Welcome to Upset Watch
If you're new to Pickwatch, or have never read Upset Watch, here's what we do:
With over 35% of NFL games ending in an underdog outright win, it's important to know when upsets are most likely to occur, and which teams to pick.
Every Wednesday, we select a number of underdogs that have a statistically higher chance of winning than others. To do this, we use historical trends, such as the number of underdogs that historically win each week, and we then use a weighted ranking of each team's current 'true' performance to assess how well they are playing, and whether the matchup is favorable.
Why underdogs and not favorites?
Because underdog winners yield bigger profits from the greater odds you face, you don't need to win every pick you make. Our motto is that with Upset Watch, you make more profit from less picks.
In 2021, betting $100 on every underdog winner that we picked would have yielded you a profit of+$3,200 over the course of the season. This year, we have made a profit to this point of +$1740.
Contents (click to jump to section - Pro subscription required for picks):
About Weighted Stats
Our weighted stats in the header for each game are different to the 'raw' stats you can find on other websites.
Weighted stats indicate the performance of a team against the averages of their opponents. For example, if a team scores 30 points against a team that gives up 29 points on average, their weighted performance will be +1. If they score 30 points against a team that gives up 20 points on average, their performance is +10, because they scored 10 points more than that opponent normally allows.
Over the course of a season, we can see the balance of the weighted performance as a 'true' measure of a team's real caliber. A team that ranks highly in a category generally has a good performance in this statistic regardless of how strong their opponents are.
About the stats
We include 4 main categories of weighted stats for offense and defense. These cover scoring, passing, rushing, and pass protection. On defense, we replace pass protection with pass rush.
By placing the units side-by-side with the unit they are up against (eg: Pass protection vs Pass rush) you can not only see where a team is strongest, but also whether the opposing unit is likely to be strong or weak too.
Well, you know what they say: 'Buy the dip'
Last week was only our 4th losing week of the season, and primarily came because there were... not really any upsets! Only the Lions (who we picked) and Bengals (who we originally picked as a cover on Wednesday) won as underdogs, meaning that we were obviously never going to win no matter who we picked, sadly. It happens. Thankfully our covers came in, the Broncos, Saints, and even the Bengals who we called earlier in the week, but then removed on Saturday, which was dumb spread-watching. Sometimes, the spread just gives you the cover you need, and I should have factored that in. It's not included in our profits for the week, albeit some of you will have got some benefit from it!
In total our wins this season are at +$540 (30-32) and underdog covers have broken $1,000 and stand at +$1096, the latter going 18-6 (73%) on the season, and notably, since week 8, we've only missed on one cover pick from 9.
Season Performance
Our profit for the season took a minor hit. It's still pretty amazing that we've not had a huge loss in any week so far in 2022, and I'm sure experienced readers understand that the whole purpose of the column is to get long term benefit, rather than assuming a profit every week in the hardest method of picking games. That said, I think we can learn and be careful not to over-expose ourselves in late season games, where upsets are more scarce!
I get asked this question a lot, about the best way to use the information in Upset Watch/
I've transferred this section of Upset Watch to a separate article, as I attempt to make the weekly column easier to read, so if you want to see my tips for how to maximize profit alongside many thousands of other subscribers, check this link out.
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