An ok week, with an interesting twist.

This section just got more interesting after our shift to a confidence style of rating. For those who don't follow closely, we switched things up last week at the request of users, and it's allowed me more freedom to pick underdog winners, without the record of the column being the primary goal.

For years I've toyed with this 'grey area' - in fact, at one point I had a section called exactly that. These were mostly underdogs I like, but were more at a level of risk I personally felt comfortable with, as opposed to what I'd counsel anyone else to pick for the good of the 'column's' record.

What do I mean by that? In week 2, things came to a head. Everyone knew I wanted to pick the Falcons to upset the Eagles, as I went into great detail as to why I thought they should win.

In the end, because we had secured a big week by Monday morning, and it had brought us immediately into profitability after a tricky week 1, I had no option but to select the Eagles in order to protect a fairly arbitrary number, despite this patently being at odds with my analysis.

From speaking to Discord users, I deduced something incredibly simple:

My job is to make the picks I think will win, and allow YOU to decide what level of risk is acceptable.

Instead of selecting a team I don't believe in, only to protect our profitable record - which most often ends up hurting us! - I can now select teams that are more risky plays, and we can track what happens with just the top picks, and also when we add in the other underdogs I like to win that were formally forced into the favorite category because there was nowhere for them.

So that's what this chart now does. We have the 'top picks' (I'll label these as such), all underdog picks (including those outside the top picks) and covers, the shunned cousin in the corner who nobody wants to talk to.

Top picks

We did ok in week 3, but ended up with a -$50 (-10% ROI) loss after going 2-3. The Vikings and Packers set everything up perfectly, and had the Falcons not been screwed by the Refs, this would have been heavily profitable. As it was, Atlanta, Chicago (just) and Arizona (whiff) lost.

All underdog picks

Now we're talking. The Patriots, Panthers and Giants all made my list of underdogs who I thought would win in week 3, and the last two did win, which would bump last week into a $330 profit (+42% ROI). The Pats got things off to an inauspicious start, but I was much more confident in the Giants (who nearly got bumped to the top picks late on) and Panthers. Not included here are the Commanders, who appeared in a first draft shared on Discord. Hopefully some of you downgraded the Bengals in confidence pools as a result, but I'm not counting it as a pick.

I love the new format. I feel like the constraints of the column have been lifted, and I can entertain picks that are personal leans, without compromising our overall record. I'm keeping track of lots more stats that we'll share in the column over the season too, such as our top picks of each week (2-1, +$265, 88% ROI).