We have at least one weekend like this every year: a weekend where the favourites all lose and by the time 4 pm rolls around, poolies are throwing their bets and picks sheets in the garbage. Usually, these weekends happen a little earlier as a sort of market correction occurs and hot starts get extinguished. This time around, teams that have half a season of good film on their resume came up with stinkers in Week 9.
The only question is which game was the worst of the weekend, and there are two obvious candidates:
1. Buffalo, who couldn’t find the end zone against the JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS in a 9-6 loss
2. Dallas, who fell to a 30-0 fourth quarter deficit to a struggling Broncos team at home, before getting some garbage time TDs to make the game look slightly more respectable.
For my money, the worst loss of the weekend was the Bills. The Cowboys looked like a team that was in need of a reality check as they played with the sort of overconfidence that does not last long in the NFL. The Bills loss was directly related to offensive issues that have cropped up in recent weeks that need correction. While it is true that the Bills looked like an uninterested team that felt like the game was won by just showing up, but the loss did expose some truths about the Bills anemic run game, as well as some questions about their offensive line. The Jaguars went into Week 9 with 11 sacks and TWO turnovers, and tallied four sacks and three turnovers in this game alone.
In the other games, we saw the following upsets:
Atlanta beat the Saints 27-25 – after blowing an 18 point fourth quarter lead (where have we seen that before), the Falcons got a last second field goal from Younghoe Koo to take the victory back from the jaws of defeat.
Cleveland destroyed Cincinnati 41-16 in a week where they parted ways from mercurial WR Odell Beckham Jr. This game may be the start of a rallying point for the Browns, who were 4-4 but seemed to be vastly underperforming.
Arizona won 31-17 over San Francisco with Colt McCoy at QB and no DeAndre Hopkins. They did, however, have James Conner, who score three TDs in the victory.
Tennessee beat the Rams 28-16 in yet another game that reflected better on the losers than it should have. Without Derrick Henry, the Titans had a huge game from Jeffery Simmons, who sacked Matthew Stafford three times and caused a horrific throw from the Rams QB which led to an interception deep in Rams territory. Stafford then followed that up 26 seconds later with a pick-six.
The Giants beat the Raiders 23-16 as well. If I’m completely honest, I didn’t see much of this game.
In the pool, the upsets messed with everyone, as only one player, Salvo, scored in double figures this week. We’ll have bad weeks as a whole every once in a while and it is not a bad thing to get a low score when everyone else is in the dumper as well. However, if everyone else stinks and you have a good week, that is where you can make some ground.
Salvo missed on only one confidence pick (everyone else missed at least two!) and he came away from this week with 11 points. His strong week put Salvo into the top 5, and he is now standing in a third-place tie with 113 total points.
In the rest of the pool, Jerome re-took the top spot in the pool and now has 116 points, one point ahead of Will, and three points up on third place Salvo and Sam. Paul rounds out the top five with 112 points.
| Name | Total |
| Jerome | 116 |
| Will | 115 |
| Salvo | 113 |
| Sam | 113 |
| Paul | 112 |
| Joe L | 111 |
| Gary | 111 |
| Alessandro | 110 |
| Neil | 110 |
| Jason G | 109 |
| Donna P | 109 |
| Molly | 108 |
| Justin | 108 |
| Courtney | 105 |
| Lourdes | 105 |
| Darryl | 105 |
| Terry | 103 |
| Team Bracken | 103 |
| Baldip | 103 |
| Adam | 103 |
| Denzil | 103 |
| CSA Red Bulls | 103 |
| Marcus | 102 |
| Jason R | 101 |
| Keville | 101 |
| Joe S | 101 |
| Farhan | 101 |
| David | 100 |
| Marcel & Aiden | 100 |
| Quinn | 100 |
| Steve | 99 |
| Jason H | 99 |
| Tom | 99 |
| Des | 98 |
| Ronda | 98 |
| Predictor | 95 |
| Darren | 95 |
| Jay P | 95 |
| Matt | 94 |
| Nigel | 92 |
| Donna K | 89 |
| Mark | 78 |
| Dwayne | 67 |
| Ruby | 19 |
| Average | 101.91 |