Week 4 NFL Pick’em Advice: Five Value Picks for Football Office Pools

Week 4 NFL Pick’em Advice: Five Value Picks for Football Office Pools (2019)

September 24, 2019 – by Jason Lisk

Khalil Mack was the ultimate value pick for the Chicago Bears (Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire)

For the second week in a row, the NFL was full of modest upsets and value picks paying dividends. Teams that were favored by five points or less last week went only 4-6 last week, after going 4-5 two weeks ago.

As far as our Football Pick’em Picks product is concerned, that’s led to an especially strong start for our premium picks focused on winning weekly prizes in pick’em contests. Those picks tend to make some contrarian bets on unpopular underdogs that still have a decent chance to win, so they fit right into this trend. For example, our recommended picks for 100-entry NFL pick’em pools with a weekly prize strategy are 35-13 for the season so far, and went 14-2 in Week 2.

NFL Week 4 does not feature as many near-toss-up games as recent weeks; the two smallest point spreads of the week are both at 2.5-point lines. It does, though, present some opportunities with teams the public has turned against after the results of the first three weeks, as well as some cases where the public seems to be overreacting to one notable recent game result.

Read on for our NFL Week 4 pick advice on where to find those values.

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Recap of Last Week’s Picks

Last week was an unusual one because of all the quarterback changes, which caused swings in both point spreads and in the public perception of games after we initially published on Tuesday. In last week’s post we initially highlighted two games where those changes altered the outlook by later in the week, so we added notes and inserted two alternatives on Thursday.

In the end, it really didn’t matter much for the final accounting, as San Francisco and the team we later highlighted as a favorite with reasonable value, Minnesota, both won, while Carolina won with Kyle Allen at quarterback, and the other team we mentioned as a value underdog, Jacksonville, also won.

Ultimately, we discussed two favorites (San Francisco then Minnesota, plus the Chargers), one toss-up (the Colts), and two underdog values (Carolina or Jacksonville, and Cleveland). Those picks, whether you look at earlier in the week or later, went 3-2.

To help convey why identifying underrated picks is so important in pick’em pools, let’s look a little deeper at these results. If you add up all the pick popularities of the winning teams in those games, you get the following:

Minnesota (91%) or San Francisco (88%)Houston (36%)Indianapolis (27%)Jacksonville (26%) or Carolina (33%)LA Rams (91%)

That adds up to a maximum of 2.8 wins you would have expected the “average” public pool picker to score from those games, compared to the three wins our recommendations yielded. (If you went ahead and added all seven games up, and played all of them, you would have gotten 5 wins compared to 3.9 wins for the public on average).

Even missing out on the big upset with Cleveland (who had four shots at potential game tying or winning touchdown from the four yard line at the end of the game), and losing with the Chargers, you came out of these games with more wins than the typical pick’em entry.

This is why it’s so important to identify when the public is under-picking teams, and make sure you exploit those opportunities. Over the course of an entire season, all of these little edges can add up to the difference between winning a prize and winning nothing.

Value Picks For NFL Week 4 Pick’em Pools

Using Vegas odds, data-driven predictions, and pick popularity data from national football pick’em contests, we’ve analyzed the entire NFL Week 4 slate and identified the best value picking opportunities. Here are five teams with profiles you need to know about.

Keep in mind that we are not saying that you should make all of the picks below — the Value Gambles especially. The best Week 4 picks for your NFL pool depend on characteristics such as its size, rules, and prize structure, plus situational factors like your current place in the standings and the number of weeks left in the pool.

(Our Football Pick’em Picks product recommends weekly picks for you based on all those factors.)

What we are saying is that the teams mentioned in this post either offer some of the best opportunities to differentiate your Week 4 picks from your pool opponents, or they serve as prime examples of when picking against the crowd is most likely a bad idea.

Note: Win odds and pick popularity estimates below may change between publication time and kickoff time. If you want to see the latest numbers, our product updates multiple times per day. All numbers in the post have now been updated to reflect data as of Friday, September 27.

Favorite at a Reasonable Price

Most favorites are overrated by the public, but the team below looks more fairly valued in Week 4. You should think twice about picking against them, not because we think they are a lock to win (we certainly don’t), but because other games offer more compelling upset pick opportunities.

Baltimore Ravens (vs. Cleveland Browns)

Baltimore is a 7-point favorite at home against the Browns, with 76% win odds according to our models, and 91% of the public is picking the Ravens. While that pick popularity may seem high, it’s not compared to how the rest of the bigger favorites this week are being selected. Baltimore is the third safest pick this week, but is fifth in pick popularity, and there are three other favorites at 90%+ pick popularity who are riskier. Houston (vs. Carolina), Seattle (at Arizona), and Green Bay (vs. Philadelphia) are all being picked at a similar rate, and are favored by only 4.5 to 5 points. If you want to take a long shot gamble on a big upset, don’t make it Cleveland.

Value Favorites

Week 4 features a few teams that the public is picking at a lower rate than their chance to win. These types of teams are as close as you can get to “no brainer picks” in NFL pick’em contests, since both win odds and value are on your side.

Chicago Bears (vs. Minnesota Vikings)

The Minnesota Vikings have looked impressive in two home wins this year, beating the Atlanta Falcons and Oakland Raiders by a combined 36 points. The public seems to be convinced by those win margins, and is picking the Vikings to win almost half that time (49%), even though Minnesota is a 2.5-point underdog at Chicago. Our models give the Bears 55% odds to win this game, so you are getting a bit of a value premium while still picking the favorite here.

