Four picks and two dogs to get back on the winning track

 

For those of you who don’t care how we come to our predictions, and trust us with our 12-7 record on the year, 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:

Miami Dolphins +7.5 vs. Pittsburgh Steelers

Chicago Bears -2.5 vs. Jacksonville Jaguars

Atlanta Falcons +6 at Seattle Seahawks

Houston Texans -3 vs. Indianapolis Colts

It’s time to get back on track after our first non-winning week at 2-and-2. There are still only three YPP differentials over 5 points, but there are also two differentials of 4 points and one that has another team favored vs the actual favorite. So with all that we sorted through the trash and have four juicy picks for the NFL’s Week 6 spreads (see below for the full chart with all our numbers and predicted spreads).

Two of these are consensus picks, meaning that both our YPP numbers and EW metrics are in agreement on who should be covering the spread. While the other two picks are games that the YPP numbers are extremely high on. Mind you, Week 6 is right when we can begin to trust the YPP data, so we’re going all-in with all of these picks that the numbers like by a significant margin.

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Analyzing our consensus pick:

Miami Dolphins +7.5

The Dolphins haven’t looked good, with their only win coming against the Cleveland Browns and every other game they’ve played being a fairly clear cut loss. On the other hand, they’re facing a Pittsburgh Steelers team that YPP hasn’t been the highest on, despite the Steelers being absolutely on fire as of late.

While Pittsburgh has climbed in the YPP rankings they’re still only 20th while Miami is surprisingly 12th. That plus the Fins playing at home and you can figure out the rest. The Dolphins are actually 4.5 point favorites in our YPP suggested spread, while EW only has Pittsburgh by 3 points. That’s our biggest YPP differential and our second largest EW spread. While the logic of this is puzzling it’s hard to argue with both these metrics. As bad as Miami’s been they’re probably not this bad and YPP is already telling us they haven’t been nearly as outmatched as the final game scores would suggest. We’re betting on things correcting for the Dolphins and them surprising us here. Again that half point is very appealing.

Chicago Bears -2.5 

The Bears are the second best team per YPP in the league right now, behind only the Atlanta Falcons, a pretty unexpected figure. Furthermore, the Bears who already had a favorable YPP number have climbed the rankings since Brian Hoyer’s been thrust into the starting quarterback spot. So while Chicago is only 1-4 on the year they’ve been much better on a yard-per-play production basis.

Chicago isn’t even a full 3 point favorite at home vs the 1-3 Jaguars, compared to the YPP suggested spread that has them at -6.5. The Jags have had endless issues offensively even though their defense has shown some significant improvements. Right now, the Bears are looking like the much better team and 2.5 isn’t nearly generous enough at Soldier Field. Give us Chicago to cover that 2.5 as one of our only two non-underdog picks of the week.

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Breaking down the YPP picks:

Atlanta Falcons +6.5 

It’s never an easy decision to go against the Seahawks at home, but Atlanta has been YPP’s top team and shown why the last few weeks. Considering how well the Falcons have done the spread here is a little on the high side. YPP has the Falcons as 3 point favorites in a neutral field and Seattle as just 0.5 favorites at home.

Seattle is third in the NFL per YPP differential so they’re far from slouches per the metric, it’s just that Atlanta has done that much better as the top team.

This will be a great matchup of a high-level offense against a top defense much like last week was for the Falcons. We like Atlanta here to get it done and cover those 6.5 points.

Houston Texans -3

So we’re at it again, going against the Colts. Indianapolis is in firm possession of the bottom spot on the YPP list and has been all year, despite pulling off two late wins for a 2-3 record. The Texans, on the other hand, have lost J.J. Watt and seen their new quarterback’s play drop off significantly in two tough losses against the New England Patriots and Minnesota Vikings.

Luckily for the Texans, the Colts aren’t the Patriots or Vikings and aside from an always dangerous Andrew Luck are fairly talent depleted at the moment. Our 4.5 YPP differential isn’t the greatest you’ll see but the numbers do like Houston by 7.5 in the suggested spread, a significant difference.

Watch out for Jadeveon Clowney here as well as he’s currently leading the league in tackles for a loss and beginning to break out like so many expected when he entered the league. If Clowney reaches his potential even the Watt loss could be heavily mitigated. Give us Houston here to get back on track and Indianapolis to show their true colors.

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News and notes:

Every week injuries affect the NFL lines. This week news is a bit quieter as there is only one big quarterback change with the San Francisco 49ers switching from Blaine Gabbert and will be starting Colin Kaepernick. Interestingly enough the 49ers have gone from +8 against the Buffalo Bills to 7.5 so the odds makers actually like Kaepernick here.

The other news that’s influencing the spread is Cam Newton’s unknown status for this week. Because of this the Carolina Panthers at the New Orleans Saints spread still hasn’t come out, as we saw this past Monday Night a Panthers team with Cam is significantly different than one with Derek Anderson. New Orleans dome is never easy to play in, with Newton healthy YPP has Carolina -2 and EW has the Saints -2. It’ll be interesting to see where the actual spread settles.

OUR YPP CHART:

Below is the chart with our YPP numbers, our EW chart is in our analysis column of Week 5 but you can see our EW spread and differential in this chart as well to more clearly identify the consensus picks of the week.

Teams	PTS FOR	VEGAS	YPP LINE	DIFF	EW Spread	EW Diff
DEN	3	-3.5			DEN -1
@SD	2.5		-2.5	6		2.5
CIN	-0.5			3		3.5
@NE	2	-9	-6		NE -5.5
BAL	1
@NYG	2.5	-3	-4.5	1.5	NYG -3	0
PIT	0	-7.5			PIT -3
@MIA	1.5		-4.5	12		4.5
JAX	1.5
@CHI	5	-2.5	-6.5	4	CHI -3	0.5
LAR	-2.5
@DET	-3	-3	-3.5	0.5	DET -2	1
CLE	-1.5			2		1
@TEN	0.5	-7	-5		TEN -6
PHI	3	-2.5
@WSH	0.5		-0.5	3	WSH -3	5.5
KC	-3
@OAK	-4	-1	-2	1	OAK -1	0
ATL	7.5			6
@SEA	4.5	-6.5	-0.5		SEA -9.5	3.5
DAL	0.5			1
@GB	0	-4	-3		GB -7.5	3.5
SF	-4.5
@BUF	0	-7.5	-7.5	0	BUF -8	0.5
CAR	1.5		-2
@NO	-3.5				NO -2
IND	-6					2
@HOU	-1.5	-3	-7.5	4.5	HOU -1
NYJ	-4
@AZ	3.5	-7.5	-10.5	3	AZ -8	0.5