Average Joe Contest
We are officially on the back side of the NFL season, as Week 10 is underway. We have seen a lot of interesting results and have even seen how the price of $DKNG stock shifts around based on how well favorites and Overs are doing. Well, maybe that oversimplifies the process a little bit, but, typically, when the chalk wins, the book doesn’t. We’ve kind of seen that with our Edge Boost/VSiN Average Joe Contest results over the course of the season, and now it’s time to look at the NFL Picks Week 10 edition.
If you haven’t joined the Edge Boost/VSiN Average Joe Contest, we’re not really sure why. It’s free to enter and you can win weekly and quarterly prizes. Obviously you can’t win the overall prize for the season this far into the campaign, but $500 a week is up for grabs. Actually, $1,000 a week if you have an existing Edge Boost account. Sign up with the promo code VSiN and check ‘em out. After all, if you do win a prize, it is deposited into an Edge Boost account, so you can get ahead of the curve.
A new quarter in the contest starts in Week 11, so now’s the time to hop in. Week 10 picks have already been tabulated – and this contest does include college football and the NFL – but this upcoming week is a good opportunity to try your luck. See the Average Joe Contest Rules and decide if this contest is right for you.
NFL Picks Week 10
Opinions are much more split on the NFL slate for Week 10 than they were in Week 9. That’s not a big surprise, as we have much tougher handicaps across the board. There are some bad teams laying numbers, mediocre teams laying decent-sized numbers, and a lot of general uncertainty in other games. That might not be a bad thing, as last week’s two most popular NFL sides lost badly.
Getting a survey of what “Average Joes” are thinking on the NFL is always intriguing. Of course, you can also do that with our DraftKings NFL Betting Splits and Circa NFL Betting Splits, but we’re here to look at what contest players are thinking.
Here are the three most popular ATS Picks for Week 10:
Lions -8 (94%) vs. Commanders
What’s the old line? “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Bettors did not succeed last week with the Lions, who were favored in a similar range and lost outright to the Vikings. This week, an even higher percentage of game picks is on the Lions. This is the most lopsided NFL side of the week by a sizable margin.
Guess nobody believes in Marcus Ardel Taulauniu Mariota. President Trump will be on hand for this one. Do you think he’s on the Lions -8? Is he more of an underdog guy? A fade the public type? I don’t know, but in a country where it’s virtually impossible to get 94% of people to agree on anything, that’s the percentage on the Lions this week.
For those keeping count, of the 694 picks on this game, 649 of them are on the Lions.
Buccaneers -2.5 (84%) vs. Patriots
The bye week Bucs are very popular this week laying under a field goal against the visiting Patriots. Baker and the Boys seemed to enjoy their time away, attending a Tampa Bay Lightning game with a few alcoholic beverages in the suite. Even with a couple week’s worth of recovery time, the Bucs are still missing Bucky Irving and Chris Godwin Jr., along with IR residents Mike Evans and Jalen McMillan.
Vrabel and the Pats are vying for their seventh straight win, but they’ve only beaten one probable playoff team in that span and the degree of difficulty is going up a notch. I know people like to talk about “football weather” as a bunch of snow and cold and misery, but let’s be honest, 80 degrees works, too. That said, expect kickoff humidity to be around 80%. That’s also misery.
Of the 597 picks on this game, 504 are on the Bucs.
Eagles +2.5 (81%) vs. Packers
Halloween just passed and I’m sure there were plenty of “Beware [insert lame joke here]” signs, but nothing terrifies betting splits guru and contrarian NFL bettor Josh Appelbaum as much as a trendy dog. There were six teams over 80% of the ATS picks last week and all six of them were favorites. Here we get an underdog as one of just three teams with 80% or more of the bias.
I have to be honest – it scares me, too. I don’t have the Bone Crusher, Killer Mike, and T.I. attitude of being never scared.
Apparently neither do the 589 contestants out of 725 who took the Eagles in the most popular game by total pick count.
Here are the three most popular totals of Week 10:
Favorites and Overs. Six favorites last week north of 80%. Three Overs in the top plays at 85% or higher (went 1-2). The Bears/Bengals game should have counted for two units with how far that went Over 51. Nevertheless, let’s see which totals took the cake this week.
Jaguars/Texans Under 37.5 (87%)
This one took the top spot for highest percentage of picks and is one of four totals with at least 100 selections in Week 10. It is honestly shocking to analyze these numbers each week and see how little totals action there is with the NFL and college football among our contestants.
Anyway, the Jags/Texans Under attracted 104 of the 119 picks on the game. The only NFL ATS picks with under 119 picks were the Dolphins (107), Patriots (93), Commanders (45), and Jets (102).
Giants/Bears Over 46.5 (84%)
Daaaaaaa Bears seem decent on offense and bad on defense, so even without Malik Nabers and Cam Skattebo, contestants feel like the Giants can hold up their end of the bargain here. I’m not surprised to see this game in there based on the teams and the matchup, but this is the worst weather game of the week. Rain and snow possible, 20-30 mph winds, rough day for kickers at Soldier Field.
The Windy City is going to live up to its name at this time of the year and that’s the case here. Maybe pickers will still get there. We shall see.
Of the 211 picks on this total, 177 were on the Over.
Rams/49ers Under 50 (82%)
A division battle here between two teams that know each other extremely well. Once again, I feel it’s worth mentioning that the first game landed 26-23 in OT and really should have gone Over, especially when you consider that the Rams had more than seven yards per play on offense.
Alas, the Under was a popular pick here with 102 of the 124 selections on it. That said, once again, very low volume on the totals across the map.
See all of the pick counts, including college football, on the Average Joe Contest Betting Splits page.
