Pick’em Advice For NFL Week 9: Five Value Picks for Football Office Pools (2019)

October 29, 2019 - by Jason Lisk

Last week featured a lot of perceived mismatches and the favorites ended up going 13-2. This week, though, we get back to a schedule where the majority of the 13 games currently have a point spread under 4 points. That, in turn, leads to more pick diversity from the public and the potential for more value in Week 9.

Before getting to this week, though, let’s quickly summarize last week’s results.

Recap of Last Week’s Picks

Last week, we highlighted three favorites that were coming at relative value given the large pick percentages on every favorite last week. We won’t take too much credit for suggesting that you take the top favorite, Minnesota, and slot them as your top confidence play in those type of pools. But San Francisco and Green Bay were two favorites that were being picked a little less by the public than other similar teams, and both got big wins.

Meanwhile, the two value gambles we highlighted for consideration in weekly contests both came close, but lost in heartbreaking fashion. Tampa Bay had their chances, and some controversy, in the loss at Tennessee, while Denver led the Colts until Adam Vinatieri hit a 51-yard game-winning field goal to end the game.

Value Picks For NFL Week 9 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 9 slate and identified the best value picking opportunities. This week, early pick popularity numbers show several games where the public is strongly on one side in matchups that the oddsmakers think are far closer to even.

Keep in mind that we are not saying that you should make all five of the picks below. The best Week 9 picks for your NFL pool depend on characteristics such as its size, rules, and prize structure; our Football Pick’em Picks product will recommend weekly picks for you based on all those factors.

What we are saying is that the teams mentioned in this post either offer some of the best opportunities to differentiate your Week 9 picks from your pool opponents, or they serve as prime examples of when picking against the crowd is most likely a bad idea.

Note: Win odds and pick popularity estimates below may change between publication time and kickoff time. If you want to see the latest numbers, our product updates multiple times per day.

Value Favorites

Week 9 features several favorites that the public is picking at a lower rate than their chance to win. These types of teams are as close as you can get to “no brainer picks” in NFL pick’em contests, since both win odds and value are on your side. Here are three of them:

Pittsburgh Steelers (vs. Indianapolis)

The Colts are 5-2, but all seven games have been close affairs that could have gone either way. They were coming at value for the first month of the season as the public shied away from them, but now, the public is heavily on Indianapolis (73% of early picks on the Colts) as they are tied for the second-best record in the AFC entering the week.

The Steelers, though, are the favorite in this one at home. Both our models and the betting markets give the Steelers a 52% chance in this one. Our predictive power rankings have Pittsburgh just above the Colts on a neutral field, with the difference in record explained by close game performance (The Steelers are 1-3 in games decided by 8 or less).

Cleveland Browns (at Denver)

Joe Flacco has been ruled out of this Sunday’s game against Cleveland with a back injury. Coincidentally or not, Flacco was very vocal in his criticism of head coach Vic Fangio’s conservatism at the end of the loss to the Colts on the road. As a result, Brandon Allen, a former 6th-round pick in 2016 by the Jaguars, is set to start the game. The 27-year-old Allen has been waived by both Jacksonville and the Rams in the past, before signing with Denver after rookie quarterback Drew Lock went on IR. He has yet to throw a pass in a regular season game.

So far, the pick popularity on this one has it pretty even, with the Browns getting 53% of the selections from the public. Sports books that have put a line back up on the board for this one are generally in the 2.5-point to 3-point range with Cleveland as the favorite. (Prior to the Flacco news, Denver was the favorite of around 1.5 points). So right now, Cleveland is coming at value as the favorite, and where the popularity ends up will determine whether that holds true by Sunday.

Oakland Raiders (vs. Detroit)

The Raiders have lost two in a row after their bye week, and get to go home to play Detroit. One thing to keep in mind here is just how little Oakland has been able to play at home. This is their first true home game since September 15th against the Chiefs, as they have played four games on the road plus traveled to London since then.

Oakland is the 2-point favorite here against the Lions, and have implied win odds of 54% and public pick percentage of 53%. While that is not a huge value, you are still getting the betting favorite if you take the Raiders here, in a spot where almost half the public is going the other way.

 

Value Gambles

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 picks below are not appropriate for all pools. If you’re in a smaller, season-long pool with lots of games left, they’re 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, these highly unpopular underdogs have a compelling profile.

Jacksonville (vs. Houston in London)

Jacksonville lost their first matchup with Houston back in Week 2, when Gardner Minshew made his first career start, and they came up just short on a two-point conversion try to take the late lead. This game is a near toss-up in London, with Houston as the early 1.5-point favorite. But two-thirds of the public is going with DeShaun Watson and the Texans, which provides value in weekly contests to go opposite the public and take a team that has a realistic chance of victory.

Los Angeles Chargers (vs. Green Bay)

The Green Bay Packers are rolling, moving to 7-1 with the road win at Kansas City on Sunday Night Football. Meanwhile, the Chargers ended a three-game losing streak, but not necessarily in impressive fashion, as they needed a late field goal miss to win in Chicago.

Now, these teams will meet in Los Angeles, where the Chargers will nominally be the home team, but the stands are likely to be filled with green shirts.

The Chargers come in as a 3-point underdog, with about a 41% chance of winning, according to our models. But only 8% of the public is going with Los Angeles. While it’s not the best pick in all formats, rolling with the Chargers in larger weekly pools provides a lot of value given their extremely low popularity for a team with a realistic chance of winning.

 

Our Solution For Pick’em Pools

Once you know the best value opportunities of NFL Week 9, you can typically increase your odds to win your pool by making educated gambles on one or more of them. Perhaps you bump up the number of confidence points you assign to a pick like Pittsburgh or Cleveland. Maybe you take even more risk and pick a team like the Chargers or Raiders to win. There are a lot of decisions to make, but not all of them make sense for you.

Our solution was to build technology to do all the data gathering and math required to identify the best possible picks for your pool. We developed a product that uses research-based algorithms to customize weekly pick recommendations based on key strategy factors like your pick’em contest’s size, rules, and prize structure. It even covers game winner or spread-based contests; confidence pools; and pools with end-of-season prizes, weekly prizes, or both.

In fact, it’s so advanced that we had to come up with an appropriately technical, massively creative name for it: Football Pick’em Picks.

If you learned something from this article, we encourage you to check it out.

Until Next Week…

Enjoy NFL Week 9, and if you’re in an NFL pool or planning on betting some of the Week 9 games, please check out our Football Pick’em Picks, NFL Survivor Picks and NFL Betting Picks.

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