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Week 5 was another dominant week for my underdog picks. Going 4-1 with underdogs winning with Jaguars (+2.5), Chicago (+3), Pihladelphia (+3.5), and Tennessee as massive +7 dogs. The Loss was St. Louis (+3) over the Lions.  They were dominated.

Last week was a crazy week for straight up predictions where we saw huge meltdowns by 4 favorites late in games: Green Bay meltdown to Washington, Bengals meltdown to the Buccaneers, New Orleans meltdown to the Cardinals, and the Chargers meltdown to the Raiders. Interesting that 3 of those QB’s are top 5 QB’s behind Manning and Brady (Rivers, Brees, Rodgers in that order). And Carson Palmer USED to be #3 behind Peyton and Tom.

Luckily, my predictions had the 4-1 on underdogs, to go 8-6 overall for the week. Week 5 cause 40 out of 60 computer systems tracked at thepredictiontracker.com do worse than .500. And a week that saw TeamRankings.com throw out a fat 4-10 (lower than all 60 tracked systems).

Week 6 I have 6 more underdogs predicted to win:

I definitely hate seeing 6 predicted underdogs to win in any week with my algorithms. There is a reason that the teams are underdogs on the Vegas line.

Ravens (+4, +165) at Patriots

The Ravens have played some of the best football in the NFL this season, making QB after QB look like Matt Cassell every week, and firing on all cylinders on offense. New England just traded Moss, which will make them a more efficient offense in theory. But losing that deep threat and matchup difficulty for teams to deal with will make Brady look more human again like he did before he got Moss and his stats exploded.

Falcons ( +2.5, +120) at Eagles

Vick is out, or is he? Reid is keeping that pretty much to himself, and taking it day to day. That will force Atlanta to game plan for both. Vick wants to play versus his old team. And if he does play, I won’t agree with the prediction just based on Vick’s hunger and his need to prove something o Atlanta fans. It’s a small line, but it’s still a little strange given the Falcons success this season. That being said, the Falcons could have easily lost the last 2 games versus the Browns and the Saints.

Buccaneers (+4, +165) vs. Saints

Buccaneers are at home and are playing really well under Josh Freeman, who has an 85 QB rating this season. The Saints kind of have their backs to the wall and are probably going to try and make this a statement game. That being said, the Buccaneers have the 6th ranked pass defense this season, and can take a huge leap in the division with a win over the Saints.

Cowboys (+1.5) at Vikings

It’s unclear how Favre will react to a tough week last week and the ongoing Dong picture investigation. With Moss there he sure will throw up some jump balls. I expect one huge TD for Moss and one forced INT to Moss from Favre. It’s a small line, I’ve got Cowboys as 75% favorites on the road. This is a must win for both teams and who ever loses almost certainly misses the playoffs.

Chiefs (+4, +165) at Houston

Houston has played very well at home this season, including beating the Colts in week 1. Outside of Matt Cassell, the Chiefs have been great. Last week Cassell wouldn’t have been that bad if Bowe didn’t drop 4 key passes. Kansas City will continued to be very well coached and very much underrated all season until they win that division.

Raiders(+6.5, +230) at San Francisco

Huge line against Oakland even though they are playing an 0-5 team. Niners owner Jed York has guaranteed the division win and playoff berth for the 49ers. Oakland isn’t terrible this year, much to the dismay of the Patriots who hold their 1st round pick. 49ers haven’t looked terrible, they just have awful game strategy game management. Those issues simply don’t go away in 5 days and they are still in offensive coordinator transition.