Against the Spread: 2011 NFL Picks: Championship Games

BOSTON (TheStreet) -- I've got my buffalo chicken dip ready. My homebrewed beer is chilling in the fridge. I have an order placed with my local BBQ joint to have some Kansas City burnt ends ready for pickup on Sunday. Oh yeah, bring on the Conference Championship games!

My picks went 3-1 last weekend, with the lone loss a result of picking Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos to keep the game with the Patriots close. Dumb pick, huh? At any rate, I'm now 4-4 in the NFL playoffs. It'd be really great to get these next three games to close out the season on a high note. The only problem is that there doesn't seem to be too much value out there this week. I'm not alone in that opinion.

"I'm having a tough time with both these games this week," adds Bryan Leonard, a professional sports handicapper with Pregame.com who is also part of the Tuesday Group, a collection of professional bettors in Las Vegas who get together to handicap the games each week. "I just don't see a lot of value."

However, Paul Bessire, the general manager and creator of the Web site PredictionMachine.com, sees things differently. His model is a quantitative way to break down NFL games as it simulates each contest 50,000 times to come up with a pick against the spread.

"In the sports market, prices/lines can move the way that the books want them to, which could be in preemptive ways," Bessire says. "That's been the biggest story of the week to me. In the sports market, it is not necessarily the quantity wagered, in volume of wagers or quantity of dollars wagered, that moves the line. Who is wagering can also move the line."

Bessire notes that over 70% of the money in Vegas is coming in on the New England Patriots, which moved the line from -7.5 points to -7 points, a very key number. Bessire says that is a significant jump because no one wins in a touchdown victory by the Patriots. Bessire says the pro bettors flooded the market on Wednesday around the same time, forcing books to change their number on the Patriots/Ravens game.

"If Warren Buffett walked onto a trading floor and bought shares of a company, the price would not immediately go up directly because of this action," Bessire says, making the comparison to the so-called sharp bettors. "It would go up as others flooded the market to buy shares and demand dictated the price."

With that, it's on to the picks for Championship Weekend of the NFL postseason. As I'll remind you throughout the entire season, these are for entertainment purposes only. Once again, I have enlisted the help of PredictionMachine.com's Bessire, who offers analysis of the data his model provides for each of the games I've picked this week.

Pregame.com's Leonard also offers his thoughts, picks and analysis, which focuses on the spread movement by Vegas oddsmakers to determine where the public and professional money is moving on each game. These trends prove to be critical for bettors who are on the hunt for inefficiencies and value.

Here we go. It's championship time. Click to the next page for my pick for the Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots matchup. And as always, I encourage you to leave comments below with your favorite picks against the spread this week.