Embracing the dog in all of us, our NFL Week 10 picks

For those of you who don’t care how we come to our predictions, you will find the picks at the top of these posts for the rest of the season. The explanations for them are below. Enjoy!

The BSN picks of the week:

Tennessee Titans +2.5 vs. Green Bay Packers

Jacksonville Jaguars +1.5 vs. Houston Texans

Dallas Cowboys +2 at Pittsburgh Steelers

Atlanta Falcons Even at Philadelphia Eagles

With YPP getting back on track in Week 9 we feel invigorated with our Week 10 spreads. YPP was 7-3-1 in games of differentials over 1 point taking us to 2-1-1 on our picks, more importantly, the numbers are back to working for us.

That’s not to say there aren’t the usual traps in Week 10. The margins this week are narrow, only two games have differentials above 5 points and we like both those picks. There are also six more games in the 4.5 to 3 point differential range, another interesting pool of potential picks to take from.

With all that, we’re going to sift through the differentials and offer up four picks for you. The data is all below as we have it every week. We’re still giving you our EW suggested spreads and using those as a second metric to work off of. However, YPP is our bread and butter so that’s what we’ll be focused on most of all.

Without further ado here’s why we picked these five games.

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Our consensus picks of the week

Tennessee Titans +2.5

The Titans are a tricky team. At 4-5 they’re a much better team this year and have shown the ability to stay in just about every game they’ve played. However, their defense just got exposed allowing 43 points to the San Diego Chargers this past week. Not what you’d like to see when heading into a game against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers attack.

But look deeper and you’ll remember that Melvin Gordon on the ground is what killed the Titans. That’s perfect while facing the Packers and their struggling running game. Also, the Packers (and we’ve said this for a while) have not been good offensively. Particularly if we look at their YPP production were they’re averaging 5.3 yards, that’s eight worst in the NFL right in front of the Denver Broncos.

Tennessee instead is producing 6 yards per average on offense, good for sixth best in the league. With the Titans at home they’re -4.5 favorites in our YPP suggested spread. We also like the fact that Tennessee is third in the league in rushing yards per game (144), which should allow them to keep Rodgers and company off the field.

This is a huge 7 point differential from the actual spread our second largest of the week, give us the home dogs.

Jacksonville Jaguars +1.5

The Jags are a team YPP has liked for most of the year because their defense is playing extremely well, especially when focusing in on what they concede on a play-per-play basis. But the problem has been the offense as nothing’s working and Blake Bortles is slowly coming apart at the seams.

So we’ve been reluctant to bet the Jags, but the key with them is to pick them only in matchups against other poor offenses, a profile that the Texans certainly fit. Houston is dead last in offensive YPP with 4.7 average (tied with the Minnesota Vikings), while the Jaguars are 19th (5.4).

So even though this is a matchup with the 5-3 Texans going on the road to a 2-6 team there’s much more to it than that. This is also a game of two very good passing defenses going against one another, the Texans are second only to the Broncos allowing 191 yards per game in the air, while the Jags are fifth (218 YDS/G). I actually like that, because it tells me neither quarterback will have success which plays right into the Jaguars hands.

This is also a game of two very good passing defenses going against one another, the Texans are second only to the Broncos allowing 191 yards per game in the air, while the Jags are fifth (218 YDS/G). I actually like that, because it tells me neither quarterback will have success which plays right into the Jaguars hands.

Houston has found a way to score points despite their offensive troubles, but look at what they’ve done against the two other top-five passing defenses they’ve faced; scored 13 against the Minnesota Vikings and 9 vs the Denver Broncos.

The Jaguars are 4-4 against the spread this year, we like their chances against a division rival. Our YPP spread has Jacksonville as a touchdown favorite for a huge 8.5 point differential, by far our biggest of the week.

Dallas Cowboys +2

How bout them Cowboys! at 7-1 the ‘Boys are one of the surprises of the NFL season. The 4-4 Steelers, who are now also dealing with a banged up Ben Roethlisberger, are one of the bigger disappointments. It’s important not to sleep on Pittsburgh as they’re still in the lead for the AFC North title and as Big Ben gets healthier things should get back on track.

For now, that’s not been the case as the Steelers have lost three games in a row and none closer than a touchdown. So even if we expect Roethlisberger to get back to playing at his standards and quickly move on from a subpar outing against the Baltimore Ravens, and we give them a 3.5 point bump at home this line is still off for us.

Dallas is the sixth best team per YPP while the Steelers are 25th. That’s how the Cowboys end up -4.5 in a neutral field and 1 point favorites in Pittsburgh (again with the 3.5 point home bump). The thing that makes me most giddy in taking Dallas here is thinking back to what Jay Ajayi did to this defense only a short three weeks ago. If the Miami Dolphins and Ajayi went over 200 yards we expect Ezekiel Elliott to go off as well.

The Cowboys have also played really well defensively as the fourth best run defense and 14th passing group. So while the differential of 3.5 points isn’t huge these are two teams trending complexity in opposite directions. Give us the 7-and-1 road dogs.

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Our YPP pick of the week

Atlanta Falcons Even

Speaking of teams trending in opposite directions, here’s another road team (in Pennsylvania) with a fine record not getting points. This line is even in Philly but we don’t see these two teams as all that close.

On a neutral field, YPP has the Falcons as 5.5 point favorites and 2.5 in the Eagles house. 2.5-points is far from a big differential, but we’re confident in the Falcons being the pick here. Philadelphia’s numbers are also inflated from that great start they had when they had a positive YPP differential  of 0.6 as recently as Week 5. That number is now down to even and would be in the negative if not for that start. While Atlanta hasn’t always been perfect, they’ve stayed steadily at the top of the YPP rankings and their number hasn’t fluctuated.

The Eagles have found ways to play good defense and put up points on offense, but there’s been a significant dip in the past five weeks where they’ve won only one. Carson Wentz hasn’t received very good protection from his offensive line, while the core group of playmakers around him aren’t superstars he can lean on. We expect Wentz and the Birds to struggle in keeping pace with Atlanta’s potent offense. On the other side of the ball Julio Jones and Matt Ryan should have a field day against the Philadelphia cornerbacks.

Give us the Dirty Birds to bring home another win.

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Numbers, news, and notes

There really aren’t too many pieces of news to get into this week. Without any injuries, all spreads are up nice and early. The only injury news is that Alex Smith will return as the starter for the Kansas City Chiefs this week going against the Carolina Panthers.

Aside from that here are our suggested spreads below. Use with caution.