Toby Wreathway’s NFL Week Three Betting Recap

Toby Wreathway’s NFL Week Three Betting Recap

NFL WEEK THREE BETTING RECAP – I did not predict the Dolphins to score 70 or  that Arizona would upset Dallas. We didn’t even predict an exact score this week! I will continue to work on these shortcomings.

Maybe I didn’t see that coming, but at least I went 11-5 overall! And again are you really living if you aren’t betting on every single game? Only 4-3 on the “green” games, so I’ve reconfigured that a little bit going forward.

Week Three All Games: 11-5

All Season Total: 28-20

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Week Three Green Games: 4-3

All Season Total: 12-7

You can’t retire off my picks, but at least you’d be up! If any economists are reading, I will pay you* to publish a study that Toby Wreathway’s successful picks are a key driver of inflation.

*I will not pay you

I had generally limited the wild misses in weeks 1 and 2, but not week 3.

Then again I’m trying to predict the future, so keep that in mind. I can’t ignore Arizona anymore – they are at worst a legitimate NFL team. They might even be quote unquote “frisky”! The Frisky Team™!

Keep that in mind whenever they go up against any of the cat-based teams, especially given that the Cardinals are a bird-based franchise. I’m going to turn the entire NFL into a tarot-reading exercise.

Remember when Arizona hired their weird-ass coach? And then after his initial weirdness he doubled down and just kept doing weird stuff on the reg?

It was very similar to Nick Sirianni, and arguably somewhat to Mike McDaniel. Well we need to stop crushing these nerd coaches when they go feral and nerd out during their hires, as it seems like they might be, like, really good.

Even Dan Campbell – while he may not be a nerd, he did famously promise to field a team of players who would continually fall down but bite at kneecaps when they did. Ha ha, that was funny. That guy is dumb.

Well the Lions went from last year’s Frisky Franchise and this year a true competitor. Wait, another cat-based franchise??? Get out the tarot cards, because it’s Moon-reading time!

So yeah going forward all of the weird coaches are going to be treated like Vince Lombardi until proven otherwise.

Going through last week’s games, from most accurate prediction to least:

Toby Was Right!

Result: Pittsburgh 23 @ Las Vegas 18

Toby’s Pick: PIT 20 – LVR 17 (PIT +2.5)

This was my third favorite bet last week and this game ended just about how I expected it would.

Vegas has no business being favored over any competent team, as they have no true home field advantage and they are led by a failed tyrant who didn’t learn a single thing from his tenure with the Broncos.

Result: Kansas City 41 – Chicago 10

Toby’s Pick: KC 35 – Chicago 7 (KC -12.5)

You have to be a very bad team for me to recommend a 12.5 point favorite, and Chicago is an absolute magnesium fire. Soldier Field is a Superfund site.  

Result: Los Angeles Chargers 28 – Minnesota 24

Toby’s Pick: LAC 33 – MIN 27 (LAC +1)

Brandon Staley nearly clutched defeat from the jaws of victory. As it stands, my second overall bet of week three went pretty much as I expected it to.

Result: San Francisco 30 – NYG 12

Toby’s Pick: SF 35 – NYG 14 (SFO -10)

Another one that went pretty much how most people thought it would. I have noticed anecdotally that Thursday games seem to be easiest to predict.

I consider this one “less” accurate than the ones above because I missed the OVER/UNDER.

Result: Philadelphia 27 – Tampa 17

Toby’s Pick: PHI 25 – Tampa 11 (PHI -5)

Two scorigamis in one weekend! WTF-igami!

If you are unfamiliar with Scorigami, it is a creation of Jon Bois that references the occurence of a score being posted for the first time in NFL history.

For example, there have been exactly 200 occurrences of an NFL score ending at 17-14 as of the time of this writing. The first time this happend was in 1933 when the Chicago Bears beat the Portsmouth Spartans and that was Scorigami!

No one would have known what the hell that means at the time, of course, but that’s their loss. Before this past week, no games had ever ended 70-20 or 25-11. So that’s two Scorigamis. It’s a lot more interesting than I’m making it sound and if you’re truly curious check out NFL Scorigami here.  

If you’d like to see Chicago and Portsmouth run that back, well, you’re in luck because they became the Detroit Lions in 1934.

The Florida heat seemed to affect Tampa more than Philly. Then again it’s probably not as impactful in a night game.

Toby Was Somewhat Close

Result: Cincinnati 19 – Los Angeles Rams 16

Toby’s Pick:      CIN 30 – LA 27 (CIN -1.5)

The scoring may not have been quite as high as I predicted, but the winning margin was exactly the same and if you’re just betting winners that’s all that matters.

