Oh yes, the former Raiders, former Tennessee Volunteers coach will now take over the helm at USC.

The USC Trojans have a new head coach heading to the 2010 NCAA college football season. In case you didn’t know it yet, Lane Kiffin is now coaching at USC after one season at Tennessee.

Lane Kiffin will replace Pete Caroll, who left the USC Trojans to coach the Seattle Seahawks. Of course, those folks supporting the Tennessee Volunteers did not like Kiffin’s move one bit.

The 34-year old Lane Kiffin was the offensive coordinator in USC before his brief stints with the Oakland Raiders and the Volunteers. For Kiffin, this was not an easy decision to make knowing the support he got from the organization. ”I really believe the only place I would have left here to go was, Southern California,” he said.

His father, respected defensive coach Monte Kiffin, and longtime USC assistant Ed Orgeron, will also leave the Tennessee Volunteers to join him.

Carroll left USC after winning 97 games, seven Pac-10 championships and two national titles over the past nine seasons. Kiffin is one of Carroll’s top followers. Kiffin, a former Fresno State quarterback, worked his way up to offensive coordinator in 2005 while also showing impressive skills as the Trojans’ recruiting coordinator after Orgeron’s departure from Los Angeles.

For two seasons, Kiffin shared responsibility for the Trojans’ offense with fellow longtime Carroll assistant Steve Sarkisian, who left USC to take over at Washington after the 2008 season.

Kiffin went 7-6 at Tennessee last season as the youngest…

Holy mother of god, the Steelers have now sunk to a whole different level.

In what is shaping up to be one of the most disappointing runs in the 2009 NFL football season, the Pittsburgh Steelers lost their fifth straight game to drop to 6-7 and possibly out of the playoff race.

Yes, the Pittsburgh Steelers, a year removed from winning Super Bowl XLIII, have now lost FIVE straight games. However, what’s even more unsettling is the fact that the champions lost to a team that shouldn’t have any business beating them in the first place and in case you missed the headline, yes, the Steelers lost to the freaking Cleveland Browns.

You read it, the Cleveland Browns, a team ten games below .500, kicked the defending champions’ butts Thursday night to put an end to the Steelers’ hopes of defending their title in the playoffs. The last time something like this happened to the champions was almost four years ago when the Super Bowl XL champions had a sub par campaign the following season.

Guess what, that team was the Pittsburgh Steelers too.

Of course, all is not lost for Ben Roethlisberger and the rest of the Steelers, yet. They are 6-7 and still have a shot at a wild card playoff spot. However, they need other wild card hopefuls to start losing games the way they’ve been losing too.

Five weeks ago, the Steelers were 6-2 and looking at a return to the Super Bowl. Unexpected losses to the Kansas City Chiefs (that was bad…), the Oakland Raiders (that was worse…) and the Cleveland Browns (now that’s just pushing it…) pushed this team over the edge and on the brink of not even making the playoffs.

It’s humiliating and the Steelers…

Don’t worry, we got you covered.

Yes, it’s Thanksgiving and since it’s customary for the NFL to bombard you with not one, not two, but THREE games for you to enjoy while you stuff yer mouth with that turkey, we’re gonna tell you which team to bet on as we kick off Week 12 of the 2009 NFL football season.

And in case you’re wondering, the Detroit Lions will once again host a Thanksgiving Day game. Go figure. This year, the 2-8 Lions take on the 6-4 Green Bay Packers and just like the last time the Lions hosted a Thanksgiving Day game, they’re going to get their asses kicked all over Ford Field for the entire world to see.

The Green Bay Packers, who have won their last two games, will have to compensate for the losses of the two Pro Bowl players; cornerback Al Harris and linebacker Aaron Kampman, as both players will miss the rest of the season because of knee injuries.

The Packers will plug in either rookie Brad Jones or Brady Poppinga to replace Kampman at left outside linebacker in their 3-4 scheme. Jones started for Kampman, who…

Bettors Backing NFL Road Favorites

Get ready to watch the men separate themselves from the boys this week in the NFL as the playoff races heat up. It’s the proverbial “go time” for many teams.

