Week 14 - Return of the Parlay & Teaser Theory -The Mad Capper's Initial Picks

For the first time in a long time, I am interested in most of the games this week. Ten of them, to be exact. It was so long ago when i was the parlay wizard (more of an apprentice wizard, seeing as I lost more than $100), and through this first year of Mental Handicap I've discovered Teasers, underdog moneylines, single-game strategy et al; but now we may be coming full circle.

If you remember, my initial betting strategy was a 9-game parlay mix and match. Rank the top 9 games, pick the winner, and arrange them into 4 slightly overlapping 3-team parlays. Now that I've got 10 games I like, it may be time to Return to the Parlay.

Parlay/Single-Game Rankings:

1. CHI +3 vs WAS
2. CLE -3.5 vs NYJ
3. DAL -10.5 vs DET
4. NYG +2.5 vs PHI
5. IND -9.5 vs BAL
6. NO -5 vs ATL
7. PIT +10 vs NE
8. MIN -9 vs SF
9. OAK +10.5 vs GB
10. ARI +7 vs SE

I could use the same parlay theory, and lower my risk by using Teasers instead. The more I thought about this, the more I liked it. My philosophy with Teasers is to only bet on teams whose opponent is unlikely to score a ton of points, and who I think likely will win the game. Generally speaking I don't bet on a loser in a high-spread game, hoping to put it out of reach from a clearly more talented team. I also love to take a team favored by less than 6 points, and flip them so they are actually taking points, even though they are the favored team. Here's my list.

Teaser Rankings:

1. IND -3.5 vs BAL: Confident of IND victory + low scoring BAL offense. Check.
   
2. DAL -4.5 vs DET: Confident of DAL victory + Solid DAL defense. Check.
   
3. MIN -3 vs SF: Confident of MIN victory + low scoring SF offense. Check.
   
4. CLE +2.5 vs NYJ: Flipped CLE to take points + Confidence in victory. Check.
5. NO +1 vs ATL: Flipped NO to take points + Confidence in victory. Check.
6. CHI +9 vs WAS: Confidence in CHI victory + large spread. Check.
   

Looking at all this, I love the teasers this week, and will likely rely on them heavily. My final picks are up later, once I run the data through my Capulator.