Your Week 2 NFL picks for confidence and pick 'em pools shouldn't be finalized until you check in with the experts at TeamRankings. As they do every week, TR crunches the numbers and highlights five games that should be on your radar as you prepare your football pool entries. Getting the biggest edge in your NFL pick 'em pool in Week 2 requires knowing not only every team's win odds (i.e. how risky of a pick it is), but also its pick popularity in your pool (i.e. how much you'll gain in the standings if you pick that team and it wins).
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Armed with this information, you can make calculated bets on high-value teams and avoid trendy upset picks that aren't worth the risk. The Rams, Steelers, Bills, Lions, and Broncos are all in interesting spots this week and could make or break a few pools.
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Review of last week's picks
Last week, we highlighted Chicago and Minnesota as the "least overrated" favorites by the public. Minnesota's 28-12 romp of Atlanta paid off for players that increased confidence points on them, but Chicago was upset 10-3 by Green Bay in a very sloppy start to the 2019 season.
The more frustrating outcomes were the two favorites that that public was underrating, Tampa Bay and Denver. Both teams ended up getting upset, so playing it safe and getting value to boot — always the best spot to be in — just didn't pan out well in Week 1.
That's no cause for alarm. In some weeks, the public has its day. In the longer term, that bad luck will even out, and there are many games left to pick this season.
WEEK 2 NON-PPR RANKINGS:
Quarterback | Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | D/ST | Kicker
Expert Week 2 NFL Picks Advice: Pick 'em pools
Keep in mind that we are not recommending that you make all of the picks below — the upset picks especially. The best Week 2 picks for your specific NFL pool depend on a number of different dynamics, such as your pool's size, length, rules, and scoring system. (Our Football Pick ’em Picks product recommends picks for you based on all those factors.)
What we are saying is that the teams mentioned in this post offer some of the best opportunities to differentiate your Week 2 picks from your pool opponents, or they serve as prime examples of when picking against the crowd is most likely a bad idea.
Note: Win odds and estimated national pick popularity data below may change between publication time and kickoff time. If you want to see the latest numbers, our product updates multiple times per day.
Favorites at a reasonable price
Most favorites are overrated by the public, but the team below is fairly valued in Week 2. You should think twice about picking against them, not because we think they are a lock to win (we don't), but because other games offer more compelling upset pick opportunities.
LA Rams (vs. New Orleans)
The Rams and Saints played in the NFC Championship Game a year ago, and apparently a good portion of the public expects the Saints to get revenge on the road this week. Around 54 percent of pick 'em pool players are picking the Rams to win at home, a rate that is in line with LAR's win odds as a 2.5-point favorite.
It's always hard to decode the public's view of a game, but there doesn't seem to be any smoking gun coming out of last week that would lead the public to more fairly assess the Rams' chances here compared to how it typically overrates favorites. Los Angeles won on the road at Carolina by the exact margin expected by the thtree-point closing spread. The Saints, meanwhile, as much larger 6.5-point home favorites, trailed Houston for much of Monday Night's game and barely survived on a last-second 58-yard field goal.
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Value Favorites
Week 2 features several teams that the public is picking at a lower rate than their chances to win. These types of teams are as close as you can get to "no-brainer picks" in NFL pick 'em contests, since both win odds and value are on your side.
Pittsburgh (vs. Seattle)
The Steelers lost by 30 in the prime-time Sunday Night game against New England. But going against the team that finished dead last in yards allowed last season, Seattle managed just 233 total yards in Week 1 (the fourth-lowest total of last week). The Bengals also out-gained the Seahawks by nearly 200 yards. In short, Seattle got significantly outplayed last week but just happened to survive with a lucky win.
In this battle of Week 1 disappointments, Pittsburgh was favored by four points in the betting markets at post time, with implied win odds of about 65 percent. Our models are a bit less optimistic, but with less than 60 percent of the public picking the Steelers, this is not the game where you want to go upset pick. By betting odds, Pittsburgh is actually being underrated, which is rare for a favorite of this magnitude.
Buffalo (at NY Giants)
Buffalo was able to win its first road game 17-16 against the Jets despite four first-half turnovers. The Bills also soundly won the yardage battle. As a result, it looks like bad luck played a role in the slim one-point win margin.
