NFL Week 10 Predictions, Rankings, and Tips: The Weekly Rundown

Here’s a quick-hit list of weekly highlights from the vast array of NFL content we publish on TeamRankings. We’ll also share some predictions and picks for Week 10 and beyond.


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NFL Week 10 Power Rankings Update

Current NFL rankings

  • Denver still on top. Denver still rates as a decently better team (by 1.8 points on a neutral field) than New England in our Predictive ratings, and retains the #1 ranking. One game does not a season make.
  • But the Broncos took a big hit. Still, the loss in Foxboro was a bruiser for the Broncos’ Predictive rating, which suffered the second biggest decline of any team this week (-1.3 points). However, Denver was rated far enough ahead of any other team in the rankings coming into Week 9 that the Patriots still didn’t leapfrog them.

  • Pats now undisputed #2. The Pats’ impressive win was enough to vault them into the clear #2 ranking in our system, though, which now sees New England as 1.1 points better than #3 Seattle. #4 Indianapolis and #5 Green Bay round out the top five.
  • Miami makes a statement. The most impactful win of the week was Miami’s 37-0 shellacking of San Diego, which increased the Dolphins’ rating a full two points and vaulted them all the way from #18 to #12 in our Predictive ratings. The size of that ratings jump is rare this late in the season, but our system thought the game would be close to even, so the final result was a hugely above expectations for Miami.
  • San Diego in free fall? It was pretty much the reverse story for San Diego, who plummeted all the way from #8 to #15 after the loss. We noted several weeks ago that San Diego ranked #1 in our Future Strength Of Schedule ratings, and had a very tough road ahead of them. Unfortunately for Bolts fans, it looks like the worst case scenario is playing out right now. Still, there’s plenty more season left.
  • Saints were down, not out. Our ratings didn’t give up on New Orleans even when the Saints were 2-4, and the past two weeks have made that look like the right decision. The #6 Saints are now in a virtual three-way tie for sixth place in the rankings with #7 Baltimore and #8 San Francisco, both of whom got bruised this past week. The Saints also now project as strong favorites to win the NFC South.
  • Misleading win-loss records? #16 Dallas and #17 Pittsburgh are currently our two biggest examples of teams whose rating is worse than you’d probably expect, given their current win-loss records (both are 6-3). The Steelers made a nice jump in the rankings this week, though, climbing three sports after a solid win over Baltimore. Arizona (ranked #10 despite being 7-1) is another example.
  • Easiest/hardest remaining schedules. It’s worth noting that among the current top teams, Indianapolis, Baltimore, and Green Bay have some of the easiest future schedule strengths in the NFL. Seattle, New England, and Arizona have some of the toughest.

