NFL Week 6 Pick’em Pool Strategy: Five Picks You Must Consider

NFL Week 6 Pick’em Pool Strategy: Five Picks You Must Consider

October 11, 2018 – by Tom Federico

We’re back for NFL Week 6 with five picks that need to be on your radar screen if you want to win your NFL pick’em contest or confidence pool.

Remember: Getting the biggest edge in your NFL pick’em requires a precise evaluation of win odds (i.e. how risky each potential pick is) as well as pick popularity (i.e. how much you’ll gain on your opponents if you pick a team and it wins). Then, you need to make sure the risk vs. reward profile of your weekly picks is appropriate for your pool.

For a quick primer, see our article on NFL pick’em pool strategy.

Through NFL Week 5, TeamRankings subscribers have already reported almost 800 weekly prize wins in football pick’em pools, a win rate nearly four times as high as expected. And last season, 81% of subscribers reported winning a prize in a football pick’em. How? They used our Football Pick’em Pool Picks.

Review Of Last Week’s NFL Picks

Last week was yet another solid week for our value-driven pick advice, especially regarding close games and underdogs. It’s been quite a run to start the season.

In terms of bigger favorites, we cautioned against using Seattle as an upset pick versus the Rams, as the Seahawks were a bit too trendy of an upset play among the public. Seattle definitely made it close, but the Rams pulled out the victory. The other team we mentioned, the 49ers, was our sole miss of the week. Bad luck certainly didn’t help, as San Francisco lost the turnover battle 5-0 in its 10-point loss to the Cardinals.

From there, our highlighted value favorite (Pittsburgh over Atlanta) and unpopular toss-up pick (Jets over Broncos) both won easily. Then, on the upset pick front, our highlighted value gamble put the icing on the cake, as the Lions upset the Packers 31-23.

Overall it was again a 4-1 week. Because we’re mostly focusing on teams that are less popular picks than they should be, hitting the majority of these games will have an outsized positive impact on your performance in NFL pick’em contests and confidence pools.

Week 6 Value Picks For NFL Pick’em And Confidence Pools

As usual, we’ve picked out five games that stand out based on the win odds and pick popularity of the teams playing. Deciding which way you want to go on these games should be top of mind when you make your NFL Week 6 picks.

Keep in mind that we are 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 in your pool; whether it uses confidence points; and whether it offers season prizes, weekly prizes, or both. Our Football Pick’em Picks product ps 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.

Value Favorites

New England (vs. Kansas City)

The Patriots are 3.5-point favorites at home according to the betting markets, but their implied win odds of 63% are solidly higher than their pick popularity of 54%. In addition, our models are slightly more optimistic about New England’s winning chances. Getting to pick a decent favorite that’s this unpopular isn’t an opportunity that arises very frequently, but the public is likely getting spooked by New England’s two early losses, especially in comparison to undefeated Kansas City. In addition, the memory of the Chiefs beating New England in Foxboro in Week 1 last season lingers on. These are the types of situational factors that often create value opportunities; the bottom line is that New England is the favorite in this game.  

Baltimore (at Tennessee)

The Ravens, favored by 2.5 points on the road in the betting markets, are another Week 6 favorite that isn’t very popular. In fact, at 49% pick popularity, a slight majority of the public is actually picking against the favorite here. So by picking the Ravens, you get to side with the more likely team to win (58% Vegas implied win odds) and gain ground on over half your pool if the they pull it off. The fact that Baltimore only managed to score 9 points last week in a loss to Cleveland is likely impacting the public’s sentiment toward this game, but let’s not forget that Tennessee didn’t even manage to score a touchdown in a loss against the Bills.

Cincinnati (vs. Pittsburgh)

The Bengals are another 2.5-point favorite this week who are being at least slightly undervalued by the public. Both our models and Vegas odds have Cincinnati with about a 55% chance to win this game, but only 52% of the public is picking them. The Bengals needed to rally from a 17-point deficit to beat the Dolphins last week (and were helped by two defensive touchdowns in the second half), while Pittsburgh romped by 24 points over Atlanta, so recency bias may be in effect here. With the Bengals at home, our predictive ratings give them a very slight edge over Pittsburgh as well.

Unpopular Toss-Up Pick

Washington (vs. Carolina)

The Redskins are coming off a significant Week 5 loss in which a prime time Monday night audience saw them give up 43 points to the Saints. Carolina, on the other hand, is coming into Week 6 on a two-game win streak, thanks in part to a last-second 63-yard field goal against the Giants in Week 5. Not surprisingly, Washington is a hugely unpopular pick this week, with a paltry 24% of the public taking them. Yet the betting markets have the Redskins as 1-point favorites. Although our models aren’t quite as optimistic about Washington, this game is close enough to a toss-up that the Redskins are a no-brainer pick in weekly prize pools, and deserve serious consideration in season-prize pools as well.

Value Gamble

New York Giants (vs. Philadelphia)

The Giants are only a 1-point underdog at home against the Eagles, but the G-Men are being portrayed by the media as a team in disarray, with ongoing chatter about whether QB Eli Manning is to blame for the team’s offensive woes. Factor in last week’s unlucky loss to Carolina on a last-second 63-yard field goal, and it’s understandable why the public is being irrationally negative about New York. Both Vegas and our models give the Giants over a 40% chance of winning this week, but only 20% of the public is picking them. Picking New York is definitely a risk, and not advised in all pools, but the upside is high they come through with an upset, especially in pool formats focused on weekly prizes.

Which Of These NFL Week 6 Picks Should You Make?

Maybe all of them, maybe just some of them. We’re not dodging the question — the reality is that it takes a lot of math to get to the right answer.

We built our Football Pool Picks product to do all the number crunching for you, and p 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 will customize Week 6 pick recommendations to give you the biggest edge.

Here’s how it works. First, we use data from national pick’em contests to estimate pick popularity for every team. Then, we compare a team’s pick popularity to its win odds (or point spread cover odds, if you’re in a point spread pool) to determine if it’s being underrated or overrated by the public. Finally, we use algorithms to identify the exact set of picks each week that offers the best risk vs. reward profile for your pool’s size and rules.

The result? In our postseason survey last year, 81% of our subscribers reported winning a weekly or a season prize in a football pick’em contest.

You can find more information about our premium NFL products at the following pages: Football Pick’em Picks, NFL Survivor Picks, and NFL Betting Picks.

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