Week 1 was tough.

We got the Cowboys (+120) right, and in the manner of that victory, the analysis was pretty much perfect, as the Cowboys eviscerated the backup O-line of the Browns, and DeShaun Watson roundly failed to improve on his bad performances over the last 2 seasons. In the Discord, I also recommended the Vikings as the Survivor play of the week.

Apart from that, it was close in 4 of our picks - the Ravens and Packers took things to the wire. The Colts lost by just 2 points to the Texans, and the most galling of all was the Titans, who blew a 17pt lead against the Bears through sloppy mistakes. I actually got that paid out because my sportsbook Bet365 has a 17pt lead early payout, but if you don't have that, it's a rough beat. That game was on the bubble until Sunday afternoon, so some of you won't have had it, but I kept it from the early part of the week.

Then there was the Panthers, which was an unmitigated disaster, and the Jets, who again looked ok for a period, before falling to the 49ers on MNF. It was a lesson in risk management - going hard early is a risk, as those 4 'nearly' games don't matter in the long run!

I always own the losses, and there's no getting away from a bad week. We generally haven't had many over the years, but when they happen, it's often because, like in week 1, it turns out that very few underdogs win.

All told, the final result was either -380 if you didn't have the Titans, or -480 if you did, and neither is pretty. I'll split the difference and call it -430.

With only 3 upsets across the whole NFL - despite numerous close calls where the likes of the Cardinals, Rams and Jaguars also came within a whisker of an upset, week 1 was simply never likely to go our way in a column dedicated to picking dogs. That's a risk we have to absorb.

Thankfully, there's always the Upset Watch Discord, where a problem shared is a problem divided into several hundred. We're back this week and hopefully, things will be a little better for underdogs in week 2....