It was a dud of a week for me in the pro football underdog pool. I went with Buffalo over New England, which in turn went nowhere. One of the players ahead of me had Indy over Tennessee, which was a winner, and so now I'm 3½ points out of second place, 4 points out of first. Behind me, four players had the wild Oakland win over Tampa Bay, and with their 13-point pickups I now have a couple of folks 11½ points behind me in the race for third place.

This week's setup is out, and there won't be a whole lot of movement this time around. All four home teams are favored to lose, but not by much:

3 MIAMI vs. Baltimore
3 MINNESOTA vs. Philadelphia
2 ARIZONA vs. Atlanta
1.5 SAN DIEGO vs. Indianapolis

So which of the four underdogs (in caps) should I choose to win its game outright? The point spread is not relevant, except insofar as that's how many points I'll get for a correct pick.

Part of the game at this point is not picking the same games as the players ahead of you. If we all choose the same teams throughout the rest of the pool, I won't advance. Here's what the two players ahead of me said over the last five weeks (winning games marked with an asterisk), if that's any indication of where they'll go this week:

Next week, the spreads should be larger, but again there will be only four games. After that is the final week of the pool -- only two games, probably with a smallish point spread. It's entirely possible that things will be completely settled before that last week's kickoff.

Anyway, readers, I'm counting on you once again for some advice for this week. Miami, Minnesota, Arizona, or San Diego?

UPDATE, 9:35 p.m.: Hey, let's make it easy:

Since two of the games are on Saturday, please vote by Friday night.