I wrote about it in last week’s introduction, and I hate that it came to fruition. Still, it is the nature of the beast.
We are at the point of the season where teams break away from their trends. In doing so, some simply make it too easy for people to pick them and win.
As always, we can’t react to this and change any of our approaches. We have, once again, built a nice lead through the first month of the season, and we now need to navigate the next one.
The good news is that we will always have some opportunities to read the spreads and follow what they say closely.
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. Spread is listed as advertised number and odds at either DraftKings Sportsbook, FanDuel Sportsbook, Caesars Sportsbook, or Fanatics Sportsbook (formerly PointsBet). All efforts were made to provide picks at -110 or better, with some stretching to a -125 if no reasonable advertised spread was found.
*Confidence Picks – 2024 Season: 18-21 (Last Week: 1-5)
(2023 Season: 63-61-4) (2022 Season: 54-54-5) (2021 Season: 55-50) (2020 Season: 53-42-3) (2019 Season: 57-43-3) (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) (10-Year Total: 581-504-30)
All Picks Against Spread – 2024 Season: 48-43-1 (Last Week: 5-9)
(2023 Season: 142-135-8) (2022 Season: 143-132-9) (2021 Season: 158-126-2) (2020 Season: 132-128-7) (2019 Season: 142-118-7) (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) (10-Year Total: 1406-1243-75)
Denver Broncos at New Orleans Saints
I’ve written about this many times, but I always like to prove myself wrong. Or surprise myself.
Both happened for Thursday’s nonconference game between the Denver Broncos and New Orleans Saints.
I started my analysis of the game by questioning how people would react to the final score of the Saints’ latest loss. It was, on the surface, terrible.
But New Orleans opened as the favorite for Thursday’s game. So I waited a little longer. Perhaps there would be news about the status of quarterback Derek Carr. In this case, the baseline was that nothing would change form last week and that we would see Spencer Rattler for a second consecutive week. And, as soon as I started digging deeper into that possibility, I found the answer.
And it was the opposite of what I thought.
Not only have