Our best bets include a ‘wrong team favored’ and some trends, as Jim Derry shares his top 5 plays and picks ATS and straight up for all 16 NFL games

Two weeks of the NFL season are in the books, and it has been the roughest start for this column since we started it back in 2014. Sure, 8-8 against the spread (3-2 in best bets) in Week 2 wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t good, either, after a horrendous Week 1.

But since we have always been about trends, we like the one that says we were five wins better. Do it again, and we’re 13-3. See what we did there?

OK, I have wasted enough keystrokes on this intro, so I will leave you with this before we get started: The top four picks this week might be the best value plays we have had over the first 3 weeks of the season so far, and a 4-1 or 5-0 would right the ship in a hurry and put us above .500.

NOTES: All spreads, money lines and over/under totals (as of Tuesday) are provided by DraftKings. Home team is listed in CAPS.