Okay - here's my take.
First - Cowherd chooses the games. In their setup on this, RJ has to give the wiseguy position on the pick, whether they would play it or not.
Second, in my own opinion, there is too much emphasis on fading the "public choice." I think this can work in certain instances. Most notably, a team has a huge win and it happens in a spot where there would be a natural letdown. But whenever I hear the public will bet on "A" - therefore you should bet "B" - that's not much of an analysis in my book. If the majority of the public has a superficial view of the game and is missing key factors - well of course they can be wrong. But just because the public likes one side is not much an analysis that this side is wrong.
Third - a lot of these picks are based upon "line value," which I think is a very marginal basis for picking a game. The line was at 1.5 and now you can get it for 2.5 - "excellent value." Okay ... that's great, but that's not much consolation when you have the losing side. It's one thing when the line moves past a critical number, like GB-Miami a few weeks back, but it seems that some of these "value" plays are overblown. How many games are decided by such small moves? Value can be important if you are playing both sides and want to hit a middle or if you play a heavy volume of games, and so perhaps there is more value to the pros for those reasons. But so-called "line value" is far down my list of evaluating whether I want to bet a game.
So that's a start for how you can go 0-5. It's a legitimate question because I simply cannot remember going 0-5. I assume it must have happened - but I cannot remember it.
Perhaps worse is Phil Steele going 0-4 on his CFB selections this Saturday. 0-3 on ESPN and 0-1 for the pick that RJ posted, because no one forced him to pick the games he selected. When I listened to him, he said he was down for the Season, and silly me .... I figured he was due and so I played his picks. And then he went 0-4. God ol' Mighty.