One of the reasons to write out all my pick here and state the case for each game is that it hopefully keeps me from making the same mistakes over and over again but some lessons are learned hard. In my write ups for the Panthers and Eagles I talked about how short road favs are not generally good bets long term and both ended up costing me. Now I still think the Panthers bet was ok, they were  desperate, finally healthy and a much better team on paper. The Eagles on the other hand was a bad bet, the Eagles should not have been favorites in Washington, I bet against them the week before in Detroit and the case was similar this week.

Around the 3rd Q mark of the morning games things looked dire as I was behind in all 3 bet games. Then late in the 4th it looked like I might steal a couple but only got the Jags. In the afternoon it looked like I might get all 3 before the Falcons huge 3rd Q which brings us to 3-3 and a week where we didn’t get anything done but maybe reinforced the lesson of why short road favs are trouble without having to lose any money in the process.

Week 6 Results: 3-3

What Went Right

• Andy Reid’s Bye Week Wizardry : Andy Reid is now 16-2 off of bye weeks. Its kind of a thing. The weather in this game was terrible which helped slow the Raiders offense as did the Chiefs ball control offense. Chiefs are not ever going to be a team you want to lay a lot of points with but I can see the winning a lot of games in 2nd half and winning this division

• Jags 4th Q comeback– This one was lucky and maybe made up for some of the bad luck in the Seattle game. Jags trailed this game for basically 50 minutes and Bortles looked abysmal. The Jags scored all 17 in the 4th Q and were lucky this game was not over much sooner as Bears missed a number of opportunities.
• Aaron Rodgers struggles– I was dead wrong in thinking the Packers run defense which was had put up unbelievable numbers coming into this week could slow the Cowboys run game. They couldn’t. Dallas rushed for 5.8 yards per rush having one of heir best games of the season. What saved our under was the Packers continued struggles on offense, Rodgers through 42 passes for 290 yards but just 1 TD to 1 Int and missed a number of big plays that could have led to points.
• Seattle Seahawks for 3 Quarters: Seattle led 17-3 at the half and also won the 4th Q 9-0. For those 3 quarters Seattle looked like the better team and to me looked every bit the #1 team I have them ranked as.

What Went Wrong

• Atlanta in 3rd Q- Atlanta scored 21 in the 3rd Q vs the Seahawks defense 2 of the scores were due to big missed assignments in the Seattle secondary that you have to think the loss of Kam Chancellor late in the week was a major reason those plays happened. Atlanta certainly  continues to impress and prove they deserve to be thought of as a top team in the NFC so far.
• Short Road Favs- The Panthers game was just strange, I guess a lot like their season. Again in week 6 they lost the turnover battle and that was probably the difference, Panthers are now -4 in TO margin a year after going +20. The Panthers defnse is a mess, nt just in the secondary, but also in the front 7 and Brees had is way with them averaging 9.2 yards per pass att.
• Halapoulivaati Vaitai- Really cool name but really terrible 1st game. It was not the fault of the 5th rd pick rookie playing his 1st game that he didn’t play as well as Lane Johnson one of the top right tackles in the NFL. It was the fault of the Eagles coach Doug Pederson to not help Vaitai especially early and get him comfortable. Ryan Kerrigan had sacks on the 1st 2 plays of the game and basically set the tone for the rest of the game. This game was not as close as the score indicates as Eagles had 2 D/ST touchdowns.