This week, I wanted to educate you on two of my favorite types of bets, the parlay and the progressive parlay. With these two wagers, you can arm yourself with the tools necessary to lose money like Chadam and I do. Excited?

photo credit: locusolus

A parlay is when you combine several point-spread wagers into one bet. If you pick all the games correctly, you receive a big payout, but if any one of the teams loses, you lose your entire bet.

There is a very high risk in this bet, but it also has a high reward. For example, if you think the Titans, Colts and Jets are all going to cover the spread, you could make three $10 individual bets on each team. If they all win, you win $28.56 in profits ($9.52 on each).

If you bet $30 on a parlay (+644) for those three teams, and they won, you would win $64.42 profit.

The rumblings were true that the Cowboys wanted to start collecting Roy Williams-es on their roster. One is never enough. After today’s count, they have two, their injured safety of horse-collar tackle fame and the underperforming wideout that found himself lost in the Detroit offense this season.

This trade is finally a positive story out of Dallas — a change from the deflating news of Tony Romo’s broken finger and Adam Jones’ indefinite suspension, which will sideline both playmakers for at least four weeks. The Cowboys have lost a lot of key players lately with Romo, safety Roy (the horse-collar Roy) Williams, cornerbacks Adam “Pacman” Jones and Terence Newman, rookie RB Felix Jones and punter Mat McBriar all expected to miss several upcoming games.

Dallas made the move to acquire Roy Williams and a seventh-round pick from the Detroit Lions for Dallas’ first-round, third-round and sixth-round pick.

It’s about time some of the fantasy studs broke out this year. This week has some matchups to watch. If you ‘bought low’ on guys like Ryan Grant and Maurice Jones-Drew, picked up Deuce McAllister or drafted Bernard Berrian for depth, this week should show you what they’re worth.

For those of you who may have missed the first few weeks of the start or sit breakdown here at the Fools, the “Hot Hands” are players you definitely want to start while “Cold Shoulders” are bums that should leave you hanging this week. The “Bubble Boys” classification points out guys that are somewhere in the middle. They may be (and usually are) good starts, but I still have some concerns about them this week. If you feel that they are your best option, go ahead and start them.

As usual, I’ll be answering sit/start questions in the comments up until the game time on Sunday.

“Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in.”

There are some crazily enticing lines this week that are making me open up my wallet again. Thanks, Vegas! Besides, I need to find another way to spend my time after I developed this nasty drinking habit after Sunday’s Texans game…

Dear Sage Rosenfels:

You didn’t look too good on Sunday. In case you’re reading, I left a hidden message for you in the article.

Signed,
The entire city of Houston.

I’ll post the answer to Sage’s hidden message in next week’s picks article, and I think you’ll enjoy it. If you think you know what the answer is, please post your guess in the comments. (The Sage picture linked to in our letter is via Gallo on ESPN. Check his selected pics from this week for more good ones.)

Oakland Raiders at New Orleans Saints

Chadam Takes: SAINTS (-7.5) over Raiders
Gotta go with the Saints here, even after their Monday night implosion.

Chadam and Nick had a rough weekend. Nick was swamped last week trying to put together a fantasy lineup that could stop my crushing force of a team in our shared fantasy football league. Unfortunately for Nick, it looks like his efforts were in vain.

Chadam, on the other hand, spent the entire weekend crying uncontrollably because Chris Simms was cut from the Tennessee Titans roster. I’m not exactly sure if that was the reason, but he has a special place in his heart for the spleenless. If he has a better reason than that for why he was unable to get his picks into a cohesive article before Sunday, he’ll have to let you know in the comments.

Chicago Bears at Detroit Lions

Chadam Takes: Bears (-3.5) over LIONS
I think Forte runs for 500 yards, and that’s a conservative guess.

Nick Takes: Bears (-3.5) over LIONS
Does anybody know if Jon Kitna is back? Better question: Does anyone care?

Last week, Nick and I were on fire. We had identical picks for 12 of the 15 games, and in those games, the two of us went 8-3 with one push.

Sadly, I lost the three picks on which we disagreed. After a sterling 11-3-1 record in Week 2, Nick is now up by three games.

Before we get started, let me explain a bit of what goes on behind the curtain.

While we don’t discuss our picks before we send them in to Jacob each week, Nick and I do watch football together on Sundays with all of our friends and participate in a mutual fantasy football league (with Jacob). It should come as no surprise that our picks and our logic are often similar, but no worries here. I’m going to beat Nick like he owes me money this week.

Obviously, things change in fantasy football. There’s no Tom Brady, and therefore, no Randy Moss. Offenses in Seattle, Cincinnati and Cleveland are in shambles. Jacksonville keeps turning it over, and the Denver Broncos might have the most explosive offense of 2008.

Shanny, we knew you had it in you. I won’t even say that I called it. (I CALLED IT), but it was right there in front of our noses. This year might be a competition between T.O. and Baby T.O. for the top wide receiver spot.

Who else is hot this week? (Well, besides the obvious.)

Hot Hands

J.T. O’Sullivan, Bryant Johnson, Isaac Bruce vs. Lions: We are starting bold. The 49ers face off against Mike Martz’s former home. I think Detroit probably knows a lot of Martz’s schemes, but Martz also knows how to exploit the Detroit defense — not like that information is really top secret. I like this one to be high scoring and crazy. If you have J.T.

Well, that just sucks. Thanks, Week 1. Today being Patriot Day just seems to be an even more depressing reminder of the losses in real life and our slightly much less important fantasy football losses.

If you were one of the lucky fantasy footballers who lost Tom Brady this past weekend, I assume I just caught you wallowing in your own self-pity, eating a cheeseburger off the floor between fits of crying, alcoholism and throwing Cheetos…

Don’t get up. I’ll squat down to your level.

You probably don’t even feel like waking up anymore. You thought you had this incredible season of fantasy football coming together — Tom Brady leading an UNSTOPPABLE fantasy force — but it’s all come crashing down. We should have known better when Bernard Pollard started dating Tonya Harding.