Here's some info about bets (NFL season wins) I just made.

I'll start with my disclaimer:

1) It's difficult to predict how a football team will do. Since there are only 16 games in a season, luck is a major factor in a team's performance.

2) There's significantly more variance in sports betting than in the stock market because there are only 2 possible outcomes with each bet (win, or lose everything). With stocks, you can gain or lose incremental percentages of your investment.

3) The probabilities below come from the projections done by Pro Football Prospectus.

Statistical analysis is much more difficult to implement in football than in baseball, so these projections are not as reliable as my baseball projections.

So there's 1) a lot of variance, 2) a lot more variance, and 3) even more variance.

Team	Bet	Vegas	Probability	Odds	Average Return
Atlanta	Under	9.5	88%	1.77	56%
Jacksonville	Under	8.5	71%	2.15	53%
Philadelphia	Over	11.5	60%	2.40	44%
Washington	Under	7.5	62%	1.91	18%

These probabilities aren't too reliable, so I used some discretion to exclude other possible picks. I bet the same amount on each team despite the differing rates of return.

Some explanations behind my picks:

The under on Atlanta
No, Michael Vick isn't injured-- yet. But Pro Football Prospectus gave Atlanta an 88% chance to win 9 or fewer games because:

1) The Falcons only outscored their opponents by 3 points last year, meaning they were lucky to win 11 games.

2) Atlanta's defense was much better on 3rd downs than on the first 2 downs last year. So they were able to stop drives more often than expected last year. This year, their 3rd down performance will probably regress toward their 1st and 2nd down performance.

3) They play a tough schedule that includes the Eagles, Patriots, Seahawks, and Jets.

The under on Jacksonville
Jacksonville is pretty bad on offense-- Byron Leftwich has some upside, but he doesn't have much help around him. Even when Fred Taylor is healthy, he's not that great. The defense is good, but I don't think it's good enough to enable them to win 9 games.

The over on Philadelphia
The only reason I'm taking Philadelphia is because they're getting 2.4:1.
The only reason they're getting 2.4:1 is the uncertainty around Terrell Owens.
But even without him, they're still the class of the NFC.

The under on Washington
The Washington defense got worse over the offseason, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if rookie Jason Campbell were the starting QB by midseason.