Winning your confidence or pick 'em requires balancing risk with reward. When you pick less-popular teams and they win, you fly up the standings. Upsets happen every week, and spotting underdogs worth a gamble can go a long way toward winning a weekly or seasonlong prize.
With that in mind, the experts at TeamRankings have identified five potential Week 3 NFL picks you should consider. From calculated bets on high-value teams to trendy upsets not worth the risk, TeamRankings has strategy advice for your football pool.
Before we get into this week's picks, a reminder that TeamRankings is the only site that provides customized picks that maximize your edge in football pools. Last year, 80 percent of their subscribers reported winning a prize in a football pick 'em contest.
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Review of last week's picks
Last week, we highlighted two value favorites and a reasonably priced favorite (all favored by four points or less), as well as two underdogs who were very unpopular.
Overall we went 3-2 with those picks, with big wins by Buffalo, the Rams, and Detroit offset by a Pittsburgh loss and an oh-so-close Denver loss on a last-second, 53-yard field goal.
Still, these are unpopular picks we're highlighting, so 3-2 is a lot better than it sounds in terms of the impact on your pool standings. Overall, the public only averaged about 2.3 picks correct in the five games we highlighted, based on pick popularity.
So, if you picked all five of the teams we highlighted, it was a net gain of 0.7 wins and a corresponding jump up in the standings (in most pools, at least) as a result.
WEEK 3 NON-PPR FANTASY RANKINGS:
Quarterback | Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | D/ST | Kicker
Expert Week 3 NFL Picks Advice: Pick 'em pools
Using Vegas odds, data-driven predictions, and pick popularity data from national football pick 'em contests, we've analyzed the entire NFL Week 3 slate and identified the best value picking opportunities. Here are five teams that need to be on your radar screen.
Please note that we're not saying that you should definitely make all of the picks below (the upset pick especially). The best Week 3 picks for your specific NFL pool depend on strategy factors, such as its size, rules, and prize structure. (Our Football Pick 'em Picks product recommends custom weekly picks based on all those factors.)
What we are saying is that the teams mentioned below offer some of the best opportunities to differentiate your Week 3 picks from your 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 reasonable prices
Most favorites are overrated by the public, but the three teams below look more fairly valued in Week 3. Think twice about picking against them -- not because they are a lock to win (they're not), but because there are more compelling upset pick opportunities elsewhere.
San Francisco 49ers (vs. Pittsburgh Steelers)
UPDATE: Pick popularity for the 49ers has surged since original publication, and now Minnesota looks like the most fairly valued favorite outside of Dallas and New England.
Ben Roethlisberger is out for the year, the Steelers are 0-2, and they have scored 29 points in two games. San Francisco is 2-0, has won both games on the road, and has scored 72 points so far in 2019. The game is in San Francisco.
The point spread for this game opened with San Francisco as a seven-point favorite. Based on what we have seen so far this season, you could make a pretty good case that the 49ers should have been a solid favorite even before the Big Ben injury. And so far, 78 percent of pick 'em entries nationwide are going with the 49ers to triumph in Mason Rudolph's first career start for Pittsburgh. That's slightly above San Francisco's win odds of around 71 percent.
Compared to other teams favored by about a touchdown this week, though, that looks like a fair price. So, if you are going to make a bold upset pick, it's best to look elsewhere. Green Bay (97-percent public pick percentage), Philadelphia (90 percent), Kansas City (89 percent), and Tampa Bay (85 percent) are all favored by roughly the same amount as San Francisco but are even more popular with the public. We'll see if the public percentages climb for San Francisco throughout the week as more people process the Roethlisberger injury news.
Los Angeles Chargers (vs. Houston Texans)
L.A. returns home to face Houston after getting upset by the Lions. The Chargers had nearly 100 more yards and more first downs than Detroit, but they couldn't put the Lions away.
The Texans, meanwhile, have had two of the most exciting finishes in the NFL this year, losing in dramatic fashion at New Orleans in Week 1 and holding on against Jacksonville at home in the final minute in Week 2. They came away with a victory last week, but they also underperformed as 7.5-point favorites and were outgained in terms of yardage by the Jags.
The Chargers are a moderate 3.5-point favorite at home, and 65 percent of the public is selecting them. That's very close to their win odds, which are around 62 percent. The Chargers were overvalued in the first two weeks, but the public now appears to have been sufficiently spooked by an OT win and upset loss, which provides a good reason to stay the course with the favorite here. This week, teams like Chicago and the Rams have similar odds to win but are much more popular -- and make for better upset fodder.
