Titanic upsets, analyzing our NFL Week 10 picks

Week 10 of the NFL seemed to be the most exciting and entertaining in a year that’s been marred by parody and ho-hum prime-time bouts. Not Week 10 that offered two highly enjoyable Sunday and Monday night games with some memorable finales across the league sprinkled in as well. For BSN ATS it was a successful week despite going 2-and-2 in our picks as all our numbers had winning weeks – we are now 19-19-2 on the season. Really your humble author is the only one to blame and he’ll gladly take that burden.

Our YPP suggested spreads went 7-and-5 with differentials over 1 point while our EW metric – using the updated expected wins based on points for vs points against – went 7-and-6 with differentials over 1. As you’ll see below our original EW also had a winning week. If there’s one negative note it’s that the differentials of 3 points or more were only 4-and-4 (differentials in the sweet spot of 5 or more were 1-and-1) with YPP. Meaning we need to be aware of the teams we’re picking.

As always we’re going to run through what worked and what didn’t in maybe the best week of NFL action yet while also giving you a preview for next week.

Want to make a wager on these outcomes? Try MyBookie.LV and use the code BSNDENVER for a 100% match of your deposit. CLICK LINK HERE

The Titans’ big upset

The Tennessee Titans entered this week as 2.5  point underdogs at home to the Green Bay Packers. We’ve been high on the Titans as their YPP numbers have been positive and their offense has shown tons of improvement. The Packers, on the other hand, have struggled mightily offensively, something YPP has reflected for a while at this point.

So, while there was always the risk of Aaron Rodgers going off we felt good about this one and boy were we ever right. The Titans offense steamrolled the Pack to the tune of 47 points and 162 yards on the ground. Green Bay entered the game as the best running defense in the NFL but Tennessee’s third-ranked ground attack had a breakout party. Watch out for this young Titans team, their offensive line is playing really well – left tackle Taylor Lewan was simply bullying people getting out in space to run block – and the playmakers on this team i.e. Marcus Mariota and DeMarco Murray are benefiting greatly.

Both of these teams and their perceptions should be monitored going forward as Tennessee might be undervalued and the Packers have been overrated seemingly all season.

The young Cowboys star keeps on rising

Vegas gave us quite the assist in this one by having the Dallas Cowboys as underdogs in Pittsburgh against the Steelers. YPP had Dallas as a full 4.5 points better on a neutral field and still a 1 point favorite in Pittsburgh.

This was an exciting game and while Ben Roethlisberger hadn’t looked good the week prior he certainly did this week. Purely based on entertainment this was one of the better NFL games we’ve seen all year. The ending was back and forth and the Cowboys won it in dramatic fashion with a great touchdown run from Ezekiel Elliot to win it.

The way in which this young Cowboys team has played has really been impressive. While the Steelers are looking like they’re in trouble, though their fight in this game was encouraging. YPP has warned that the Steelers ‘D’ isn’t up to snuff and that has bared fruit.

We’ll be interested to see if the line makers start overreacting to all the success this Cowboys teams is having since they’re winning but not by large margins.

Want to make a wager on these outcomes? Try MyBookie.LV and use the code BSNDENVER for a 100% match of your deposit. CLICK LINK HERE

The Falcons never reach full flight

This YPP suggested spread didn’t have a large differential from the actual line, favoring the Atlanta Falcons by 2.5 points while the spread had this game even. Mind you this was all despite the game being a road game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

So while the numbers didn’t point at this game heavily, these two teams seemed to be going in very different directions. The Eagles had just lost three of their last four while the Falcons offense was hot.

Particularly the passing attack by Atlanta seemed poised to exploit the Eagles secondary but that didn’t work out. The Falcons struggled to get into  scoring position and had to settle for three field goals before finally finding their one and only touchdown in the fourth quarter.

With that score, Atlanta actually took the lead 15-13 with just under 14 minutes left. Which considering how the first three-quarters had gone seemed like a relatively safe lead, but the Eagles kicked things into high gear scoring 11 unanswered from there. The Philly ‘D’ did an impressive job closing this one out with a Leodis McKelvin interception. This was an impressive defensive effort holding Atlanta to their lowest scoring total of the season, all to keep the Eagles in the running in a surprisingly competitive NFC East.

Turnovers decide the defensive battle in Jacksonville

We mentioned how the Jacksonville Jaguars are a team we only feel good about against certain teams, the Houston Texans being one of them given their offensive struggles. In a battle of tough defenses, we had Jacksonville as a touchdown favorite in this game at home for a full 8.5 differential from the actual spread that had the Texans -1.5.

The game played out as expected with both quarterbacks struggling – Brock Osweiler had only 99 yards in this one – what proved to be crucial were the turnovers with Houston winning the battle 2-0. In particular, an early pick-six by Houston cornerback Kareem Jackson proved to be decisive.

The Jags stayed in this game till the end, even coming back from 21-10 to close the gap at 24-21, but it never got better than that. The field goal lead for Houston proved to be crucial as they sneaked out a road division win and the cover in the process. A tough loss to swallow when the game played out as expected but the Texans defense just made more key plays.

Want to make a wager on these outcomes? Try MyBookie.LV and use the code BSNDENVER for a 100% match of your deposit. CLICK LINK HERE

Other notes and an early look to Week 11

As mentioned in the intro YPP was .500 when looking at spreads with over a 3 point differential going 4-and-4. Two interesting games that YPP was right about that we didn’t pick are particularly interesting. The numbers had the Denver Broncos as 1.5 point favorites in New Orleans vs the Saints. The actual spread in this one climbed to -3 for the Saints. Had that been the case when we published we probably would have had to jump on that 4.5 point differential, at 3.5 we went in other directions.

The New England Patriots loss to the Seattle Seahawks was also talked about as a potential pick. The Seahawks were only 3.5 point underdogs per YPP with these teams being even by the metric, but the hike in production with Brady made the 7.5 spread and 4 point differential just not reliable enough for us to take (though that half point made us think about it long and hard).

Typically when YPP suggest winning teams like the Broncos and Seahawks we jump on board, but given some changing circumstances we stayed away.

It should be noted the YPP suggested spreads liked both the Cleveland Browns and Chicago Bears to cover by a 3 point differential or more, which didn’t work out. While the one other spread beyond 3 points was the Monday night game in which the New York Giants won but by kneeling at the end while in field goal range they only won by 1 in turn not covering.

As always below are our suggested spreads of the week per our original application of the EW metric using the pre-season Vegas over/under win totals. Last week these numbers went 9-and-5, as you can see they still remain fairly accurate predictors of the early lines.