they are talented, with Edwards and Winslow getting most of the action in the passing game. But, despite their 3-3 record (4-2 ATS), the Browns have been outgained this season by their opponents by an average of 59 yards per game! This is a team that struggles defensively to put pressure on the QB, so Marc Bulger will have more time than what we have seen to date for the Rams. St. Louis has not seen the endzone in two weeks, and are 0-7, so how can we be on them? This is a different team than they have fielded most of the year. Marc Bulger returned last week and their biggest weapon, Stephen Jackson returns this week along with WRs Dane Looker and Drew Bennett. Teams as futile as St. Louis actually contain hidden value from a betting perspective. Teams that are 0-7 or worse teams are 10-1 ATS since 2000 and we have another system that has connected on 65% in the NFL that is active for this game with over 100 plays in it. This one looks ugly, but as we said before, stats don't determine who covers the pointspread in games in this league. The fact is, the Rams are a live home dog at the peak of value. Often when a team seems so bad, that you can't imagine betting on them, is the time to back them (i.e. Atlanta last week). We'll take the "ugly" Rams here as a very live dog.