We're nearing the end of the regular season, and at this time of year you have to consider motivation before making your picks. Teams like the Raiders with nothing to play for can sit their longtime quarterback rather than try to win games, for example. But if you're in a picks competition and need a strong finish to land in the money, the perception of motivation can be your friend. If you feel like a perfect week isn't enough to cash, it makes sense to take the picks you feel will be the least popular, so that if they hit, it'll mean a majority or even most of the teams ahead of you had a bad week.

That's why in one competition similar to the SuperContest where you pick five games against the spread each week, we're getting weird. Plays like the Raiders +5.5 and Cardinals +3.5 are obvious after quarterback changes were announced in both, and we're also going to back the Panthers at +2.5 as that number hasn't been available and it looks like that game could close on the other side of 3. It doesn't matter that I wouldn't make any of those plays right now in the market; it's all about giving us a path at finishing in the money, no matter how improbable. But those won't be among my best bets for this column in the SuperContest and Circa Million, which you can find below. In fact, I'm on the other side of one of those plays, which we'll get into shortly.

I've been SportsLine's No. 1 NFL against-the-spread expert over the last five years, going 445-378-24 against the spread to put me up more than 25 units on those picks at SportsLine. I've also delivered a 56.8% hit rate on my SuperContest picks over the last seven seasons, which is exactly what you're getting below. And that run includes two finishes in the money, including finishing 18th out of 2,748 entries back in 2017.

If you're a SportsLine subscriber, you can get all my picks, which in a typical NFL week number can near double digits, at the same time as I make them by downloading the app and signing up for alerts on my expert page. That's crucial, as you might not have access to the same lines from the Las Vegas contests, which don't move after they're posted mid-week. This week, I'm backing a team that has not lived up to expectations against one that's been hot: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers -3 vs. the Carolina Panthers.

Fading the Panthers didn't work last week, as they ran all over the Lions to win at home as underdogs. But running lanes as wide as the ones they found in that game don't come around too often, and I'd be surprised if the rushing attack had another big game against Tampa Bay.

The market is completely fading the Bucs after another stinker last week in which they managed to beat a Trace McSorley-led Cardinals team in overtime, but considering the lookahead line was Buccaneers -7, it's a massive amount of steam considering the Bucs didn't lose a key player (typically it'd take a QB injury to necessitate that kind of move). In fact, it's the Panthers who will be shorthanded at cornerback, and they had to bring Josh Norman back during the week to address their injury situation at the position.

I'm not saying the Bucs will all of a sudden start playing like the team everyone thought they were four months ago, but I do think the market has swung far too much the other way after the inflated lookahead line, making the Bucs a rare value play.

Get the rest of my SuperContest picks and my Circa Million picks below.

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