Cincinnati at Oakland:

The Bengals are sitting pretty…right now anyway, but they need to keep winning and especially winning games against weak teams.

They head to Oakland this week to face, big surprise, a troubled Raider team. Cincy has been one of this season’s surprises, currently leading the AFC North with records of 7-2 straight up and 6-3 against the spread.

But they’re facing a bit of adversity this week, as the team’s leading rusher, Cedric Benson, is nursing what ESPN is calling a sore abductor muscle. His pain resulted in the team signing recent Kansas City Chiefs castoff RB Larry Johnson. LJ’s attitude wore thin on the Chiefs and his addition already seems to be wearing on Benson. We’ll see how it shakes out.

There have been changes made to the Raiders’ starting lineup as well as QB JaMarcus Russell has been demoted while QB Bruce Gradkowski will start in Russell’s place.

In its last nine when an underdog of more than 8-points, Oakland is 6-3 ATS.

Going into Sunday’s game in Oakland, online sportsbooks have…

And although these teams from NYC and Philly won’t be playing for the World Series, this one should be as exciting since we’ll have two of the best in the NFC.

Yes, Week 8 of the 2009 NFL football season continues with a classic rivalry in the NFC. The New York Giants take on the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field, and since both teams are playing to be on top of the very competitive NFC East, expect this one to be one of the most physical games you’ll ever see in the NFL this season.

As of this writing, the New York Giants have a half game lead over both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys. All three teams haven’t lost more than two games after seven weeks and it looks like the NFC East is once again turning into the best division, not only in pro football, but in sports, period.

Last Monday, the Philadelphia Eagles started taking on the NFC East, beating the Washington Redskins 27-17 on Monday Night Football. Everybody picked the Eagles over the Redskins coming into this one and after scoring the first 17 points of the game, it was clear the Eagles were dead serious in claiming the top spot of the division.

This Sunday, the Eagles have the Giants, the second of three teams from the NFC East they have to take on in succession. Can Philly get another win before they take on the Dallas Cowboys next week?

The Eagles have been struggling offensively lately. Despite…

The trading deadline is over. That means it’s all business from here all the way to the Super Bowl.

And on Week 7 of the 2009 NFL football season, that’s exactly what we’ll be having. Hopefully, it’ll be good business for the rest of you when you win some dough betting on this weekend’s games.

And speaking of this weekend’s games, the Dallas Cowboys are back from their bye week as they take on the Atlanta Falcons. This game will feature two of the most prolific tight ends in the NFL, Dallas’ Jason Witten and Atlanta’s Tony Gonzalez. Only thing is, Witten hasn’t been getting any passes from Tony Romo lately while Gonzalez is keeping the Falcons look brilliant for picking him up during the offseason.

Tony Gonzalez leads all tight ends with 471 receptions and 5,560 yards, helping the Atlanta Falcons to a 4-1 mark. He scored one in their 21-14 win over Chicago after connecting with quarterback Matt Ryan who has guided the team to wins in seven of the past eight games.

However, getting a win over a team coming off from a bye week is tough, especially against a Dallas Cowboys team looking to give their new Cowboy Stadium only its second win in three games. We’re going with the ‘Boys by three.

On Sunday Night Football, we have the Arizona Cardinals visiting the Big Apple to face the New York Giants. New York is 5-1 and leads the NFC East while the Cardinals are tied for first in the…

And boy, was it painful.

In the battle between the books and the sports betting public in Week 1 of the 2009 NFL football season, both sides got their shots in.

The players won the day on Sunday after the smoke cleared late Sunday night with the Green Bay Packers coming back to beat Chicago, finishing the day off nicely for sports bettors (pointspread covers by Dallas, Minnesota, Philadelphia and Baltimore were also solid wins for the players).

But the books rallied back on Monday night with two big underdog covers.

First, the New England Patriots eked out a 25-24 win over the Buffalo Bills but fell well short of covering as 10.5-point home faves. The Pats were suppose to blowout the Bills in Foxboro but thanks to Trent Edwards, they put up a fight that got the Brady Bunch off guard.

