Last week I went 2-3 again in my Supercontest picks. I’ve dropped down to joint 15^th with 24 points, 3.5 points off the leader. Still 24 points out of a possible 40 is 60%. But it’s such a small sample that it’s only 4 losses away from 50%!

Also the posted proper bets on the site went for a disappointing loss of 3.68 pts.

Moving onto this week: There’s plenty that I like, although I said that last week!

For the 3^rd week in a row I’m opposing Minnesota. I’m still not having it! Check out my ratings, they are clearly the worst team with a winning record. I have them as a slightly below average team. They play at home to the Rams this week. I’m on the Rams ML, ATS at +2.5 and on the Supercontest at +1.5. Thanks LVH for robbing me of a point, it won’t put me off though, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is close to a pick ‘em by kick off. If the Rams and Viking were playing on a neutral field, by my numbers I’d have the Rams favoured by 3.5 points. At Minnesota they’re even getting points

Next up I’m responding to an overreaction from last week:

• Pittsburgh only scored 10 points in a home loss to the Bengals
• Oakland beating the Jets by 14

Let’s get real, Oakland aren’t that amazing. I can’t really believe that the Steelers are only favoured by 4 over them. That’s the sort of spread I’d expect on a neutral field. Not with the Raiders travelling across the country to play at Heinz field. By my rankings I have the Steelers at 5^th in the league, which you might consider strange but it’s partly due to them having the toughest schedule so far. So far they’ve played:

• @ New England
• San Francisco 49ers
• @ St. Louis Rams
• Baltimore Ravens
• @ San Diego Chargers
• Arizona Cardinals
• @ Kansas City Chiefs
• Cincinnati Bengals

They’ve played the top 3 teams in the league: New England, Arizona & Cincinnati, and 2 above average ones in the Rams and Chiefs. Plus they played the Ravens and Chargers without Big Ben.

Seriously, the Steelers -4? Yes Bell is out but I’ve said before that RBs are generally overrated. When a team has a good running game all the credit goes to the RB, never to the linemen. Also we need to remember how well they did in spite of Michael Vick at QB. Compare his passing stats to those of Big Ben if you want a laugh, but basically Roethlisberger is amongst the best in the league and Vick is amongst the worst. And is Derek Carr suddenly elite?!

I’m back on the Philly bandwagon for another week. They’re -2.5 at Dallas. They’re coming off a bye week and although it’s a generally overrated advantage, it’s still an advantage.

4th Supercontest pick is a standard injury-related easy one. The Jets at -6.5 at home to Jacksonville. I’d back that even with Geno Smith or Uncle Rico at QB.

Jacksonville are trash and the Jets have a top 3 defence.

Final Supercontest pick is the Chargers -4 on Monday night at home to the Bears. Chargers aren’t a great team, but they do have the highest average offensive yards per game, so they can light up a bad Bears defence.

Summary

Supercontest Picks:

• Rams +1.5
• Steelers -4
• Eagles-2.5
• Jets -6.5
• Chargers -4

Proper bets:

ATS

• Bills -3
• Steelers -4.5
• Giants -2.5
• Eagles-3
• Chargers -4
• Jets -7
• Denver -3.5 (Can you believe  this was the opening line)
• Atlanta -4.5 (or this?!)

ML

• Rams 2.20 (+1.20 US)
• Panthers 2.20