NFL Week 10 Season Projections Update

Current NFL season projections

  • Pats are biggest threat to Denver in weeks. Denver’s Super Bowl champion odds unsurprisingly took a hit this week, largely due to the Broncos’ reduced Predictive rating, but they still lead the NFL at 22% to win it all (down from 30% last week). New England, however, is all the way up to 15% now (from 9% last week), and is closer to Denver’s chances than any other team has been in recent weeks.
  • The curious case of the Arizona Cardinals. Although they only rank #10 in our Predictive ratings, Arizona actually has the third-best odds (9%) to win it all right now, thanks to their NFC-best 7-1 record and two-game lead over Seattle in the NFC West. If Arizona wins the division with a great record, the Cardinals will avoid the Wild Card round, which obviously helps their odds to win it all. But that outcome also means that another team in the NFC will have to play a very tough Wild Card game against Seattle or (lower chance) San Francisco. So that lowers the Super Bowl odds of all other top teams in the conference besides Arizona.
  • Other top contenders. Indianapolis and Seattle (both 8% to win it all) are close on Arizona’s heels, though, followed by Green Bay, Philadelphia, Detroit, and New Orleans as the other biggest championship threats (each with 5-6% odds to win it all).
  • And the longer shots. San Francisco, Dallas, Baltimore, and Cincinnati are now only outside threats to win the championship (each in the 2% range), and Kansas City, Miami, and Pittsburgh have now played themselves into that group as well.
  • AFC division winner projections. Our current projected AFC division winners are New England (78% AFC East, vs. 74% last week, not up a ton since Miami also had a great win), new favorite Pittsburgh (37% AFC North, up from 19% last week), Indianapolis (back in near-lock territory at 93% AFC South, up from 80% last week), and Denver (84% AFC West, down from 89% last week, a relatively small change thanks to San Diego’s implosion).
  • NFC division winner projections. Our current projected NFC division winners are new favorite Philadelphia (66% NFC East), Detroit (51% NFC North), New Orleans (80% NFC South, up from 56% last week after beating top division rival Carolina on the road), and Arizona (65% NFC West, up from 47% after the SF loss).
  • Other division contenders. The AFC North is still up for grabs — it’s currently more likely that either Baltimore or Cincinnati wins it over current favorite Pittsburgh — and Green Bay is close to being neck-and-neck with Detroit to win the NFC North. Dallas still has almost a 1-in-3 chance to win the NFC East, and Seattle is about 1-in-4 to win the NFC West.
  • No hope for the playoffs? Our season simulations currently give 11 teams (up from 10 last week) less than a 10% chance of making the playoffs: the NY Jets, Tennessee, Jacksonville, Oakland, Washington, Minnesota, Chicago, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, St. Louis, and … please welcome to the list this week … the New York Giants, who are now down to just under a 1-in-10 chance to make the postseason.

NFL Week 10 Pick’em Pools Update

Week 10 NFL pick’em pool picks

  • Underrated picks underperform expectations. The most underrated pick’em pool picks of Week 9 didn’t do as well as expected. Miami over San Diego, the second most underrated pick of the week (60% win odds, 25% picked), came through. One would have expected at least one more win out of the Giants, Tampa Bay, Houston, and Baltimore (the other four most underrated picks), but all of them lost.
  • Last week’s advice. Our advice for pick’em pools with season prizes last week was to pick Miami over San Diego, and that worked like a charm. In terms of attractive value upset picks for weekly prize pools, the best looking upset picks from last week, Baltimore and Houston, both lost.
  • Strategy for season prize pools. For Week 10, your best strategy in NFL pick’em pools that only have season prizes is to continue to remain conservative and not go crazy picking upsets. (Even if you’re a bit behind in the standings, it’s not time to get more aggressive yet.) This is a bit of a tough week to fade the public, though, as there are lots of big favorites. The public is overrating all of the favorites this week, but picking against most of them is too risky. So we don’t have any pound the table picks this week, but right now our models do favor Buffalo to upset the much more popular Kansas City.
  • Strategy for weekly prize pools. Pools that only offer weekly prizes call for a different strategy, one that needs to give much more weight to how your opponents are likely to pick this week. Picking Buffalo looks like a very solid play in these types of pools, and Tampa Bay over Atlanta is a consideration too. The Bucs have about 45% win odds but are only 20% picked.
  • Strategy for YOUR pool. Just remember, the optimal strategy for your specific pool, including how many favorites vs. upsets you should pick this week, depends on a lot of factors: the number of entries in your pool, the rules, the scoring system, the payout structure. That’s why we developed our Football Pick’em Pools product to apply our analytics to your specific pool.