Chicago’s first home game since the Thursday night season-opening loss to the Packers is also a divisional series where the Vikings have struggled in Chicago. Over the last 20 years, the Bears are 15-5 straight up and against the spread when playing Minnesota at home.

Denver Broncos (vs. Jacksonville Jaguars)

The Jaguars beat the Titans in primetime last Thursday, and Gardner Minshew Mania is sweeping the nation. The Broncos, meanwhile, fell to 0-3 with another loss on the road, this time at Green Bay. It’s no wonder then, that the public likes the Jags here. The Broncos are favored by three points in the betting markets, however, and we give them a 58% chance of winning the game. In comparison, only 49% of the public is picking Denver.

It’s worth noting that Denver has not forced a turnover or recorded a sack yet this year. So if you want to theorize why the Broncos could break their losing streak, they have outgained their opponents in yards this year, but their -4 turnover differential has hurt them. Turnover luck can be fickle, though, and if the Broncos are just average in that category going forward they could suddenly look like a better team.

Value Gambles

All upset picks are not created equal. If you’re going to make a gamble on an underdog, you need to make sure that the potential reward (that is, how much your odds to win your pool will increase if your gamble pays off) is as big as possible. Take a bunch of extra risk on a super trendy upset pick, and the joke is on you.

The picks below are not appropriate for all pools. If you’re in a smaller, season-long pool with lots of games left, they’re probably not worth the risk. However, if you’re in a single-week pool with a larger number of entries, or if you only care about winning weekly prizes, these highly unpopular underdogs have compelling profiles.

Washington Redskins (at New York Giants)

The Giants are coming off an exhilarating debut for rookie quarterback Daniel Jones, in which they erased an 18-point halftime deficit to beat Tampa Bay. Washington, meanwhile, is 0-3 and coming off a primetime Monday night performance where they turned the ball over five times against the Bears. So it’s pretty easy to see why the public is all over the Giants in this one, picking them 80% of the time.

The line, though, is only 3 points. Our models have the Giants with a 54% chance of victory, giving Washington a realistic opportunity to pull off the upset.

If we assume for a minute that Daniel Jones may not actually be the second coming of Pat Mahomes, it’s worth noting that New York’s pass defense is still very susceptible. The Giants have given up a scoring drive on 75% of first half possessions by opponents so far this year, and Washington QB Case Keenum will not face the same level of defensive pressure he just experienced when playing against the Chicago Bears’ tough pass rush. Our 2019 predictive ratings have Washington rated at 6.4 points below an average team (No. 30) and the Giants at 6.9 points below average (No. 31), so home field advantage is likely the primary factor why the Giants are favored at all here.

Cincinnati Bengals (at Pittsburgh Steelers) 

Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are both off to 0-3 starts, and needless to say, this is a big game if either team has hopes of reviving its season. The public, perhaps understandably given the relative legacies of both franchises, trusts Pittsburgh to bounce back, picking the Steelers to win 80% of the time. Pittsburgh is a 4.5-point favorite in the betting markets, implying about 65% win odds, while our models put their odds of winning at a more pessimistic 61%. [update: the line has now moved down to 3.5 points.]

Still, the 2019 Steelers don’t seem to be your typical Pittsburgh team. They are 30th in total yards on offense (ahead of only the Jets and Dolphins) and are 29th in yards allowed on defense. They now have a backup quarterback playing who was not particularly impressive in his first start, despite only losing by four points at San Francisco. Pittsburgh has now been out-gained by a remarkably bad 518 yards over the first three games of the year, and that could be even worse if it weren’t for a +3 turnover margin (tied for 5th best). In comparison, Cincinnati is at -4 in turnovers (tied for 3rd worst through three games).

This also isn’t a series that shows much advantage for playing at home. You can use our custom NFL Betting Trends tool to look up series histories. Going all the way back to 1985, the Bengals have actually won more games in Pittsburgh (13) than they have won at home against the Steelers (10).

The TeamRankings Solution For Pick’em Pools

Once you know the best value opportunities of NFL Week 4, you can typically increase your odds to win your pool by making educated gambles on them. Perhaps you bump up the number of confidence points you assign to a pick like Baltimore or Chicago. Maybe you take even more risk and pick a team like Washington to win and hope to shock everyone embracing the Daniel Jones hype. There are a lot of decisions to make, but not all of them make sense for your pool.

Our solution to winning more pick’em pools was to build technology to do all the data gathering and math required to p out the best possible picks. We developed a product that customizes weekly pick recommendations based on the characteristics of your specific NFL pick’em contest (e.g. its size, rules, and prize structure), and it’s all driven by objective, research-based algorithms.

It also covers game winner or spread-based contests; confidence pools; and pools with end-of-season prizes, weekly prizes, or both. In fact, it’s so advanced that we had to come up with an appropriately technical, massively creative name for it: Football Pick’em Picks.

If you learned something from this article, we encourage you to check it out.

Until Next Week…

Enjoy NFL Week 4, and if you’re in an NFL pool or planning on betting some of the Week 4 games, please check out our Football Pick’em Picks, NFL Survivor Picks and NFL Betting Picks.

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