In the next game, we saw a very late Darren Sproles TD run, allowing the San Diego Chargers to defeat the Oakland Raiders 24-20. However, since nobody predicted this game to be as close as it turned out to be, it wasn’t enough to allow the Chargers to cover as -9 road faves.

The Patriots and the Chargers both saw a ton of betting action leading up to their games, but many players watched in agony as almost from the opening whistle it was clear neither big favorite was going to blowout their opponents.

So sports bettors gave some money back to…

For the second straight year, the struggling Raiders open up their campaign under the bright lights of Monday Night Football.

Yep, the 2009 NFL football season will once again begin on a Monday night for these Raiders who have yet to put up a winning season since the days when they still had Rich Gannon throwing footballs to Jerry Rice.

And mind you, THAT was a long time ago, back when the Oakland Raiders were actually good, good enough to win a Super Bowl. Since then, owner Al Davis was scrambling to find Gannon’s replacement. He tried out guys like Kerry Collins, Aaron Brooks, Andrew Walter and Daunte Culpepper and all of ‘em failed miserably.

And while it’s still a little too early to brand JaMarcus Russell as another failure in Oakland, another losing campaign just might do it.

If Russell has plans to take the Raiders out of the big hole they dug themselves into, he needs to have noticeable advancements in leadership, on-field savvy and for chrissakes, ACCURACY. After all, this will be Russell’s third year in the league and he no longer has the luxury of playing like a jackass on game night and then act like everything is fine and dandy afterwards.

Perhaps former Raiders head coach John Madden said it best…

Time to bet on this weekend’s line-up of NFL games people.

Yep, the 2009 NFL football season is finally underway and we’re kicking off with a bang with two huge games this Sunday that will feature the return of Brett Favre in one contest and the Cowboys’ first game without T.O. in another. That’s to be followed by a rather nasty Monday night double – header that will feature Tom Brady’s return to the field after a year of absence before the Chargers and the Raiders take their usual spot on Week 1.

And since we’re huge fans of Brett Favre, let’s start with him. The Cleveland Browns will host the visiting Minnesota Vikings as Favre takes on former coach Eric Mangini who now calls the shots on the Browns sidelines.

For the Cleveland Browns, their training camp opened with a familiar theme, a new head coach searching for a starting quarterback. Three preseason games later, Brady Quinn took a lead on Derek Anderson by all accounts except for the account that counts most , that of head coach Eric Mangini.

Well, these guys better get their act together because the Minnesota Vikings are coming. Dealing with Brett Favre’s arm is one thing but trying to contain Adrian Peterson in the run game is a whole different story. Can the Browns take it?

Next we have the Dallas Cowboys taking on the…

From the controversy with Lane Kiffin a couple of years ago to the terrible performance on the field, something is always going wrong in Oakland.

But with the new day comes new hope and as far as the Oakland Raiders are concerned, their outlook for the 2009 NFL football season remains bright. After all, they did finish strong last year, winning their last two regular season games.

Of course, the Oakland Raiders hope to build upon that finish this season. And as far as that goes, it’ll depend on how good (or god forbid how bad…) JaMarcus Russell has evolved.

If for some reason Russell still remains to be a guy amounting to nothing but hype, the Oakland Raiders still have their young core of running backs to rely to. It’ll be difficult without a decent guy inside the pocket but at least they’d be able to compensate what could be a pathetic passing game with a solid ground attack.

Young running backs Darren McFadden and Michael Bush are both expected to have breakout seasons. They are supremely talented, helping the Raiders rushing attack to rank among the top ten rushing attacks in the league last season. The addition of veteran fullback Lorenzo Neal should only open the holes wider, giving Russell more options downfield.

Tight End Zach Miller led the Raiders in receiving by a wide-margin in 2008, and he will be Russell’s favorite security blanket again in ‘09. Wide receiver Chaz Schilens has been lights out in the offseason workouts and looks to have a breakout season.

Jamarcus Russell struggled in his first full season as…