NFL Week 10 Survivor Pools Update

Week 10 NFL survivor pool picks

  • San Francisco drama eliminates 11%. Four teams made up the huge majority of survivor picks last week, and one, San Francisco, lost in dramatic fashion after fumbling on the St. Louis 1-yard line with only seconds left. That meant that approximately 11% of still-surviving entries were eliminated in Week 9.
  • Unfortunately, that included two pick sets we were tracking. Our pick recommendation for single-entry pools as of Wednesday last week was Seattle for large pools, and San Francisco for small pools (our small-pool pick set had already used the Seahawks). But by Sunday, plunging win odds for Seattle due to shifts in the betting markets had moved San Francisco to the top of our pick rankings for all pool sizes. As a result, our undefeated streak for our “Sunday pick” recommendations for single-entry pools came to an end. So this season, our final Sunday picks made it to Week 9, outlasting about 93% of all survivor entries.
  • More pool win reports coming in. Of course, many of our customers who are using our advice to play multiple-entry strategies are still alive, as we didn’t advise putting all entries on SF last week. We’ve had more reports of Survivor pool wins coming in on our Q&A forum, including people negotiating pot splits in pools with only a few entries still alive.
  • Don’t pick this team in Week 10. This week, Baltimore is the most popular survivor pick by a wide margin. While they are not a horrible pick by any means, the Ravens’ relative popularity currently means that at least three other teams will give you higher odds to win your survivor pool, if you avoid Baltimore and pick them instead this week.

NFL Week 10 Game Predictions & Betting Picks Update

Week 10 NFL game winner picks | Spread picks | Most likely upsets

  • A win against the public. It’s been a long time coming, but after six ties and two losses, our game winner picks finally outdid the public (i.e., the user consensus picks from ESPN’s pick’em game). Our winner picks went 10-3 compared to the public’s 9-4 performance. We had Miami over San Diego and Minnesota over Washington, both of which the public got wrong. However, we went for the upset pick on Baltimore over Pittsburgh and lost it, while the public stuck with the Steelers.
  • Game winner picks still behind the public overall. As of now our game winner picks are 87-46-1 on the season, which lags the ESPN user consensus by three wins. (We’ve actually been even since Week 1, when the public went a ridiculous +3 on us). Our game winner picks are currently 8-4-1 against the 13 ESPN NFL experts.
  • Another improvement for spread picks. Our playable point spread picks went 5-3 against Sunday lines (3-1 on 3-star picks), while playable over/under picks went 3-3 (2-1 on 3-star picks).Overall, including low confidence picks, spread picks went 7-6 and totals picks went 8-5. Our money line value picks continued their recent slump though, going 2-for-7 and losing all of our underdog picks.
  • Season performance update. That performance means that our playable rated NFL spread picks against Sunday lines are now 39-35, while playable over/under picks are 29-29. (Including low confidence picks, our over/under picks are 75-57-22, or almost 57% picking all games.) 2-star money line picks are -6.6 units for the season based on a flat-betting strategy, while all starred money line picks are currently -12.1 units.
  • Top confidence Week 10 picks. The top confidence game winner picks from our models are currently Baltimore at home over Tennessee (81%), Seattle at home over the New York Giants (80%), and Denver on the road at Oakland (80%).
  • Most likely Week 10 upsets. The most likely upset of the week according to our models is currently Buffalo over Kansas City, with a 51% chance of happening. The most likely upset of a Vegas favorite of more than three points is currently the New York Jets over Pittsburgh, with a 40% chance of happening.

Weekly NFL Contest Update

Enter our Week 10 NFL contest | Current leaderboards

  • jimdog33 takes the gold in Week 9. User jimdog33 won our 159-entry NFL contest on FanDuel this past week, squeaking past second place finisher buellmark by just over two points with this lineup. Fine work, jimdog, and that’s good for a TeamRankings Season Pass ($249) in addition to your FanDuel winnings.
  • 63% of entries won cash! Because of our guaranteed prize pool, an amazing 63% of the entries in our weekly contest doubled their entry fees last week. Sadly that did not include us this week, as our teamrankings entry totally bombed and ended up in 143rd place. Ouch. Rough week for us on FanDuel.
  • Come play with us! We want you to get in on the Week 10 action with us. Another 100 entries will win cash this week, and this is your chance to beat the TR Nerds head to head. Claim your spot now in our weekly tournament.