Week 3 Football Pick’em Contest Strategy & Advice (2025)

We run through Week 3 NFL pick'em strategy, breaking down each matchup to spot value picks and smart upsets to consider.

by Spencer Limbach - Sep 19, 2025

Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams (18) throws the football in action during a game between the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears on December 22, 2024 at Soldier Field in Chicago, IL.

(Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire)

We’re back with fresh strategy and advice for Week 3 of the 2025 season. This column works alongside our Football Pick’em Picks product, which blends public pick popularity data with advanced modeling to highlight the smartest plays for your pool.

Each week, we’ll cover tactics to give you an edge in both NFL and college football pick’em contests. We’ll also walk through the reasoning behind certain recommended plays, especially when the data points to a contrarian pick.

This article will be updated throughout Week 3 with new insights and late-breaking notes. Here’s what’s available so far:

9/21: Sunday Rooting Guide
9/19: Commanders QB Jayden Daniels Unlikely to Play
9/17: QB Justin Fields Out for Jets
9/16: Week 3 Early Value Picks
9/16: Week 2 Results
FYI: Notes About Picks We Highlight
FYI: About Our Pick’em Pool Advice

Sunday 9/21

Sunday Rooting Rundown

Our pick recommendations can be for different teams for different types of pools. What we recommend in a season-long can differ from what we recommend in a weekly contest, and spread pools can be a different beast. Even in spread pools, you may have a different pick recommendation than our general numbers, because of the specific numbers available in your pool.

This Week 3 rooting guide offers a general overview of our pick recommendations, and individual results may vary.

Game Winner

In season-long, you mostly have favorites. Right now, our models are favoring Houston over Jacksonville even though the Texans a slight dog in the betting market.

In weekly contest prize pools, you will see the following dogs and close games featured more heavily:

Chicago (95%)
New England (94%)
Arizona (93%)
Denver (89%)
Las Vegas (50%)
LA Rams (43%)

Spread Pools

Here are our top picks in season-long ATS pools, Max Profit picks by percentage, all at over 95% recommended:

Kansas City (99.9%)
Cleveland (99.6%)
Houston (99.2%)
Denver (99.2%)
New Orleans (99,2%(
New York Jets (97.8%)
Tennessee (97.8%)
Baltimore (97.7%)
Carolina (96.4%)
Dallas (96.2%)

And here are all those over 95% in weekly formats, where popularity influences more (those that did not appear on the season-long list are bolded):

New Orleans (99,9%)
Cleveland (99.8%)
New York Jets (99.7%)
Denver (99.7%)
Las Vegas (99.7%)
LA Rams (99.1)
Carolina (99.0%)
Tennessee (98.8%)
Arizona (98.4%)
Baltimore (97.7%)
New England (95.9%)
Chicago (95.3%)

Friday 9/19

Commanders QB Jayden Daniels Unlikely to Play

Per Adam Schefter, Jayden Daniels was not spotted at practice on Friday, making it unlikely he suits up for Sunday’s game against the Raiders. Marcus Mariota would be in line to get the start in his place.

The betting line was Raiders +3.5 prior to this news (we recommended it at that number in our NFL Week 3 Picks article), but has since moved to Raiders +3 at some sportsbooks in the wake of this information. With Daniels’ absence perhaps not fully baked into the market yet, there’s a chance the line continues to shift.

From a pool strategy perspective, the Raiders are an intriguing contrarian play. Only 21% of the public is picking them to win outright, but our numbers currently give them 42% win odds. That makes them viable in weekly pools or spots where you are willing to play aggressively in game winner pools.

Against the spread, just 29% of entries are taking the Raiders at +3.5, so if your pool locked in that number, it would represent strong value.

Wednesday 9/17

Jets QB Justin Fields Ruled Out

Jets QB Justin Fields will miss the Week 3 matchup with Tampa Bay. He is in concussion protocol and has been officially ruled out. Veteran QB Tyrod Taylor will start in his place.

Tampa Bay has its own injuries on the offensive line, and we haven’t seen a significant adjustment for Fields’ absence in the point spread, as the difference between him and Taylor is not large.

Right now, Tampa Bay is a 6.5-point home favorite, with 72% win odds and 86% pick popularity.

Fields is the fourth starting quarterback who will already be missing a start in 2025, just three weeks in (Joe Burrow of Cincinnati, J.J. McCarthy of Minnesota, and Brock Purdy of San Francisco are the others).

We are also waiting on a final decision on Washington quarterback Jayden Daniels, who has a knee sprain and is questionable. If Washington takes the cautious approach with the young franchise quarterback who relies on his mobility to make plays, then Marcus Mariota could start in his place as well.

Tuesday 9/16

Week 3 Early Value Picks

The lines are out for Week 3, and we already have enough pick’em activity to spotlight some value plays. Per usual, we have several games where the odds are near a coin flip, yet the public is leaning heavily one way. Those mismatches create leverage opportunities in both game-winner and pick’em pools. Here are some of the best early value plays: