Gary Payton and Kenyon Rasheed are back with another episode of locked and loaded. They break down their two locked and loaded picks for week three of the 2010 NFL season.
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This week Gary’s Locked and Loaded game of the week is an AFC North divisional tilt between the Cleveland Browns who are in Baltimore to take on the Ravens. The current NFL betting line on this game favors the Ravens by 10½ points.
Gary mentions how the Ravens struggled in week 2 in a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals and the how their opponent Cleveland are still struggling at quarterback, despite bringing in Jake Delhomme to run the offense.
Kenyon gives his impression of the game and points attributes the Ravens struggles in week two to the loss of Ed Reed and the team’s lack of quality cornerbacks.
“Ed Reed is gone…I know Ray Lewis gets a lot of credit for running (Baltimore’s) defense but Ed Reed flat out makes plays, he’s always around the ball.” Rasheed continues, “They don’t have any cornerbacks, when I look at Baltimore I don’t see a secondary that can take this team to the next level.” He goes on to say that when the offense isn’t playing well it puts too much pressure on the defense to win games.
Payton makes a bold prediction, picking the Ravens to win a low scoring game in a battle of field goals. GP’s final has the Raven’s winning 12-6.
The second Locked and Loaded pick for week three features the game between the surprising Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the somewhat surprising Pittsburgh Steelers.
The pair agrees that Pittsburgh’s defense is picking it up, making big plays by forcing turnovers.
Tampa is a very young team and they won’t hold up against the Steelers defense especially if the Troy Palumalu stays healthy. Kenyon’s message for the Steelers is “Just hold on, Big Ben is coming.”
Damon Durante is back at the BetUS BetCenter giving his own lock of the week.
Our man D’s game of the week is the game between the defending Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints and their NFC South divisional rivals the Atlanta Falcons. The current NFL betting line on this game has the Saints favored by 3½-points.
Damon lets us know that the Saints have only covered the pointspread in three of their past seven games and Atlanta has stayed under the total in seven of their last eight games.
Damon doesn’t trust the Saints to cover the spread but he loves the under, “Keep an eye on that total, 50 is a huge total in the NFL if it keeps rising you know what to do.”