ESPN's New NFL Gambling Expert Nailed The Regular Season - Here Are His Picks For This Week's Playoff Games

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Sal Iacono, a writer for "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and better known as "Cousin Sal" on Bill Simmons' podcasts, is ESPN's new NFL gambling expert and he didn't lose a pick on his weekly "SportsCenter" segment in the last six weeks of the regular season.

After losing one pick in the Wild Card round of the playoffs, Sal is now 15-1-3 over the last seven weeks and 19-3-3 over the last nine weeks.

That's pretty good.

So let's take a look at who Cousin Sal likes in the divisional playoff round:

First up is his "crooked line" pick.

• New England Patriots -7 (vs Baltimore Ravens) - "All anybody is talking about is how the Ravens own the Patriots in the playoffs. This is ridiculous. No Ray Lewis. No Ray Rice. No Bernard Pollard. No Ed Reed. It's a totally different team. The Patriots are 8-2 against the spread in their last ten against winning teams."

His second pick is his 2-team teaser (must pick both games correctly, but you get a more favorable point-spread in each game).

• Seattle Seahawks -5 (vs Carolina Panthers) - "The story is [Seattle's] defense. They have given up 39 points in the last six games." [it appears that some of Sal's commentary was cut by ESPN at this point.]
• Denver Broncos -1 (vs Indianapolis Colts) - "Every year there is a team that does well in the first round and they are in for a rude awakening in the second round and that's the Colts. They played the Bengals who had no passing game and no pass rush and that's completely opposite of what they are up against in Denver this week. Denver had all 53 men practice this week. They're healthy. They took their flu shots. They won the first game of the season against the Colts. They are going to do it again in Denver."

Here is Sal's "lock of the week."

1. Dallas Cowboys +6 (@ Green Bay Packers) - "The Cowboys are 8-0 on the road this year ... I know the Packers are 8-0 at home. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the Cowboys. They're strong. Their offensive line, they're tough. They are impervious to the cold. They are going to push the Packers around. Cowboys' run game controls the clock. They're going to shorten the game and go against that gimpy Aaron Rodgers. Plus-6 is too much and I would grab the points now because that could go lower when we find out more about Aaron Rodgers' injury."