I haven’t had a very good handle on the NFC all season long. I thought the Bears were going to suck. I was wrong. I thought the 49ers were going to win the NFC West. I was wrong — although in fairness to me, there really wasn’t a team that ended up deserving to win that putrid, dreck-filled division.

Anyway, the trend continued last week. I hit the two AFC matchups, even nailing the scenario in which the Jets would beat Indy, almost to a T.

But the NFC games stymied me. But what the hell. Let’s have another go at it this week, eh? (Pointspreads via Vegas.com)

Baltimore at Pittsburgh (-3.5)

This should end up being a 13-10 game settled by a field goal at the end. Picking the winner is really going to come down to a flip of the coin. Baltimore was one of my Super Bowl pick going into the season. But Pittsburgh fired out of the gates even sans Ben Roethlisberger. Really the only sure thing in this one is that yards and points will be hard to come by. I should pick Roethlisberger over Flacco. But my coin landed the other way. I’ll take the Ravens in a slight upset.

Green Bay at Atlanta (-2)

I had the scenario reasonably scoped out for last week’s Green Bay – Philadelphia game. It came down to which team found a running game. I just figured it’d be LeSean McCoy, not James Starks. Oh, foolish, stupid me. The Falcons aren’t getting a lot of love. Being a two-point favorite at home is the equivalent of being a one-point underdog at a neutral site. This surprises me. The Falcons are pretty good against the run so don’t expect Starks to duplicate his 123 yard performance from last week. But they’re porous against the pass. They’ll score plenty, unless the Falcons can run the ball, keep the clock moving and, most importantly, score when they do rip off long drives. As I said, I’ve been wrong most of the season when it comes to NFC games. I think the Falcons will win. So I am going to pick Green Bay in an upset.

Seattle at Chicago (-10)

I got into an argument over Twitter with some Bears fans this week. One of them had posted something saying the Packers were the luckiest team in the league. I replied that you could say the same thing about the Bears. It got weird after that, with other Bears followers asking how I could say they were a bad team or how I could predict they would lose to Seattle (like they did in October, guffaw).

I’m not sure how the conversation devolved to that. They did catch some breaks: game one when Calvin Johnson caught the game winning touchdown but a bad rule invalidated it, games against several second- and third-string quarterbacks, etc. But I never indicated they were a bad team. Good teams create a lot of breaks for themselves and when they don’t have anything to do with creating them, they still have to take advantage of them when they arise, as the Bears have done all season long. They caught another break in catching Seattle in the divisional round of playoffs. The Seahawks shocked the Saints last week. They won’t do the same to Chicago this week. Yes, Chicago fans, the Bears are good. And yes, they will win Sunday. Comfortably. Anything less than two touchdowns would surprise me.

New York Jets at New England (-9)

This game will be closer than the 45-3 whooping New England put on New York a little over a month ago, but not by much. In their last eight games the Patriots have scored 38, 34, 31, 36, 45, 45, 31 and 39, bringing back memories of the 2007 undefeated regular season team. That output included games against Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, the Jets, the Bears and the Packers, with only Green Bay staying close to the Patriots during that stretch.

Tom Brady seems to be in a zone and I’m wondering if the unfinished business from New England’s upset Super Bowl loss from three seasons ago isn’t motivating him to get back to the big show again. It won’t be 45-3 but New England will have this one sewn up by halftime, as well.

Cheers.