Just got done chatting with a source who has ties to the Las Vegas Sports Consultants, the group that sets most of the betting lines for NFL games.

The Patriots have been installed as 16-point favorites over the Redskins on Sunday.

The break down:

*The oddsmakers think the Patriots are 10 1/2-11 points better than the Redskins straight up (on a neutral field).

*Add three points for home-field advantage.

*Add 2 1/2-3 points for "intangibles" such as the Redskins' near fold job against Arizona and, chiefly, the Patriots' penchant for running up the score and covering the spread by several points.

The source expects the line to be Patriots by 12 or 13 by Sunday.

If the spread is in the 14-15 point range, it would rank as the biggest underdog status of Joe Gibbs' Redskins career.

One other great nugget of info. If the Patriots and Colts played today - both undefeated - in Indianapolis, the oddsmaker would make the Patriots the favorites by 8-9.5 points, an astonishing bit of information as to how good the Patriots have been and how much Vegas has lost by still getting burned by the not-big-enough spreads.