John Byrum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images. Pictured: Sam Darnold
Another week without a big upset means most players made it through Week 2 of survivor pools. A smattering of entries were knocked out with the Raiders upset in Pittsburgh but that’s about it.
We now have two weeks of games to use as data, but I still think most people are overreacting to a small sample size of what we have seen so far.
As an example, my model still isn’t a believer in the Denver Broncos yet. Two road wins are great, but games against the Jacksonville Jaguars and New York Giants aren’t enough to suggest they should be double-digit favorites in Week 3.
You can see my model’s projection for that game and all others below. (Note that I do not include Week 18 because many teams will rest and it’s difficult to provide an accurate prediction.)
Here are the top options for this week along with their key statistics. A reminder that for Expected Value (EV), anything above one is positive and below one is negative.
Normally I go through each team and discuss their merits, but I think this week is pretty simple.
The Pick: Carolina Panthers (at Texans)
Carolina has the best chance to win, the highest expected value, and is only being taken by 10% of entries. That’s the trifecta we want.
The Bills have a high expected value too, but they have so many remaining weeks as options whereas the Panthers are projected to be in a lot of toss-up games.
Road teams on Thursday are dicey, but I can make an exception with a good defense going up against rookie quarterback Davis Mills.