What a start to the season it has been.
Week 1 was all about preseason expectations coming to light – it always is.
Week 2 was all about overreactions from Week 1 – it always is.
Week 3 is all about… everything.
Through the 16 games detailed below, I kept finding certain trends cited and phrases used. But, they’re scattered. Some sets of games have backup quarterbacks thrust into a starting position. Others have former-Primetime duds back in action. And we have everything from spreads moving from one side of the game to the other to spreads in the twenties.
It’s only Week 3.
I made a note to myself before the year started that I must be careful using all of my preferred setups for this upcoming season. Between the high-level draft class and the growing disparity between good teams and bad ones, the numbers will work, but they can’t be trusted blindly. Thankfully, through two weeks, we are seeing this reflected in the record.
Of course, there are still ‘traps’ to find – I’d argue that there are more in this week than the first two, combined – but we also have to recognize that players are demanding their way out of organizations and bad franchises are actually getting worse. This will be something to track as the year progresses, but it gives us some great opportunities to continue capitalizing in the early weeks of the season.
Below are predictions for each game against the spread. Spreads have been taken from various websites and are subject to change. The spread in parenthesis denotes the selected team. An asterisk denotes a confidence pick.
*Confidence Picks – 2019 Season: 8-6-1 (Last Week: 6-1)
(2018 Season: 63-48-4) (2017 Season: 53-48-4) (2016 Season: 53-67-3) (2015 Season: 69-45-2) (2014 Season: 61-46-2) (5-Year Total: 299-254-15)
All Picks Against Spread – 2019 Season: 17-14-1 (Last Week: 10-6)
(2018 Season: 137-118-12) (2017 Season: 137-119-11) (2016 Season: 123-136-8) (2015 Season: 143-117-7) (2014 Season: 149-114-4) (5-Year Total: 689-604-42)
Listen to Episode 9 of our free podcast here:
Tennessee Titans at Jacksonville Jaguars
It always feels like it’s the Tennessee Titans. And I have a theory as to why.
Over the past few weeks – whether in my AFC Predictions column or the picks for Weeks 1 and 2 – that the Titans are ‘boring’ in the football world. They have two quarterbacks on their roster who few would argue are great. They look designed to win a 1999 game of football in which defense and running the ball are key. And they rarely stray too far from mediocrity.
I get it. The Titans are boring. Which is exactly why I care so much about them.
Teams like the Cowboys and Patriots have such a national appeal – good or bad – that just their name, alone, has a tendency to move the needle. This means that we have to battle with both perception – the key to all picks – and the influence of people. But, when almost no one cares about the Titans, then almost no one can influence the spread. Until they do.
Tennessee beating Cleveland was one of my favorite picks of the first two weeks. But, it had longer-lasting effects than just the one game. It carried into last week, in which people bought into the Titans against the Colts. Instead of accepting that Tennessee dismantled an overhyped Browns team, people chose to interpret that the Titans must be a powerhouse.
And then they lost.