Last week:
PIT: W, 27-14
PHI: L, 13-9
GB: W, 26-0
JAC: W, 23-20 (OT)
NYJ: L, 16-13 (OT)
NE: W, 59-0
We finally had some people knocked out in the late games on Sunday; 44.4% of the Yahoo! pool was eliminated, nearly as high a percentage as the first four weeks combined (47.1%). There are now 75,742 entries remaining in the Yahoo! pool, and 38 left in the VW ESPN group.
Teams used (DAVE rank): New Orleans (2nd), Philadelphia (4th), Green Bay (9th), Dallas (12th), Houston (20th), Washington (22nd)
This week's consensus numbers from OFP and Yahoo!:
The consensus this week is pretty astounding, if understandable. The Colts and Patriots are both very obvious huge road favorites, and no other team is laying more than a touchdown. As much as I'd love to come up with something clever, it's not worth sacrificing that much likelihood of advancing just for the sake of being different, and I have already used two of the three seven point favorites (GB and PHI, with NYG being the third) anyway.
Indianapolis (at St. Louis)
Coming off a bye, the Colts are favored by 13 on the road against the Rams, and are -700/+570 (85.4%) to win at Pinnacle. I would certainly expect them to come away with the win in St. Louis, but it's hard to imagine that the line isn't at least slightly inflated. Indianapolis is on pace to be the most popular NFL side in the history of Wagerline this week, receiving an insane 87% of the action thus far. The numbers are pretty ridiculous at the other consensus sites as well; 96% at SIA, and 100% (!) at Sportsbook. So that is definitely something worth taking into consideration when thinking about how likely the Colts are to win.
The Colts are certainly a popular Survivor pick, but so is their only competition; I'd say that's pretty much a wash. In terms of future value, that Week 13 game against Tennessee jumps out after the Titans' showing last Sunday (which dropped them to 29th in DAVE); home games against the 49ers, Texans, and Jets are potential options as well. Indy has about as much future value as you'd expect from DAVE's #1 ranked team.
New England (at Kansas City)
The Patriots are favored by a bit more (14.5) than the Colts, with the odds giving them an 89.0% chance of emerging from Kansas City victorious. That figure should be take with a grain of salt as well, since the Pats are rather popular ATS themselves at the consensus sites (78%/94%/97% at WL/SIA/SB), but the action on NE isn't quite as lopsided as the action on IND. Either way, just from an advancing to Week 8 standpoint, the Patriots are a more attractive pick.
Since we have established that for our purposes the teams are equally popular in Survivor, that leaves only New England's future value to consider. The Pats don't have anything that stands out as much as Indy's game against the Titans, although they do face the Dolphins, Jets, and Panthers at home. It'd be nice to be able to save them, but since they are favored by more and not as popular ATS, and the Colts have a more favorable schedule down the stretch while appearing to be the stronger team, New England is the pick this week.
Original Story:
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