Underdog Pick 'Em Week 12

Photo: Imagn Images

Underdog's Fantasy Pick 'Em is a fun way to test our predictive abilities against the market. The two keys to success are selecting the best players to target and leveraging correlations to improve our odds. You play Pick 'Em by simply choosing 'Higher' or 'Lower' on at least two player props. If you make the right selection, here's the payout structure:

• Two picks = 3X
• Three picks = 6X
• Four picks = 10X
• Five picks = 20X

In this weekly article, we will list our favorite plays of the week and the reasoning behind them.

Week 11 Review

Overall Picks (8-9 on the week, 81-67-1 on the season)
Overall Units (-4 last week, +21 Units on the season)

(-1 Unit, 3-1) Texans-Cardinals 10X C.J. Stroud (267.5) easily eclipsed his passing yardage prop, with 336 yards. Tank Dell (58.5) destroyed his receiving yardage prop with 149 yards. Unfortunately, Dell's dominant day may have eaten into Dalton Schultz's (50.5) receiving production, as he fell short with 32 yards. James Conner (56.5) went over his rushing yard total, with 62 yards. This feels like it was the right play. Stroud put up the highest yardage total of the week, and Dell was second among all receivers in yardage.

(-1 Unit, 1-3) Bears-Lions 10X The belief was that the Bears-Lions game had the potential for offensive fireworks, and it played out that way. It was a wild 31-26 shootout. Unfortunately, despite the high score and plenty of offense, the game script did not go as hoped. Justin Fields (210.5 passing yards) did much of his damage on the ground (104 rushing yards), in part because the Bears jumped out to a big lead. He threw for just 169 yards on only 23 pass attempts. DJ Moore (64.5) still easily hit his receiving yardage over, 96 yards. Darnell Mooney (26.5) came up just short, with 24 yards. With the Lions trailing, Jahmyr Gibbs (41.5) came up just short of his rushing yardage prop with 36 yards.

(-1 Unit, 2-2) Giants-Commanders 10X On the Giants side, we had Saquon Barkley (17.5) receiving yards. He hit the over almost instantly and finished with 57 receiving yards. Sam Howell (245.5) hit on his passing yardage over, with 255 through the air. We just missed on whom the yards would go to. Terry McLauring (58.5) had 43 yards, and Jahan Dotson (35.5) had 23.

(-1 Unit, 2-3) Cowboys-Panthers 20X The idea was that there was a decent chance the Panthers would sell out to stop the run, and the Cowboys would need to throw the ball to win. It didn't play out that way. Dak Prescott (261.5) came up well short of his passing yardage prop, with 189 yards. Jake Ferguson (3.5) came up one short on receptions with three. Brandin Cooks (35.5) did hit his receiving yardage total, with 42 yards. Tony Pollard scored his touchdown. Bryce Young (2.5) had two rushing attempts.

Lessons learned: The long streak of hitting on at least one Pick 'Em each week came to a close. It happens when you are picking only three or four plays each week at 10X or 20X odds. The one takeaway is that there is no need to force it to always get to 10X. 6X is just fine every so often. I felt strongly about C.J. Stroud and Tank Dell and forced a second Texans pass catcher in to get a fourth play.

Week 12 Picks

As noted in the Week 11 review, the biggest takeaway from last week was to not force a fourth player into a Pick 'Em that works best as a three-man 6X. Unlike the last few weeks, when all recommended entries were at least 10X, we have a pair of 6X Pick 'Ems this week. The plan remains targeted correlated Higher picks within the same game. This has been, by far, our most successful strategy this season.

Eagles-Bills 10X