Week 6 sides and totals
Plus a recap of year to date
First off, apologies for hitting you so late with this week’s picks. Got a chance to go to the first Seattle Mariners playoff game in 21 years yesterday, and it wound up lasting 18 innings, so I wasn’t able to get through my usual research by Saturday.
Last week was another nice week, with the Steelers-Bills game being the one major miss, and the other four bets in the writeup hitting. We missed both sides of the Steelers game, with Pittsburgh missing multiple field goals and turning the ball over on downs on three other possessions that traveled to at least Buffalo’s 30-yard line, plus the Bills fumbling at the goal line in the second half which all conspired to keep the game under its 45.5 total despite 34 first-half points. That’ll happen.
Discord users will also recall the Thursday night Broncos-Colts debacle that wasn’t in last week’s Substack writeup but was an official play. Denver couldn’t cover -3 against an opponent that probably wouldn’t have scored a touchdown in eight quarters.
So it was ultimately a 4-3 week on official sides and totals, bringing us to 17-11-1 for the year. It was also the fourth straight week, since a 2-4 mark in Week 1, that we’ve been at least one pick above .500. That streak isn’t going to last forever, but I’m going to do my best to keep it going as long as possible.
Here are the Week 6 picks.
All plus bets are to win one unit and all minus bets are risk to win one unit, unless otherwise stated in the writeup.
San Francisco 49ers at Atlanta Falcons
Pick: Under 45.5 (-108, WynnBET)
After hitting the 49ers’ over on a sub-40 total last week, it makes sense to look back to the under here, which had hit in each of San Francisco’s first four games, none of which have combined for more than 34 points.
The reason is, Atlanta wants to play the same way. While Atlanta’s heavy run rate has finally manifested in a couple unders the past couple weeks, their penchant for sticking close in games — all five of their games have been decided by six points or less — has elevated the overall scoring in their contests (three games with 50+ total points to start the season).
The 49ers have a very strong defense, but are without their top two interior defensive lineman, Javon Kinlaw and Arik Armstead. For fans of fun games, it’s an unlikely result that will very likely push Arthur Smith toward running “the piss out of the ball” to find any success. We know if the 49ers shut down the Falcons’ offense, they are likely to control the game on the ground on their end. Atlanta’s defense is the biggest liability here, but San Francisco is also set to play without Trent Williams for another week.