The experts at TeamRankings are back to help with your Week 7 NFL picks by providing value-driven advice for your football pick 'em pools and survivor pools.
Note: This will be TeamRankings last office pool advice column on Sporting News during the 2018 NFL season. To get all of our pick 'em and survivor pool recommendations for the rest of the year, you can subscribe to our Football Pick 'em Picks and NFL Survivor Picks.
So far this season, we've helped our premium subscribers win nearly 1,000 weekly prizes in football pick 'em pools, while our NFL survivor pool picks have out-survived the public in five out of six NFL weeks so far
Football Pool Strategy: Lessons from last week
Last week was another winning week for our value-driven pick advice. First, we recommended three value favorites: Patriots, Ravens and Bengals. Two of those three teams won, with the Bengals losing on a last-second touchdown to the Steelers. The biggest result was the Patriots win, though, as about 55 percent of pick 'em players nationally were on Kansas City.
Our unpopular toss-up pick, the Redskins, got out to an early lead against Carolina and hung on to win 23-17. That was the biggest value pick on the Week 6 slate, and if you took our advice there you likely gained ground on almost 80 percent of your pick 'em opponents (the national pick popularity for Carolina). However, our biggest value gamble, the Giants, gave up the lead early against the Eagles and could never get back into the game.
Overall it was a 3-2 week. Because we're mostly focusing on teams that are less popular picks than they should be, hitting the majority of these games should have an outsized positive impact on your performance in NFL pick 'em contests and confidence pools.
Week 7 Fantasy Rankings:
Quarterback | Running Back | Wide Receiver | Tight End | D/ST | Kicker
Expert Week 7 NFL Picks Advice: Pick 'em pools
As usual, we're highlighting five picks for NFL Week 7 that stand out based on win odds and pick popularity. Deciding which way you want to go on these matchups is key when you make your NFL Week 7 picks.
Remember that we're not saying you should make all of these picks. The best picks for your specific pool depend on multiple strategy factors, such as the number of entries, whether your pool uses confidence points, and whether it offers season prizes, weekly prizes, or both. Our Football Pick 'em Picks product figures out the best pick strategy for you.
Note: Win odds and projected pick popularity data quoted below may change between publication time and kickoff time. If you want to see the latest numbers, our product updates multiple times per day with the latest information.
Favorites at a Reasonable Price
Los Angeles Rams (at San Francisco)
The undefeated Rams are 10-point favorites on the road against San Francisco. Despite the Rams being the safest pick this week with win odds of around 80 percent, the public isn't overrating LAR's odds by very much, which is not often the case with bigger favorites. Put another way, despite nearly upsetting the Packers this past Monday Night, the 49ers are one of the least attractive upset picks you can make this week. San Francisco has a low chance to win (about 20 percent) coupled with only a 13-percent differential between win odds and nationwide popularity (seven percent). Almost every other underdog you can choose from this week has a better risk/reward profile.
Indianapolis Colts (vs. Buffalo)
The Colts, 7.5-point favorites over the Bills, are the second biggest favorite of Week 7, but Indy is not being wildly overrated by the public as bigger favorites often are. It makes sense, as the public is probably wary of the Colts’ 1-5 record, while giving the Bills continued credit for their historic Week 3 win over Minnesota. Still, the Bills -- who will be starting their third QB of the season in recently signed, journeyman Derek Anderson -- aren’t a particularly attractive upset pick, with only 25-percent win odds and 12-percent pick popularity. Cincinnati, for example, is more likely to beat Kansas City than Buffalo is to beat Indianapolis, according to both Vegas odds and our objective models. Yet the Bengals have only four-percent pick popularity, giving them a much better upset pick profile than Buffalo.
MORE TEAMRANKINGS: Intro to data-driven NFL picks
Value Favorites
Baltimore (vs. New Orleans)
The Ravens, favored by 2.5 points at home, are a very unpopular pick in pick ’em pools this week, with only 28 percent of the public taking them. Interestingly, Baltimore was a 2.5-point favorite in Week 6, as well, and a slight majority of the public was also picking against them early in the week. It seems like strong public sentiment for New Orleans, which hasn’t lost since a crazy Week 1 game against Tampa Bay, is overriding considerations, such as the Baltimore's 21-0 road shutout of the Titans last week. Both the betting markets (which have Baltimore with over 56-percent implied win odds) and our models have the Ravens as the favorite here, so taking Baltimore means you get to pick the more likely winner and have a chance to gain on nearly three-quarters of your opponents if they win. It’s rare to see this much value on a favorite.