Carolina Panthers (at Arizona Cardinals)
UPDATE: The line has shifted and Arizona is now the favorite, canceling out most value on Carolina. However, if the public shifts too radically, the Panthers could have value once again.
This game is one to keep an eye on given Cam Newton's evolving injury status, but that's also very public information and the Panthers are 2.5-point favorites in the betting markets despite that news.
Recency bias is a value picker's best friend, and after watching Carolina get upset by Tampa Bay on Thursday Night Football last week -- and seeing an injury situation at QB -- it's no big surprise that the Panthers are not public darlings this week. However, there's a good argument to be made that the loss to Tampa Bay was a fluky one. Carolina had more yards, more first downs, a minus-one turnover margin, didn't convert several 4th-and-1 opportunities, and performed atrociously in the red zone, generating all of its points from four field goals and a safety.
That level of performance is unlikely to repeat itself, and with 57-percent win odds and equivalent 57-percent pick popularity, Carolina is fairly valued here. Look for other upset picks besides the Cardinals.
Value Favorite
When a matchup is pretty much a 50/50 proposition, it usually makes sense to pick the less popular team. To win an NFL pick ’em pool, you’re probably going to need some luck in these “coin flip” games, and when you get it, you want to maximize the upside by scoring points the majority of your opponents miss.
Indianapolis Colts (vs. Atlanta Falcons)
So far this year, the public has had a love-hate relationship with the Falcons while generally underrating the Colts. In Week 1, we highlighted the Vikings as a fairly priced favorite where you did not want to pick the Atlanta upset. Last week, though, Atlanta ended up being an unpopular toss-up pick against the Eagles at home. Only 23 percent of the public sided with Atlanta in Week 2, though the point spread never moved above two points in either direction.
Indianapolis, meanwhile, has been very unpopular with the public so far with Jacoby Brissett playing quarterback in place of the retired Andrew Luck. The Colts were selected just eight percent of the time in Week 1, losing in overtime to the Chargers, and were then picked by just 13 percent of the public last week while upsetting Tennessee. Fora team close to being 2-0 right now, the Colts have been an absurdly unpopular pick.
Relatively, then, the public is coming around a bit on the Colts now, picking them 30 percent of the time this week. However, Indianapolis is the betting favorite, favored by one at home over the Falcons after opening as a 2.5-point favorite. Our models are less optimistic about the Colts, putting their win odds slightly under 50 percent. All things considered, it looks like pretty much a toss-up game, but the public is treating the Colts more like they are a six-point underdog at home.
Value Gamble
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. Take a bunch of extra risk on a super trendy upset pick, and the joke is on you.
The pick below is not appropriate for all pools. If you're in a smaller, season-long pool with lots of games left, it's 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, this highly unpopular underdog has a compelling profile.
Cleveland Browns (vs. LA Rams)
The Rams are off to a 2-0 start, beating the Saints in a matchup where Drew Brees left in the first quarter because of a thumb injury and letting Carolina hang in the game in Week 1. The Browns, meanwhile, after a bit of a fluky blowout loss in Week 1 fueled by late turnovers, rebounded on Monday night against the woeful Jets and now face a key swing game at home.
For the second time in three weeks, the Rams travel east as a slight road favorite and are hugely popular with the public. In Week 1, they won by three points at Carolina. This time around, they are only favored by 2.5 points, but the public is selecting them 90 percent of the time. Last week's biggest value underdog, Detroit, won when the public was similarly down on them, and the Browns will try to make it two weeks in a row in which an extremely unpopular small underdog pulls off the win.
Our models like the Browns' chances here even more than the implied win odds from the betting market and give Cleveland a 48-percent chance of winning outright at home. When you can get that kind of value in a situation where 90 percent of your pool is going the other way (assuming, of course, that your pool reflects the national averages), it deserves consideration.
Usually we have a second value upset pick to highlight, but Week 3 looks like slim pickings on the upset front from a risk vs. reward standpoint. Outside of Cleveland, the next most likely team to win that is being picked by less than 15 percent of the public is Cincinnati, but the Bengals are six-point underdogs with only around 30-percent win odds. That's a serious risk for a team that is still a more popular pick than Cleveland.
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Which of these five NFL Week 3 picks should you make?
Once you know the best value opportunities of NFL Week 3, you can increase your odds of winning your pool by making educated gambles on them. Maybe you bump up the number of confidence points you assign to a team like San Francisco, or perhaps you take a chance on the Browns as a slight home underdog.
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 shows you 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. Good luck in your NFL pick 'em contests and office pools this week!
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