Week 10 sides and totals
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Week 9 was close to a strong week, which has felt like the definition of the season. All three sides hit, but on top of that I played two overs, and both of those games were well on their way before stalling out in the second half and each falling 3.5 points short. So we finished 3-2, and continue to look poor overall at 20-33 and -15.04 units, most of which came from those dreadful first two weeks.
I have continued to write about feeling out of position from those two weeks, and it just continues to be clear that I’m not applying my takes on the league well with the picks this year. For example, I took two more overs last week but no unders, and I also shied away from what I felt was a clear under on Thursday night because of how low that total was (38 or 38.5).
I’ll continue being honest with you guys about these struggles because I think it’s important, and it’s been clear to me that I’ve not been comfortable pulling the trigger on the low-total unders especially, despite fully buying into the league-wide scoring issues since pretty much Week 1. My very specific response to the Week 2 disaster was the mistake was taking unders en masse — I picked seven that week, you’ll remember, and lost them all as the other shoe dropped — but I’ve now racked up identical 2-10 records on overs and unders to this point in the season.
In all weeks other than Week 2, I’ve taken 12 overs and just five unders (and my unders have gone 2-3, so not terrible). All of this is much easier to recognize in hindsight that in the moment, but man it really is the case that I’ve struggled to pull the trigger on unders, with the lines dropping, after having such disastrous results in Week 2. And that’s obviously a huge mistake — letting results impact process is the lesson learned here.
I’m 16-13 on sides and moneyline picks for the year, so not amazing, but still profitable there at +2.92 units. Let’s get to the Week 10 picks, which are mostly sides and unders. As always, all minus bets are bet to win 1 unit, all plus bets are risk 1 unit.
Indianapolis Colts at New England Patriots
Pick: Under 43.5, -115 (FanDuel)
We start right out with a tricky under, because we have two teams that play fast and rank highly in pace metrics. But we also have to account for them playing overseas, in Germany, and the impact of travel and all of that.
Weird stuff does seem to happen in these overseas games, where we seem to run into more than our fair share of defensive and return touchdowns, perhaps due to all 11 on both sides not being all the way there in a jet lag sense. I have no data to back this up — I’m wildly theorizing about the impact of good sleep and things like that, which is likely just nonsense.
What’s not nonsense is the WR injuries in this game. The Patriots recently lost Kendrick Bourne, and will also be without DeVante Parker this week while rookie Demario Douglas is questionable. They will likely trot out JuJu Smith-Schuster, Jalen Reagor, and Tyquan Thornton at times, potentially pushing them toward more running.
For the Colts, TE Drew Ogletree is out, while both Josh Downs and Alec Pierce are questionable. Downs is the most impactful name there and he hasn’t practiced even in a limited capacity all week. A heavier lean toward the run wouldn’t surprise on this side either, a week after they turned to Jonathan Taylor for about 75% of the backfield, signifying they really want to get him going. You can also understand that they don’t want to just push Zack Moss entirely out of the offense, so one answer could be to call their names a combined 30+ times and get Moss in double figures for touches while also getting Taylor 20.
That’s essentially what I expect. These teams do play fast, but I have us in for a running clock on both sides as the teams keep the ball on the ground and try to piece together longer drives. For two faster-paced offenses that sometimes struggle with efficiency, that should be a decent recipe for the under.