It's been a good year for my picks at SportsLine, but that's not translated to the SuperContest or Circa Million, where I had a solid first four weeks but have been pretty bad since. Last week, that meant the Dolphins missing a cover by one point after a pedestrian second half and a questionable fourth-down call to pass on a field goal. It also meant losing with the Lions, who basically played the Cowboys incredibly -- even in the box score -- only to see a run of turnovers late turn the game into a rout.
At this point, it's very unlikely I'll finish in the money in either contest, but quitting isn't an option either. There's nothing left to do but keep firing away and trying to mix up the cards in both contests in the hopes we can crank out some 5-0 performances in one or the other. At least we've had a solid hit rate with the featured pick at the top of this article, which has been the Seahawks the past few weeks.
I've been SportsLine's No. 1 NFL ATS 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 percent 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 fading a big line move against a team coming off a bye: the Minnesota Vikings -3.5 vs. the Arizona Cardinals.
This line has moved 2.5 points off the lookahead, and it's easy to attribute some of that to the market thinking the Vikings aren't as good as their record indicates. A stunning blowout of the Packers in Week 1 has looked less impressive as the season has progressed, and Minnesota's current four-game win streak has been built against some questionable opposition and doesn't include anything but one-score games. But Minnesota didn't play last week, so any argument you can raise against the Vikings should've been true a week ago when the line was Vikings -6.
So maybe it's a reaction to the Cardinals putting up 42 points to beat the Saints in DeAndre Hopkins' first game back? That final score is deceptive, as two pick-sixes played a big role in Arizona winning the game. The offense was about as effective in total as it was the previous week against Seattle when it was held to three points, with another six coming off a fumble recovery in the end zone, though it did it with a fewer amount of plays and a one-yard-per-play increase overall. But when you look at how the team performed on the whole in each game, it doesn't point to a 33-point difference on the scoreboard. Hopkins played well in his return, but he had more than half of Kyler Murray's passing yards, so this still seems to be a top-heavy offense that could come crashing down at any point.
Get the rest of my SuperContest picks and my Circa Million picks below.
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