Against The Spread Pool: Week 5 - Footballguys

Photo: Ron Chenoy, USA Today Sports

Join the Footballguys Daily Update

Start your morning with our roundup of the most important stories in football - with the fantasy insight you need to make league-winning decisions. Delivered straight to your inbox, 100% free.

Subscribe Now

Over the past few years, we have given the subscribers of Footballguys.com the Staff Confidence Pool Challenge, where numerous staffers try and pick the winners each week with a confidence ranking, and Jeff Pasquino’s “For The Win” column where Jeff attempts to pick each and every NFL game against the Las Vegas spread. Both of these have been very popular features, so this year Footballguys is proud to bring you the combination of the two. The Footballguys.com Staff Against the Spread Pool Challenge. Multiple staff members (18) will pick the winner of each NFL game against the Las Vegas line. As a tie-breaker, the person who is closest to the total points scored on the last Monday Night game will be the winner. Winners will be announced from week to week and the best overall record will be crowned Against the Spread Champion. Picks and ranks are due on Wednesday, so any late-breaking news may not be reflected in the choices.

Please note, that this contest should NOT be viewed as direct sports wagering advice, especially later in the season. Since the staff is trying to beat one another, picks may be made to go against the grain in an attempt to try and catch up in the standings. This example of game theory is more in tune towards playing a contest such as this - so again, do not use these picks as direct advice towards which games to pick each and every week. Rather, use these picks to see the top choices each week, especially by the staff members towards the top of the standings.

LAST WEEK'S RESULTS

Here are the results from last week:

NFL Week 4 was a bit kinder to the staff, as the group hit on the majority of their picks for the week (138-132, 51.1%), which raises the overall staff record to 534-647 (45.2%). Justin Howe and Dave Larkin split the top spot with 10 correct picks, but Justin won the tiebreaker with a lower point total, 54-57 (Kansas City beat Denver 27-23). The overall standings are tightening up with four weeks complete, led by Alex Miglio (35) then a tie with Devin Knotts (34) and Justin Howe (34) one pick back, and Andy Hicks (33) and Dave Larkin (33) just two off of the pace. Only the Top 3 are ahead of the Las Vegas success rate needed to win overall (52.3% or better), so much is left for the staff the rest of the way.

THIS WEEK'S PICKS

Here are the picks for this week:

CONSENSUS WINNERS

Week 5 is far different than prior weeks, as there is no team where the staff is even close to all in on for this weekend. The highest consensus pick has 13 out of 18 picks, with a four-way tie among three home favorites (Cincinnati, New Orleans and the Los Angeles Chargers) and one road underdog in the Denver Broncos. Green Bay, Arizona and Houston come in next with 12 selections, including the Cardinals as the second of five underdogs for the group - and interestingly enough, all five (Broncos, Cardinals, Falcons, Colts and Vikings) are on the road. Slight favorites for the group come in at either 11 votes (Falcons, Rams) or 10 selections (Colts, Chiefs, Vikings). Three games are split down the middle as nine picks each came in for both sides of the Bills hosting Tennessee, Carolina home against the Giants and the Ravens traveling to Cleveland. Only one road favorite (Rams) received more than a split vote, so home favorites or road underdogs are the recipe for the staff this week. As always, it will be fun and interesting to see how the week plays out.

ODDS AND ENDS

A quarter of the season is now gone, and the next set of picks are due by Wednesday night. Most of the staff would agree that picking this weekend's games on Wednesday night is very difficult because you don't have much information about injuries and practice. If your league allows you to pick the later games separate from the rest, take advantage of it and make your Sunday and Monday picks as close to the weekend as possible.

A reminder that these picks are against the Las Vegas lines – so getting above 50% is respectable, above 53% gets you into the profitable zone (accounting for the Las Vegas house odds of taking 10% of every losing wager) – and anything above 60% is outstanding. That may sound easy enough, but it is much, much harder than it might seem.

Good luck this weekend!

Questions, suggestions, and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com

Follow @JeffPasquino