The Giants, meanwhile, gave up five straight long touchdown drives to Dallas to effectively end the game by the middle of the third quarter and eventually lost 35-17. New York has been in the bottom quarter of the league in total defense the last two seasons, and at least for Week 1, that trend did not change, as the Giants allowed 470 yards to Dallas.
The public is siding with New York in this game, picking the Giants almost 60 percent of the time. By our current ratings, Buffalo is 3.6 points better than New York on a neutral field and should still be the favorite even after home field advantage is included. The betting markets agree, making Buffalo a two-point favorite. Pick the Bills, and you're getting a favorite at an underdog price.
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Value Gambles
All upset picks are not created equal. If you're going to make a gamble on an underdog, you need to make sure that the potential reward — that is, how much your odds to win your pool will increase if your gamble pays off — is as big as possible.
The two picks below are definitely not appropriate for all pools. If you're in a smaller, season-long pool with lots of games left, they're probably not worth the risk. However, if you're in a single-week pool with a larger number of entries, or if you only care about winning weekly prizes in your season-long pool, these highly unpopular underdogs with decent chances to win present compelling cases.
Detroit (vs. LA Chargers)
Detroit dominated the bulk of its Week 1 game but did not quite put away Arizona. The Lions held the Cardinals to 100 total yards in the first three quarters en route to a 24-6 lead, but the Arizona offense got going in the fourth quarter and came all the way back to force an overtime tie.
Similarly, the Chargers were unable to close out the Colts in regulation despite having a 24-9 fourth quarter lead. That game also went to overtime, but LAC was able to win the coin toss and drive for a touchdown to win the game. It could have just as easily gone the other way.
The Chargers are the slight favorite in this game, by 2.5 points in the betting markets, but the public is picking them at an extremely high rate (89 percent) for a less-than-field-goal favorite. That gives Detroit the biggest differential between win odds and pick popularity in all of Week 2.
To put the relative value in perspective, Detroit is only slightly less likely to pull off an upset than the Giants are this week, but the Giants are over five times as popular an upset pick. If you want to take a moderate gamble to differentiate your picks from the crowd, Detroit is a great choice.
Denver (vs. Chicago)
Denver, also a strong value pick last week, closed out Week 1 with a dud of a performance against Oakland on the road, losing 24-16. A closer look at the numbers, though, shows a game that was virtually even in yards and first downs for both teams. The Raiders went an unsustainable 10 of 14 on third downs against Denver, including a 3rd-and-8 conversion at the two-minute warning that sealed the victory.
Meanwhile, Chicago opened the week with an offensive thud, managing only three points in a home loss to Green Bay. Mitchell Trubisky struggled and the Bears finished with more than twice as many penalty yards as rushing yards. But that game was on Thursday night, so perhaps the Bears' struggles are not quite so fresh in the public's mind.
Chicago is a very popular pick here, with almost 80 percent of pick 'em entries nationwide taking the Bears. But they are only a slight favorite, and both the betting lines (Denver is plus-2.5) and our models put the Broncos' win odds in the 44-45 percent range. That's solid differentiation potential for a team with close to a 50/50 chance to win.
Since the 1985 season, Denver has the highest home winning percentage of any NFL franchise (70.6-percent winning percentage at home). That storied home field advantage is almost certainly priced into the betting lines in an accurate way, but perhaps the Monday Night Football loss is causing the public to underweight it.
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Which of these five NFL Week 2 picks should you make?
Once you know the best value opportunities of Week 2, you can increase your odds to win your pool by making educated gambles on them. Perhaps you bump up the number of confidence points you assign to a value favorite like Pittsburgh or Buffalo, or maybe you take even more risk on a huge value upset pick like Detroit.
There are a lot of potential decisions to make, and not all of them will make sense for your specific pool. It takes a lot of data and math to get to the right answer. Fortunately, we've built technology to do all the heavy lifting for you.
Our Football Pick 'em Picks product recommends the best weekly picks for your pool based on all the strategy factors that matter. You answer a few quick questions about your pool, and it constructs and presents the weekly pick sheet that will maximize your edge.
We invite you to give it (and all our other premium NFL tools) a try for free for Week 2. Good luck in your NFL pick 'em contests and office pools this week!
FREE TRIAL OFFER: Sporting News readers can get free premium access to TeamRankings for NFL Week 2, including game predictions plus customized picks for NFL pick 'em and survivor pools. Claim Your free trial now!