Wiseguys? Even Stoney Burned By Lions Cover As Detroit Experts Go 0-11

Written By Matt Schoch on October 26, 2021
NFL Expert Picks Detroit Lions October 2021

Even Stoney can’t figure out Detroit Lions betting this season.

Detroit earned a cover while dropping to 0-7 in the win-loss column with Sunday’s 28-19 defeat to Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams, but hopefully you weren’t like the experts in picking against our local NFL team.

Four Detroit News picks, four from the Detroit Free Press, the two radio hosts we track each week, and also Stoney’s Circa Millions picks all went against Detroit.

All went down.

Hopefully, more of the Michigan sports betting public faded these guys this time around.

Stoney goes 3-2 in Circa Las Vegas Millions Contest

We told you last week that 971 The Ticket morning show host Mike Stone has been handicapping at a crazy pace early this NFL season.

The wheels are wobbling a bit, but Stoney is still above water.

In the contest, Stoney went 3-2 for Week 7. He won with the Patriots -7, Raiders -3 and Colts +4, while losing with the Rams +15 and Panthers -3. Stoney also went against his rule of not picking a Lions game (he was burned by Detroit’s cover).

Now at 26-8-1 this season, he could fall out of the Top 10 for the season. Stoney was tied for ninth out of more than 4,000 entries heading into Week 7.

Stone tied for the win in the first quarter pole competition, going 18-2 in the first four weeks and winning more than $49,000.

However, we aren’t regularly tracking Stoney’s picks for the weekly Wiseguys feature, as they are not publicized before the weekend when it might be of use for tailing purposes.

Mixed bag for the rest of the Week 7 Wiseguys

The Wiseguys we are tracking generally had a pretty decent week.

The highlights (and lowlights):

  • James Hawkins and Bob Wojnowski both went 8-5 in their Detroit News picks. Wojo held on to his season-long lead (leaderboard below) at
  • All four Detroit Free Press pickers went with a Rams blowout and dropped that one, giving up the game-time line of 16.5 points.
  • Mike Valenti went 3-2, and radio partner Rico Beard was 2-3 this week. Both won with the Bengals and Colts, while losing with the Chiefs and Rams. The split was Valenti picking his Giants, while Beard had the Panthers.
PickerWinsLossesTiesWin percentage
Bob Wojnowski, Detroit News71623.533
John Niyo, Detroit News69643.518
Mike Valenti, 971 The Ticket21211.500
James Hawkins, Detroit News63703.474
Justin Rogers, Detroit News54743.424
Rico Beard, 971 The Ticket18291.385
Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press350.375
Carlos Monarrez, Detroit Free Press260.250
Dave Birkett, Detroit Free Press260.250
Jeff Seidel, Detroit Free Press170.125
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Matt Schoch

A Michigan native, Matt has worked at newspapers in Michigan, Missouri and the Virgin Islands. A versatile sports reporter, Matt has covered sailing on the Great Lakes, cricket in the Caribbean, high school and pro playoffs, and the Olympics in Rio. He's also the former host of the Locked On Pistons Podcast and producer of a documentary on Emoni Bates. A former blackjack dealer, Matt has studied the industry from all sides.

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