Good week to be on underdogs. Basically any game that was “public” (over 70% of tickets) was a loss. In fact, I had two of those losers here in the Browns and Green Bay. Take this as a cautionary tale of betting road favorites.

Some of the road favorites were more egregious than others. Take Washington, in what world should they be a full FG favorite against anyone? This is a bad team and just a matter of time until Sam Howell takes such a bad hit that he doesn’t get up.

The Browns had no business winning that game…but they did. My takeaway is to be leery of teams that played the 49ers the week before. They come in beat up the next week. I also believe that is the same case with the Browns as well.

New England won a game! The Bills are really hurting by losing their top THREE defensive players. There is a very real scenario the Bills totally come undone at some point this year.

Josh McDaniels should be fired. What a terrible coach. When presented with the opportunity to start a backup a few weeks ago, he decided to go with Aidan O’Connell. This week he decided to go with Brian Hoyer (eventhough AOC did fine and had no protection at all). When asked after losing to the worst team in the league, who was starting a backup QB, why he went with Hoyer, he mumbled some nonsense about this not being the preseason anymore. What? This guy needs to go. Hoyer should not start another NFL game again, he’s like 1-12 ATS in his last 13 starts. As for the Bears, it says a lot about Justin Fields that they looked more poised and organized with a D2 Rookie QB as their starter.

I’ll say it again: Desmond Ridder is not an NFL level starter. If the Falcons are serious about this season, they need to go to Tyler Higbee.

Speaking of shitty quarterbacks…Jordan Love ain’t it. He should be better than this. Also, the Packers defensive coordinator still can’t stop the run after all these years. I dunno, maybe it’s time for them to move on from him?

I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say, I need to stop fading Mike Tomlin as a dog. He really wins these games with smoke and mirrors. Kenny Pickett is bad a football.

Speaking of coaches needing to be fired, Brandon Staley is a joke. He’s a defensive coach that couldn’t bother to stop the Chiefs ONLY real scary receiving weapon in Travis Kelce. I’m no football coach but maybe don’t allow Kelce to gain 200 yards if you wanna win a game.

Remember what I said about going up against Cleveland the prior week? Yea, the Niners looked bad on Monday night. They are hurt and have now moved into the 2nd overall ranked team.

POWER RANKINGS

If you are unfamiliar with the way power rankings work, here is a crash course. Power rankings are a way to show how strong or weak a team is from an “average” team. This is a system to derive my own point spreads. By having this system, I can say, “this line is off” due to my power rankings.

An easy way to explain this is using an example from the list below. The Bucs are currently my highest rated team and they are 6.5 points better than an average team. The average team is 0 points. So, from my power rankings if the Bucs played the Colts, I believe they should be 6.5 point favorites on neutral field. There are variables that are not inherent in this list, such as home-field advantages, injuries and other unknown intangibles. The list assumes point differential on a neutral field. If Tampa Bay is playing the Colts in Indianapolis, according to my Power Rankings, Tampa Bay should be about a 4 point favorite (accounting for a Colts 2-point home field advantage). Another example from the list below is the Chiefs should be a 7 point favorite over the Dallas Cowboys on a neutral field. If the game was in Dallas, the Chiefs should be a 5.5 point favorite. If the game was in KC, the Chiefs should be an 9.5 point favorite, according to my power rankings.

It is important to keep in mind that all home field advantages are not the same. In theory, I think Green Bay’s homefield advantage is probably 3.5 points, while the Los Angeles Chargers are more like 1.5 or 2 points. Another caveat is to be mindful or intangible factors, such as motivation, coaching issues (firings / hirings), travel, etc.

The most important concept in handicapping sports is you should ONLY bet if you DISAGREE with the line. There is no value if you agree that the line given by the sportsbook is correct. Why would you bet and lay juice (-110) on something that you think is correct? Literally, the odds are not in your favor. If you want to bet any way, that is degeneracy. While I don’t encourage degeneracy, I do believe that as a handicapper, the goal is to benefit off of others’ degeneracy.