NFL Week 5 Pick’em Pool Strategy: Five Picks You Must Consider

October 3, 2018 - by Tom Federico

We’re back for NFL Week 5 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 earlier article on NFL pick’em pool strategy.

Through NFL Week 4, TeamRankings subscribers have already reported almost 700 weekly prize wins in football pick’em pools, a win rate almost four times as high as expected. How? They used our Football Pick’em Pool Picks. It’s the only product that customizes pick recommendations for your specific pools. You can also check out our NFL survivor pool picks and NFL betting picks.

Review Of Last Week’s NFL Picks

Last week was yet another solid week for our value-driven pick advice. First, we cautioned against using the Bills as a big upset pick. Though Buffalo had pulled off a stunning upset against the Vikings in Week 3, the Bills quickly regressed to their expected poor form this season in getting shut out 22-0 by Green Bay.

Both of our highlighted value favorites also won: Dallas over Detroit (last second win by Dallas) and Chicago over Tampa Bay (easy win for Chicago). Finally, on the upset pick front, our highlighted value gambles yielded a winner in Houston over Indianapolis, while Arizona nearly pulled it off against Seattle.

Overall it was 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 5 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 5 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 a number of different 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 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 Seattle)

With Seattle coming off back-to-back wins and returning to a home field considered to be one of the toughest for opposing teams, the Seahawks might look like a good upset gamble at first blush. However, the public is already giving Seattle more support (13% pick popularity) than is typical for a 7-point underdog, so it’s best not to follow the crowd here. We wouldn’t recommend it in most cases, but if you really want to gamble on a big underdog in Week 5, both the Raiders and Giants have a better chance to win than Seattle, and are also less popular picks, giving them better risk/reward profiles as upset plays. In season prize pools, though, you’ll be better off not picking a big upset this week, and instead just considering our highlighted value gamble (keep reading).

San Francisco 49ers (vs. Arizona)

The 49ers are 4.5-point home favorites this week against the Cardinals. While San Francisco’s pick popularity (72%) is actually slightly higher than its win odds (in the mid-60% range according to Vegas and our models), this week’s slate is largely devoid of underrated favorites. So in weeks like these, you need to take more of a relative view of things. Out of the several Week 5 games in which one team is favored by between 3 and 6.5 points, San Francisco is the closest to being fairly valued. Again, a team like Oakland (against the Chargers) has a very similar chance to win as Arizona does this week — slightly better, actually, according to our models — and the Raiders will give you a bigger boost against your opponents if they pull it off.

Value Favorite

Pittsburgh (vs. Atlanta): The Steelers are a 3-point favorite at home, and their win odds of around 60% are slightly higher than their pick popularity (56%). As a result, picking Pittsburgh lets you not only side with the more likely winner of this game, but also get a sliver of value as a bonus. With the Steelers coming off a 12-point loss to divisional rival Baltimore, the public is likely displaying some irrational bias against Pittsburgh here, although it’s admittedly minimal. Still, there are several teams with much better upset pick profiles than Atlanta this week, so it’s not even worth considering the Falcons as a potential upset play.

Unpopular Toss-Up Pick

New York Jets (vs. Denver)

Denver is coming off a 4-point Monday night defeat to an undefeated Kansas City Chiefs team, and the public probably interpreted that loss as a great showing for Denver — despite the fact that the Broncos were only 3.5-point underdogs going in. Meanwhile, the Jets are coming off three straight losses, including being the first team to lose to the Cleveland Browns since 2016. Add it all up, and the Jets are only attracting about 18% of the public’s picks this week. But here’s the rub: the Jets are actually slight favorites to win this game according to both Vegas and our models, in part because it’s also a short week of rest for Denver. The value offered by New York is big; picking the Jets gives you at least a 50/50 shot to gain ground on 82% of your opponents. If your pool’s picking trends reflect national averages, it’s a no-brainer to go with the Jets in nearly all types of pick’em pools.

Value Gamble

Detroit Lions (vs. Green Bay)

Detroit has a similar profile as the Jets this week, with the exception that the Lions are a 1-point underdog instead of a 1-point favorite, which adds risk. After watching the underdog Lions beat the Patriots in Week 3, the public saw Detroit return to earth with a loss at Dallas last week, while the Packers shut out Buffalo 22-0. Unsurprisingly, Green Bay is a very popular pick this week, at 80% pick popularity — a number that far overrates the chances of only a very slight Vegas favorite. From a risk vs. reward standpoint, Detroit isn’t quite as good a pick as the Jets, and still may be too risky for most season prize pools. However, if you want to increase your odds to win a weekly prize, picking Detroit is almost certainly worth the risk.

Which Of These NFL Week 5 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 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.

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.