Underdog Pick 'Em Week 3

Photo: Geoff Burke, USA Today Sports

Underdog's Fantasy Pick 'Em is a fun way to test our powers of prediction against the market. The two keys to success are picking the best players to target and taking advantage of correlations where we can to increase our odds. You play Pick 'Em by simply choosing "Higher" or "Lower" on at least two player props. If you choose successfully, this is 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 2 Review

Overall Picks (11-5 on the week, 16-10 on the season)
Overall Units (+6, +4 on the season)

• Had a nice 10X win on Lions-Seahawks. Ken Walker hit his receiving over (8.5) with 11 yards, Jahmyr Gibbs (25.5) hit his with 39 yards, Sam LaPorta (34.5) easily went over with 63 yards, and Jared Goff (267.5) also cruised to the over with 323 passing yards.
• Lost on Bengals-Ravens, hitting two of three. Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson got there, but I needed a touchdown from Ja'Marr Chase. It ended up being Tee Higgins who caught both scores.
• Took a bad beat on the Chargers-Titans, hitting two of three. Easily hit overs On Justin Herbert's passing yards and Keenan Allen's receiving yards, but Derrick Henry came up a half-yard short (3 catches for 15 yards) on his 15.5 receiving yard prop.
• On the long-shot attempt to 20X, I went 3 of 5. We hit on Bijan Robinson over (17.5) with 48 receiving yards. James Cook hit the over (12.5) with 36 receiving yards, DJ Moore hit the over (43.5) with 104 receiving yards. But our final two legs (the 49ers passing stack), Brock Purdy's passing touchdowns (1.5) and Christian McCaffrey's receiving yards (28.5) both came up short.

Lessons learned: This was an encouraging week. The misses were not by much, and we were on the right track targeting with most of these receiving props for running backs. I doubt we get receiving numbers that low again this season for guys like Jahmyr Gibbs, Bijan Robinson, and James Cook, who easily went over on a ton of volume.

Week 3 Picks

Ravens Stack

This is a 10X correlation play based upon a belief that receptions are easier to come by in the Ravens' new offensive scheme than the historical Baltimore passing numbers would suggest. Lamar Jackson is completing a career-high 74.5% of his passes, and the scheme is allowing him to rack up easy completions on short and intermediate routes. There is nothing flukey about Jackson's 20.5 completions per game, and we know who his top two targets are (Mark Andrews and Zay Flowers). If we believe Jackson completes 20-plus passes against a bad Colts defense that gave up 30 completions to C.J. Stroud last week, then it makes sense to like the chances that both Flowers and Andrews catch at least five passes. We added Jahan Dotson to the mix just because we needed a player from a second team, and his individual prop was our favorite of the week overall.