NFL Week 6 Picks: Four Games Of Interest For Pick’em Pools

NFL Week 6 Picks: Four Games Of Interest For Pick’em Pools

October 12, 2017 – by Tom Federico

To give you the biggest edge, we customize NFL Week 6 picks for each of your pools.

In this post, we’ll take a quick look at the NFL Week 6 landscape, then highlight four games of interest for making your NFL Week 6 picks for pick’em and confidence pools.

Editor’s Note: All our Week 6 picks for NFL pick’em pools are available in our Football Pool Picks product.

NFL Week 6 At A Glance

The Week 6 NFL slate looks much more lopsided than last week, which was chock full of close matchups. Based on Vegas odds on Thursday, we can group this week’s favorites into four tiers (point spreads in parentheses):

Big favorites (-13 to -9.5): Atlanta, Denver, Washington, Houston, New EnglandModerate favorites (-4 to -6.5): Baltimore, New Orleans, Kansas CitySmall favorites (-3 to -2.5): Carolina, Green Bay, JacksonvilleToss-ups (-1.5 or less): Tampa Bay

Two games (LA Chargers at Oakland, Indianapolis at Tennessee) were “off the board” at sports books at post time.

NFL Week 6 Pick Analysis

To win an NFL pick’em pool, you need to take advantage of smart opportunities to make unpopular picks. Below are four matchups from this week’s card where a contrarian pick may, or may not, make sense.

Note that betting lines and public picking trends may have shifted since this post was published, and changed the Week 6 landscape. If you want the latest data, we update our football pick’em picks and tools multiple times per day.

Denver vs. New York GiantsThe public as a whole almost always overestimates big favorites, and there are five teams this week each drawing nearly 100% of the public’s picks. Coming off a bye, the Broncos (-11.5 spread) are the second most likely team to win according to the betting markets, but relatively, Denver is also the least overrated pick of the five. If you’re looking to make a crazy upset pick this week, Cleveland (over Houston) offers a better risk/reward profile than the NY Giants.

New Orleans vs. DetroitNew Orleans is a decent favorite in this game (-4.5 spread, more than a 60% chance to win) yet just over half of the public is currently picking them. That’s a bit surprising given that the game is in New Orleans, the Saints are coming off a bye, and New Orleans has outperformed expectations in their last two games. Meanwhile, after overperforming in Weeks 1 and 2, Detroit hasn’t impressed as much recently. In short, it’s rare to see a relatively high-percentage winner like New Orleans also having value on their side.

Carolina vs. PhiladelphiaIn an exciting Thursday night matchup against two teams coming off solid wins, the public seems to be fairly valuing both the Panthers and Eagles in terms of their respective odds to win. The betting markets view these teams as roughly equal, with Carolina a 3-point favorite at home (historically home field advantage in the NFL is worth about 3 points). As a result, in season long pools especially, the payoff for making an upset pick with Philadelphia doesn’t make a ton of sense when better options exist (keep reading).

Minnesota vs. Green BayThe public is all over the Packers in this one, to the tune of 90%+ pick popularity, despite the Vikings only being a 3-point underdog. Green Bay is a strong team, but they’ve been impacted by injuries, and their resume so far isn’t exactly a picture of dominance. In fact, the Packers are two last-minute rallies away from being 2-3 with losses to the Bengals and Cowboys. For Minnesota, QB Case Keenum has been capable enough as injured Sam Bradford’s backup; playing at home with nearly 40% win odds, the Vikings look like a strong play in pools with big upset bonuses or focused only on weekly prizes.

NFL Week 6 Picks Strategy

Remember that you can’t look at NFL Week 6 picks in isolation. Rather, you need to make sure the risk/reward profile of all the picks you make this week — your “portfolio” of picks — isn’t too risky or conservative for your pool.

In addition, you’ll notice from our analysis above that in addition to considering how likely each team is to win its game this week, we pay just as much attention to how likely your opponents are to pick each team. Here’s why.

Winning NFL pick’em pools involves balancing risks with potential rewards. If you follow the crowd all season long, only picking the most popular teams and trendiest upsets, you’re unlikely to be a long-term profitable player. Among other things, increasing your odds to win requires you to identify smart plays that will help differentiate your picks from the rest of your pool.

Until Next Week…

Enjoy another week of football and good luck with your NFL Week 6 picks. If you found this post valuable, please check out one of our premium products:

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