Week 12 of the NFL season got underway late Thursday night at Heinz Field as the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 27-10. This week also sees Tennessee face a stern test in New York, as they look to continue their 10 game winning streak against the NY Jets. One game that catches the eye is the New England Patriots’ against the Miami Dolphins, it remains to be seen if Bill Belichick’s Patriots can deal with Miami’s wildcat offense that beat them so spectacularly in Week 3.

The Chicago Bears travel to The Show-Me State this week to face St Louis and they’ll be looking to bounce back after a big loss to the Packers last week. They are 10/11 to overcome a – 8.5 handicap with totesport. The Bears’ offense has been pretty solid this year, their rookie running back, Matt Forte, is having a great season and now that Kyle Orton I back under centre, I expect them to be firing on all cylinders against a poor Rams team. The Bears defense is slightly under performing at the moment but are still one of the best teams against the run.

And the run game is where St Louis are struggling. Their starting running back won’t play this week which leaves Antonio Pittman to pick up the slack, he’s struggled so far and hasn’t scored a touchdown yet. Their passing game isn’t any better – their quarter back, Marc Bulger, has only thrown 7 touchdowns but has managed to throw 8 interceptions and I think he’ll really struggle this week. St Louis’ offense is ranked 30th in the league, whilst their defense is ranked dead last, Chicago should limit their scoring and should take it by 2 touchdowns or more.

Belichick is one of the best coaches in the NFL, and he’ll have been preparing his New England defense for the wildcat offense that Miami like to use. Their defense has slowly started to get it together – apart from their high scoring game against the Jets last week, the Patriot’s defense had only let in 48 total points in the previous 4 games. Their QB Cassel seems to have finally settled in and he has improved as the season’s gone on, this showed last week as he threw for 400 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Miami’s defense has been a big surprise this season, they are only allowing 19 points a game – which sees them ranked 10th in the league. The bad news is they are ranked 21st against the pass, quite worrying as they come up against an improving Cassel and two of the leagues best receivers in Moss and Welker. They are on a 4 game winning streak but I wouldn’t focus on that too much, their offense isn’t the best and they find themselves ranked 24th on points scored. We think the Dolphins may come unstuck against this tough defense and expect Cassel to have another great game, therefore New England +1.5 at 10/11 on the handicap is a good bet with totesport.

New York travel to the desert this week to take on a good Arizona Cardinals team. The Giants offense is ranked 1st in the league, they have the top ranked rushing game and a Superbowl winning quarter back in Eli Manning. He’s having a good season so far – he’s over 2000 yards with 15 touchdowns and only 7 interceptions. Their running game is superb, especially their starting running back Brandon Jacobs. He could go over 1000 yards for the season in this game, he has a superb 5.4 yard carry average and has 11 touchdowns to his name. He may not be fully fit this game but they have good backups in Bradshaw (6.7 yards per carry) and Ward (5.3 yards per carry). Their defense is ranked 5th in the league but they are really good against the pass (ranked 2nd).

Arizona have the passing game to match the Giants, but don’t quite have the running game or the defense. Warner is over 3000 yards already and has thrown 20 TDs, but 16 of those went to 2 players – if the Giants can keep them quiet it could be an easy game. Their starting running back is now Tim Hightower but he’s struggling for big yardage games – he has under 300 yards so far and his back up hasn’t helped matters by telling the owners he wants to be released.

Their defense is ranked 22nd in the league having allowed almost 23 points a game, they’re on a winning streak but have allowed teams like San Francisco and Seattle to get over 20 points against them so I can see the Giants putting up around 30 points. It’s a tough game but taking New York Giants -3 on the handicap at 4/5 could pay dividends.

Click here for all NFL betting