So far, the 2023 NFL season has been a relative bloodbath for contrarian value picks in survivor pools and pick'em contests. But there's a lot of football left to play, and if history is our guide, the public's hot opening run is bound to lose steam. Week 4 features several division showdowns, and below we highlight some of the week's smartest picks from a risk-vs.-reward perspective.
Data in this article is current as of Wednesday, Sept. 27 at 9 a.m. ET.
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NFL Week 4 Pick’em Advice: Two Value Favorites Being Picked Like Underdogs
Week 4 gives us our biggest value pick opportunity on a betting odds favorite so far this season in game winner based pick'em contests.
Seattle is being picked by a whopping 71% of the public to win its Monday Night Football matchup with the New York Giants, but New York is actually the betting market favorite (-1.5).
That means you can pick the Giants and go opposite a large chunk of your pool, while also being on the team more likely to win. The G-Men obviously aren't a huge favorite and this game is very close to a toss-up, but the numbers are the numbers, and making leverage picks like this one is a key long-term strategy in pick'em pools.
The Giants aren’t the only value favorite coming at an underdog price with the public in Week 4. Buffalo (-2.5) is also a less popular pick than the Dolphins (48% pick popularity vs. 52% for Miami). The value proposition here is modest, but if you trust Vegas odds, it doesn't get more deliciously contrarian than picking against the team that put up 70 points last week.
NFL Week 4 Spread Pool Advice: Can the Public Have Another Dominant Week?
Last week was a public holiday in point spread based NFL pick'em contests, and plenty of presents were opened. Of the six most popular spread picks in our data from national pool hosting platforms, five of them covered. (The Cowboys prevented the clean sweep for the popular kids.)
Several of those covers also came against line movement. So if you played the value game last week, and oriented your picks both to take advantage of stale mid-week contest lines and go against the most popular public picks, you probably had a very rough week.
Keep the faith. The public had its day (well, week), but over the long haul, fading highly popular spread picks and getting line value is a winning strategy in pick'em contests.
In Week 4, the Chiefs, Eagles, Vikings, and Bengals are all taking more than 65% of the public's picks in pick'em contests. (Unsurprisingly, they're all favorites, as the public loves favorites.) If the closing spread for any of those teams ends up being the same as your pool's spread, avoiding them and picking the underdog to cover would be your highest leverage contrarian play.
Week 4 NFL Survivor Pick Advice: San Francisco or Not?
Favored by 14 over Arizona, San Francisco is the biggest favorite of the 2023 NFL season so far, and also the most popular Week 4 survivor pool pick at 39% popularity. Still, the 49ers have a sizable edge over the rest of the Week 4 field in win odds, as only Kansas City and Philadelphia are favored by more than a touchdown.
In most survivor pools, a fair chunk of the entries have probably already used San Francisco as well, either in Week 2 or Week 3. So it’s possible that the 49ers are mostly used up as a future survivor pick option in a lot of pools after this week.
That has the potential to make San Francisco a very valuable team to hold on to in survivor pools, as they will still be one of the larger favorites in a lot of future weeks. Especially if you're in a pool with hundreds or thousands of entries still alive, you're going to need to take some calculated risks to win.
The best decision for you comes down to factors like what other teams you have available, the specific rules of your pool(s), and how many entries you still have alive. Our NFL Survivor Picks product takes all of that into account in making its weekly pick recommendations, and you can get a free trial below.
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