Last week, I went with six plays in the NFL to try and improve on my 23-6 record in Week 15s the previous five years, but I went 3-3 to really kill that percentage, which was to be expected as no one can continue a nearly 80 percent pace picking sports. The 3-3 mark dropped my record in this column to 40-37-1 on the year for a net loss of 0.7 units (based on risking 1.1 units to win 1). In the money-line experiment, the Jaguars came through at +170 and the Eagles at +450, and after subtracting the four losses, the play are now showing a profit of 0.1 units (hey, it's not much but it is a profit). We'll now try and build on that before heading into the playoffs.
    Here are my five Hilton SuperContest plays:

Bengals +2.5 vs. Browns (+130 on the ML) -- Cincy gets revenge for shootout loss that turned both teams' fortunes
Texans +7.5 vs. Colts (+270) -- Colts locked in No. 2 seed; Texans on improve; beat Colts in similar spot last year
Dolphins +21.5 vs. Patriots (+1200)-- Dolphins off win; trying to win for '72 team; Pats on cruise control
Bills +2.5 vs. Giants (+125)-- Giants fading again, Bills bounce back from snow game
Broncos +8.5 vs. Chargers (+320) -- Shanahan tries to avenge worst defeat of career; Chargers inconsistent

    I've also got two bowl plays for this weekend with both coming on Saturday:

    NEW MEXICO BOWL
    Nevada (+2.5) vs. New Mexico (+115 on the money line)
    There's no denying New Mexico has home-field advantage, but they failed to used it last year vs San Jose St. in a 20-12 loss and I see them doing that again. This line has come down from 3, but that should be OK as Nevada is more likely to win outright that to loss but cover at this low number. Nevada scores a lot more than New Mexico (36.3 points per game vs. 24.8) and gives up a lot more (32.9 vs. 20.6) but a lot of that has to do with playing in the high-scoring WAC, but I'll take their pair of two-point losses to Hawaii and Boise St. over Nevada's losses to Utah and BYU. The Wolf Pack kick-started their season with the development of freshman quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The Wolf Pack kick-started their season with the development of freshman quarterback Colin Kaepernick and I also prefer him over New Mexico sophomore Donovan Porterie in what should be a shootout, and the Wolf Pack's experience in those types of games should pay off.

LAS VEGAS BOWL
    BYU (-6) vs. UCLA
    Regular readers are not used to me laying points, but I do tend to do that more during the bowl season when the point spread seems to come into play less often (though Navy did cover in its loss to Utah on Thursday night). This is also a quasi-home game for BYU which is playing in its third straight Las Vegas Bowl as Mountain West Conference champions and its fans bought up more of the tickets earlier this fall. They come to play and face a UCLA team that went 2-5 to end the season and just had its coach, Karl Dorrell, fired. These teams met in September with the Bruins winning 27-17, but they've headed in opposite directions since and the Cougars should get revenge with a far more consistent offense (the top two UCLA quarterbacks and both hurt and expected to miss the game) and a defense that also got better down the stretch.

    The chart below has all 32 bowl games that will be held starting Thursday and running through Jan. 7, 2008. I will be providing full analysis in the days leading up to my top plays, including some totals along the way.
(Here is the chart with all 32 bowl games. These are just recommendations as of Monday, Dec. 17. I didn't want to label them as official plays because a lot can change during the bowl season (examples: Rich Rodriguez leaving West Virginia for Michigan, pending Florida St. suspensions, possible academic eligibility issues as grades come in on final exams, etc.).