Friends in football,

In WeeWoo, we had eight teams with between 55% and 81% of our picks. Let's call this pack the "slight favorites". They went 1-7, with only the 55%-picked Bucs sparing us the donut.

MAKE YOUR WEEK 11 PICKS

• BFIG Survivor >>
• WeeWoo Pick'em >>
• FitzMagic Survivor >>
• Pick deadline: 5:15pm PT Thursday (11/17)

What is a "slight favorite" in the 2022 NFL, anyway?

The Vegas line is set based on their best guess at what'll drive equal betting action on both sides. It's not based on deep conviction of what the actual result of each game will be.

But if you find a pigskin shaman with that deep conviction, please send them Commish's way. We'll shoot a killer infomercial together.

We had ONE dose of sublime normalcy this weekend - Stefon Diggs and Justin Jefferson doing the stupidly impressive things of which we know they're capable.

Beyond that, let's recap just a FEW of the other events of this weekend:

• Taylor Heinicke as the most unlikely protagonist yet in the "let's dress up our QB in gold and silver chains" trend
• The NFL's undefeated top dog losing by double digits to a sub-.500 divisional rival at home
• 72-year-old Matt Ryan busting out a career high 39-yard run, including a juke that split two DBs near the sideline
• That 39-yard run being clocked at approximately 12 seconds
• Losing high school football coach, Jeff Saturday, winning his first game as coach of the Indianapolis Colts
• Losing NFL football coach, Josh McDaniels, being described by his boss as "doing a fantastic job" after losing to Jeff Saturday dropped the playoff team he inherited to 2-7
• The projected "best division ever" (AFC West) falling to a combined 17-19
• Favorites going 5-9 against the spread and 6-8 straight up
• Christian Watson becoming likely the first receiver ever to have multiple drops and multiple incorrect routes in a game where he also scored three touchdowns
• Dennis Allen continuing to assert that Andy Dalton is better than Jameis Winston
• Colt McCoy beating John Wolford in a real NFL game
• A game at Lambeau Field featuring Mike McCarthy actually going for it on 4th down

I HAD ALL OF IT ON MY BINGO BOARD, I SWEAR.

Two early reminders for Thanksgiving Week aka Week 12:

• Picks lock EARLY because there are three games on Thursday. Lock is at 9:30am PT on Thanksgiving Day
• The weekly WeeWoo prize bumps to $5,030 for the holiday stretch (Weeks 12-16). We add $3,030 to the normal prize in honor of Jameis "Eat a W" Winston's legendary 30 TD, 30 INT season

Things are getting real in our survivor competitions. Read on for the details.

BFIG RECAP

Pick spreadsheet | Game outcomes

We went from 105 to 72 after our first 2-pick week - our second best Week 10 performance ever.

"Safety is still working... but at what cost?"

Many of us who took moderate risks in Week 10 by picking below-.500 teams (Bears over Lions, Raiders over Colts) saw our BFIG Title Belt dreams end, including Commish. The top four picks (Giants, Chiefs, Niners, Dolphins) - all likely playoff teams - won. So the question is, at what cost are the survivors still riding the best teams? Less than 50% of BFIG combatants have the following likely playoff teams available: BAL, BUF, CIN, DAL, KC, MIA, MIN, NYG, PHI, TB. If you're counting, that's 10/14 likely playoff teams. The pickings are getting slim...

WEEWOO RECAP

Pick spreadsheet | Game outcomes

The best we could muster was 12-2. For the second time this SZN, WeeWoo's weekly title goes to a pack of people with two losses. Shout out to @CraigRich, @Keiffapro, @Kristof99, @Madorable, @Mikeusf15, @VegasDen, @bradsankus, @golowrusto, @kmparks0530, and @ryanoflan, who split the weekly $2K haul.

STOP PICKING ALL THE FAVORITES 

(Deep breaths, Commish. Deep breaths.) When subtlety fails, you have to change tactics. If you took all favorites this week, you went 5-9. And remember, the goal in WeeWoo is to win a week and bank the huge money that comes with that. Almost never do even 75% of favorites win their games. And on MANY occasions this year, less than half have prevailed. 3-point Vegas favorites should not be getting 70% of our WeeWoo picks. MAKE COMMISH PROUD, MY PEOPLE!

FITZMAGIC RECAP

Pick spreadsheet | Game outcomes

We went from 842 to 495, taking on slightly more water than we did in BFIG.

Felled by the Rise of the Bottom Feeders

Our top three losses were at the hands of the Lions, Panthers, and Colts. Oof. While the damage was slightly worse than BFIG (59% survival rate vs. 69% for BFIG), seeing more than half of combatants survive a 2-pick week still qualifies as a good week.

Stat of the week: Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers faced off AGAINST each other in an overtime football game and, defying all logic, physics, and statistics, both did not lose the game.

Team SZN record: Commish's run ended with a missed extra point. If your survivor fate is in the hands of a kicker, you do NOT want it to be a Bears kicker. Detroit beat Chicago 31-30 in large part owing to a Cairo Santos missed extra point in the 4th quarter. Commish does not regret the pick. Commish is sad about the result. ONWARD.

Yours in football,
The Commish