Result: Seattle 37 – Carolina 27

Toby’s Pick: SEA 27 – CAR 14 (SEA -6)

Similar to the Rams @ Bengals game, but reversed. Seattle continues to show that last year was not a fluke. Andy Dalton meanwhile remains the NFL’s most perfectly competent QB for the 12th consecutive year.

Result: New England 15 – New York Jets 10

Toby’s Pick: NE 15 – NYJ 10 (NYJ +3) 

This one was a green game loss which causes me great physical pain, but it did predict that this game would hit the UNDER by a comfortable margin and that’s precisely what it did.

Add some more evidence to the Federal case against Zach Wilson.

Result: Green Bay 18 – New Orleans 17

Toby’s Pick:      GB 24 – NO 14 (GB -2)

This one probably shouldn’t be in this category as it was my best bet of the week and Green Bay just missed covering it. I was hoping it would go to overtime, so Jameis could throw a pick 6 make some money for the people.

Derek Carr is week-to-week, but I’m hoping we get at least one week of Jameis because he is just so much fun to watch. You don’t know what is going to happen! He could throw for 400 yards.

He could throw two pick-sixes in a row. He could throw a 60-yard TD blind while falling sideways, or accidentally punt the ball out of his own endzone. You just have no idea.

Toby Was Meh

Result: Miami 70 – Denver 20

Toby’s Pick:      MIA 38 – Denver 20 (MIA -6.5)

I’m sticking to the letter of the law here, and my accuracy rankings consider that I “missed” this game by 32 points overall.

But, really, I hit Denver’s score exactly and predicted Miami to win by 3 scores. They just happened to win by 7 scores. I had the OVER in this game, which was for some reason only set at 47.5, and it damn near hit by halftime. If I ever do get around to revamping this formula, this one will be higher.

Result: Cleveland 27 – Tennessee 3

Toby’s Pick: CLE 20 – TEN 14 (CLE -3)

Similar to the Miami/Denver game, but this one is a bit worse. I predicted it to be competitive. However, as with both games, both the winning team and the OVER/UNDER prediction hit.

Toby is Blind!

Result:Detroit 20 – Atlanta 6

Toby’s Pick: DET 30 – ATL 24 (DET -3)

And another one. However, this one is ranked lower because my prediction was that the OVER would hit and it didn’t even come close. Desmond Ridder continues to commit crimes against humanity with each passing attempt.

Result: Buffalo 37 – Washington 3

Toby’s Pick: BUF 24 – WSH 14 (BUF -6.5)

Hey, I got the winner right, even if my winning margin was off by 24 points. And really, what’s 24 points? Well, for the Dolphins, about 3 minutes of game time.

Miami travels to Buffalo this week, by the way. Expect a 7-6 slugfest.

Result: Indianapolis 22 – Baltimore 19

Toby’s Pick: BAL 33 – IND 10 (BAL -7.5)

Ouch – we’re getting into the wild misfires portion. Not only did I like Baltimore, but I also had them as my fifth overall bet last week. I expected Baltimore to murder the Colts, and usually predicting “Baltimore” and “murder” go hand-in-hand, in football terms, anyhow.

Not this week, as the Colts field-goaled the Ravens into oblivion and evened things out for the Horse-based franchises.

Result: Houston 37 – Jacksonville 17

Toby’s Pick: JAX 27 – HOU 17 (JAX -9.5)

I just missed predicting Houston here by a half-point, and this was my least favorite bet last week, but even if I did it would have been a purely lucky win.

I did not see Houston going in and blowing the doors off of the Jags in Duval. CJ Stroud is legit and it appears DeMeco Ryans is as well. I’m eager to see if the Texans get too much of a bump in week 4 from the bookmakers.

Result: Arizona 28 – Dallas 16

Toby’s Pick: DAL 35 – ARI 0 (DAL -12)

I don’t know if I’ve ever been more wrong with a prediction. This game was ludicrous.

Let’s harken back to my Survivor pick from week three while we’re here.

I advised to stay away from Dallas, Jacksonville, Kansas City and San Francisco, and two of those teams lost.

Maybe you were fortunate and picked KC or San Fran, but if you rode with Toby and went with Buffalo you coasted to victory while half or more of your pool was likely knocked out.

This is how you win Survivor leagues, and it allows you to pick these favorites later in the year when most people have used them up.

You have to approach this like a Daily Fantasy lineup and go with something different than everyone else. The only way to beat hundreds of people in these contests is to be different. So be different! Think different. SMELL DIFFERENT. Champions don’t shower.