Welcome to the Upset Watch Monday Morning Roundup
Each week we take an opportunity on Monday to look back on Upset Watch's Sunday performance, and check the leaders in our Pickwatch contests over the weekend. We'll also take a look at tonight's matchup and give our pick for Monday Night Football between the Raiders and Chiefs.
Upset Watch Picks
This week so far we've hit on 4 of our 7 total picks, and we were close to a huge return if Carson Wentz wasn't a ridiculous excuse for a Quarterback.
Yes, we won big on the Jets and Cowboys, which made sure we made a small profit of $40 on our outright winner picks. We then hit on both covers, the Falcons +10 (or +8.5 if you picked early in the week) and the Bengals +3.5. Combined, we'll be +$230 on the week if nothing else changes, though this is the part where I trail whether tonight's interesting Raiders at Chiefs game might yield an upset, and you can find out below if you're a pro member...
That takes our total season winnings to +$1,203 at this stage. We've had a positive return in 4 of the opening 5 weeks, with +$760 coming through winners and +$443 on underdog cover picks. It’s been a great start to the season, and I appreciate the feedback and comments that help us improve the column. Last week you'll have seen that you could skip straight down to the list of picks from the top of the page, and we have plans to improve that functionality for Upset Watch in other ways, to help both those who enjoy the analysis, and those who just want the goods.
$10k Contest roundup
As things stand, it looks like kicker4 will take the weekly moneyline prize with a profit of +$804, although it's still theoretically possible that they could lose, depending on tonight's result. In the season contest, the real movement is happening behind the leaders, who have stood still for a week, while other players who've had good weeks begin to hover around the +$800-900 mark.
In the ATS contest, we're currently tied, with both dberry963 and mrlbi on the exact same amount (+$700.01) for the week. If they both win, we'll have a random prize draw between them. There's still a good chance that one of our other players overtakes them though. The ATS Season contest is still incredibly competitive, with the top 7 players all turning a profit in week 5. beyondanonda still holds a +$270 advantage over the next best player, but the pack aren't far behind.
In points total picks, kscoinmstr has destroyed all competition this week with a huge +$982 profit. With his nearest challengers over $300 behind, they won't catch him even if he loses tonight with his pick.
In the season-long contest, I am embarrassingly back to the top. As always, I will point out that even if I win, I won't claim any prize. I will also make a bigger effort on these picks, as I tend not to be a huge points totals type of person and have been making them whenever I have a minute spare. The research we do here on Upset Watch clearly plays a pretty big role in having a good idea of how the game will play out in most cases.
Pickwatch updates
We released the latest version of the app late last week. The major changes were:
App version 1.07 (Android and iOS)
- Upset Watch is now available in the app! This is an important Pro benefit that app users were missing out on.
- You can now see the weekly/daily profit (depending on the sport) for every expert in the expert pick tables, and sort them accordingly.
- After a reader pointed it out, we added your season profit into the pick form on the app, so you know
Over the next few weeks, here's what we're doing:
- Adding tabs above the tables to quickly navigate straight to ATS, Points total and underdog pick tables. At the moment, everything is all together, which makes it hard to navigate. It'll be much clearer when you're changing something in the table below, or when you're moving to a new table (eg: moving from moneyline to ats).
- Adding new table filters and rearranging the icons and labels at the top of the tables to be clearer as to their purpose. There'll be a button for filters that opens up all the options you can change, a sort button, and a settings button. Very simple quality of life changes.
- Adding dedicated underdog pick tables - these will track the underdog picks that go into the underdog ranking, so you can see weekly, season long and even measure performance over custom timeframes.
- On the app, we're adding Pro Picks into their own dedicated page to quickly navigate. This is part of our aim to make it easier to see all of your Pro benefits with the minimum number of interactions.
- Our major work apart from this will be progressing Player Prop picks. There's no firm ETA on this, but by the end of October we anticipate having a working prototype that will work across all sports.
So as you can tell, we're hard at work, and we're pushing hard to get Player Props in as soon as possible, while also improving some key functions on the site, and show you more info about yourself and the sports you're following.
Any suggestions? Drop us a line at contact@pickwatch.com and let us know your thoughts. Pickwatch is as much for you as anyone else, so we always try to accommodate suggestions.
Now let's pick Monday Night Football
Get free access to Upset Watch:
Place a bet as a new customer of BetMGM by following this link, and we'll give you an extension of 1 year on your Pickwatch Pro account once the bet is settled, or 1 year free if you're new to Pro.
Again, new customers only, you must click via that link so we know you did it via us and you can use the code PICKWATCHPRO if prompted - and the offer is available in eligible states only!
Eligible states: IN, CO, MI, IA, MS, IL, TN, NJ, NY, DC, LA, WY, AZ, PA and the province of Ontario in Canada
Monday Night Football Pick: