The Cold, Hard Football Facts spoke loudly and clearly last week, hitting three out of four wild-card playoff games correctly against the spread using our Quality Stats as a guide. All signs pointed to a Tampa win over New York, but the Giants (and skittish Bucs) had different ideas.

 

We even beat our own Bonzo the Idiot Monkey, who dusted us during the regular season with his random coin-flip selections but went against us in all four games last week and was an ape-like 1-3.

 

Stupid monkey.

 

Believe it or not, Bonzo also disagreed with us on all four games again this week, another slap in the face of random selection. The chances of us being different on all eight games is 1 in 256 – but then, Bonzo has scoffed at random probability all season (146-109 against the spread with his coin flips, beating all the experts at CBSSports.com along the way ... for the second time in two tries, no less).

 

This week's games were easy to size up in terms of outright winners. After all, the lowest spread this week is 7.5 points (N.Y. Giants at Dallas), which speaks to the dominance shown by the NFL's Fantastic Four of Dallas, Green Bay, New England and Indianapolis this year. Of course, picking games against spreads so large presents a much different challenge.

 

You won't regret the time spent poring over our in-depth analysis. Crack open a cold Harpoon I.P.A. (assuming it's at least 9 a.m. where you are), and enjoy.