Every week is a new opportunity when it comes to picking games against the spread. Last week, there were so many inflated spreads due to lopsided matchups that we only needed competitive efforts from a handful of teams in order to benefit. Unfortunately, they missed. But, the reality is that they didn’t miss by much.
The Bengals had four chances to score a touchdown at the end of their game and beat their respective spread. The Browns ended up falling one point shy of their spread. And the Steelers – granted, with help from Miami – ended up less than two points away from the final spread for the game.
The real takeaway from these close misses – in fairness, we had some close wins, too – is that the spreads are starting to become eerily accurate. This is not surprising, as it happens every year – except possibly the one outlier of 2016 I always cite. The only debate is to when it will happen.
Regardless, we made progress in the beginning of the year because we could lean on preseason expectations and how they differed from those of other experts and fans. Now, we have eight game’s worth of data at our fingertips, and the spreads to help guide us into the second half of the season.
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. An asterisk denotes a confidence pick.
*Confidence Picks – 2019 Season: 28-22-1 (Last Week: 3-3)
(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) (5-Year Total: 299-254-15)
All Picks Against Spread – 2019 Season: 61-59-1 (Last Week: 6-9)
(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) (5-Year Total: 689-604-42)
San Francisco 49ers at Arizona Cardinals
Eyes are opened. One of the most common things I will write on a weekly basis is about a team that played a nationally-televised game and caught everyone’s attention. But, every so often, the attention-grabbing team didn’t need to play in Primetime. The performance was so transcendent that it made us look, regardless of time or location of game.
This is exactly what happened with the San Francisco 49ers in Week 8. They weren’t playing a Primetime game. They weren’t in a standalone setting. If anything, they were a concern – at least, of mine – to fall asleep against an opponent that is far from a pushover. Instead, they dominated. Not just the game, but the week.
San Francisco’s 51-13 massacre of the Panthers represented the largest margin-of-victory of the week. In fact, no other team scored more than 31 points. The 49ers won by 38.
The most important takeaway from this outcome is, however, not the outcome.