Value Gambles
Arizona (vs. Denver)
Arizona is 1-5 so far this season, with its lone victory coming against a 49ers team that also only has one win. Meanwhile, Denver is coming off a three-point loss to the undefeated Rams. Nevertheless, our predictive ratings (based on all game results so far, plus preseason expectations) see these teams as only a few points apart, and the home venue for Arizona pretty much evens out that difference. Arizona’s lack of public support in this game (25-percent pick popularity) makes this game a potentially worthwhile spot to go with the unpopular team. The Cardinals are also only one-point underdogs in the betting markets, so this game is close enough to a toss-up that Arizona is a no-brainer pick in weekly prize pools, and the Cardinals deserve consideration in season-prize pools, as well.
Dallas (at Washington)
The Cowboys are 1.5-point underdogs on the road against division rival Washington. Despite a big win over Jacksonville last week, the Cowboys are still relatively unpopular this week, with only 34 percent of the public picking them. The fact that Washington pulled off its own upset of Carolina last week and has a better win-loss record than Dallas are likely contributing factors. With Vegas implied win odds of nearly 46 percent, though, the Cowboys are worth consideration in weekly prize pools given the nearly 12-percent differential between their win odds and pick popularity. In addition, our models are optimistic about Dallas' chances, giving the Cowboys right around a 50/50 shot at winning this game. So, Dallas is worth consideration in season-long pick ’em pools, as well.
Which Of These Five Picks Should You Make?
Maybe all five, maybe only one or two. We're not dodging the question -- the truth is that it takes a lot of math to get to the right answer.
We built our Football Pool Picks to do all the number crunching for you and figure out when it makes the most sense for you to go with the favorite vs. the underdog. You answer a few quick questions about your pool, and it customizes weekly pick recommendations to give you the biggest edge.
Week 7 Survivor Pool Pick Advice
The five most popular survivor picks last week (the Vikings, Packers, Texans, Rams and Falcons) all won, although several of those teams had to survive a crazy last few minutes in their game. In total, nearly 95 percent of the public’s picks survived Week 6, while our Team Rankings subscriber pick recommendations did even better, with a 98.6-percent survival rate.
The major difference between our Week 6 recommendations to subscribers and the public's picks was the percentage of picks on Houston versus Green Bay. Around 29 percent of the public picks were on Green Bay, but in our rankings, the Packers' combination of win odds, pick popularity, and future value did not grade out very well compared to other options in most types of pools. Meanwhile, we recommended Houston at a much higher rate than the public's picks. That educated gamble almost paid off handsomely, after Houston won and then the 49ers almost upset Green Bay.
Breaking Down The Survivor Week 7 Pick Options
In Week 7, many of the fairly popular survivor pick choices have less than 70-percent win odds, so there could be some carnage this week.
The two safest choices of Week 7 are the Rams and the Colts, with the Rams being the safer pick of the two. The Colts are the slightly more popular pick (24-percent popularity vs. 21 percent for LAR as of Wednesday), which is bad, but Indianapolis also has far lower future value, which is good. Our models project the Rams as having greater than 75-percent win odds in both Weeks 8 and 10, and for players in bigger pools expected to last the whole season, the Rams also have three favorable matchups to close out the end of the regular season. The Colts, on the other hand, only have one future game with greater than 60-percent win odds, according to our models (Week 16 against the Giants).
After the Rams and Colts, there are four teams in the next tier of safety, all with fairly similar odds to win their games: Chargers, Chiefs, Falcons and Jaguars. One thing that stands out here is that the Jaguars are at around three-percent popularity nationwide right now, whereas the other three teams are all between 10-percent and 18-percent pick popularity.
After some recent line moves, the Chargers are the safest pick of this second tier, but they also have the most future value, along with the Chiefs. So if you don't pick the Rams or Colts, then picking the Chiefs or Chargers is your next safest move, but it absolutely comes with a price. You'd be choosing to burn a team with solid future value during a week in which it isn't even a particularly big favorite.
Our Week 7 Survivor Pick Recommendation
Your best NFL Week 7 survivor pick is the one that offers the best overall balance of safety, pick popularity, and future value for your specific pool. Every possible pick has an expected value associated with it, and it takes a lot of data and math to figure out which pick has the highest. A lot also depends on the rules of your pool. For example, if your survivor pool allows a "strike" (i.e. one wrong pick per season) or requires two picks per entry later in later weeks, your optimal pick strategy needs to take those rules into account.
We built our NFL Survivor Picks tools to do all of this analytical work for you. You answer a few questions about your survivor pool's size and rules, and we provide customized pick recommendations. The product even does a second layer of optimization if you are playing multiple survivor pool entries, recommending exactly how you should split a "portfolio" of survivor pool entries across one, two, or more teams.
Thanks for reading our pick 'em and survivor advice columns on Sporting News this season, and we hope they've helped you learn more about winning, value-based strategies for office pools. We'd love to have you on board as a subscriber for rest of the year! To see all of the picks, tools, and data we offer, please visit TeamRankings.com.