Well, we did it, everyone: We survived the longest Sunday in NFL history!
I wasn’t sure if there was going to be a Week 6 this year because I didn’t think Week 5 was ever going to end. The fifth Sunday of the season kicked off at 9:30 a.m. from London and it went on for more than 15 HOURS. It didn’t end UNTIL MONDAY MORNING. The Sunday night game between the Cowboys and Steelers got delayed for 90 minutes, which pushed kickoff from 8:15 p.m ET to 9:45 p.m. ET. By the time the game ended, it was 1 a.m. ET.
It’s a good thing I watched “Inside Out 2” with my 4-year-old over the weekend, because that movie gave me every emotion I needed to make it through Sunday: Anger, Anxiety, Sadness and Joy. I’m sure there were some other ones, but I’m too emotionally exhausted to think about it.
Of course, I am not too emotionally exhausted to make my picks for Week 6, so let’s get to them.
NFL Week 6 picks
San Francisco (2-3) at Seattle (3-2)
8:15 p.m. ET (Amazon)
I’ve seen enough 49ers games this season to know exactly how things are going to go on Thursday night: The 49ers are going to jump out to a double-digit lead and then blow that lead in the fourth quarter.
The 49ers have already blown two double-digit leads in the fourth quarter this year, which is wild when you consider that EVERY other NFL team combined has only blown two double-digit leads in the fourth quarter this year.
One reason the 49ers have been struggling this season is because their red zone offense has been a disaster. Although Jordan Mason has done a solid job of replacing Christian McCaffrey, the one spot where not having McCaffrey really hurts is in the red zone. The 49ers have only scored a TD on 40.91% of their red zone trips, which ranks 30th in the NFL. The only teams that are worse are the Dolphins and Patriots. When your offense is being mentioned in the same conversation as Miami and New England, that’s generally an indication that you’re not doing something right.
The 49ers have been piling up the yardage — they rank second in the NFL in total yards — they just haven’t been able to finish their drives. The good news for the 49ers this week is that they’re facing a Seahawks team that they’ve been dominating over the past few years. The 49ers have won five straight against Seattle and those five wins have come by an average of 15.2 points per game.
If the 49ers want to avoid blowing a double-digit lead, then all they have to do is not lead by double digits. I think this game is going to be close, and somehow, the 49ers will win by a field goal, even though they don’t have a kicker (Jake Moody sprained his ankle in Week 5 and the team will be signing a new kicker for this game).
The pick: 49ers 26-23 over Seahawks
Cleveland (1-4) at Philadelphia (2-2)
1 p.m. ET (Fox)
I know we’re only five games into the season, but I’ve already seen enough of the Browns offense this year to know that whatever they’re doing doesn’t seem to be working. Whenever Deshaun Watson drops back to pass, I’ve noticed that one of three things seems to happen: He gets sacked, he throws an incomplete pass or he fumbles the ball. And on the rare occasion where he does complete pass, it goes for 1.2 yards.
Through five games this season, Watson has been a disaster. As a matter of fact, he’s just the second quarterback over the past 75 years to attempt at least 25 passes in his first five games without hitting 200 yards a single time. At this point, the Browns might want to give up on throwing forward passes.
If you haven’t watched the Browns play this season, you haven’t missed much. If you have been watching the Browns play this season, I’m sorry.
Anyway, there has only been one quarterback benched in the NFL so far this year (Gardner Minshew), and, well, let’s see how his season is going compared to Watson’s.
Yikes.
With Watson struggling, surely the Browns are going to bench him and give someone else a chance? Right? RIGHT?
That’s the advantage of getting a fully guaranteed $230 million contract: No matter how bad you play, the team is going to avoid benching you at all costs. I didn’t pay much attention during my economics class in college, but this seems like a classic case of the sunk-cost fallacy. And let me just say, when you start using terms from Econ 101 to describe a team’s QB situation, that’s usually not a good thing.
Now, you can’t completely blame Watson for all of the Browns’ struggles, because the offensive line has been a total disaster. Watson has been sacked 26 times through five games, which puts him on pace to be sacked 88 times, which would smash the NFL record of 76.
The Browns backup QB is Jameis Winston, and at this point, I think more than half of Cleveland wants to see him get a chance as the Browns’ starting quarterback.
The one upside for the Browns is that they’ve been so bad that the Eagles might overlook them this week. This could turn into a classic trap game … Actually, I’m not even going to finish that sentence. The Eagles are coming off a bye and they’ve had two weeks to prepare for an offense that they probably only needed two hours to prepare for. I’ll take the Eagles.
The pick: Eagles 24-16 over Browns
Washington (4-1) at Baltimore (3-2)
1 p.m. ET (CBS)
The Commanders are one of the biggest surprises in the NFL this year and their 4-1 start is definitely the most unpredictable thing that’s ever happened in Washington D.C. I mean, I thought western civilization as we know it would end before we’d ever see the Commanders start a season 4-1 with a rookie QB, but here we are.
Look, I don’t want to take anything away from what the Commanders have done — Jayden Daniels has been awesome and Washington finally has a franchise QB — but I have to say, I’m not completely sold on them just yet. Their four wins have come against four teams that are a combined 6-14. They haven’t beaten a team that currently has a winning record and their defense is wildly inconsistent.
Although their defense looked impressive in Week 5, that came against the Browns and every defense has looked impressive against the Browns. The Commanders problem is that they’ve given up 5.1 yards per carry on the ground this year. That’s the second-worst number in the NFL and it’s literally the worst weakness you can have when you’re about to face a Baltimore team that leads the NFL in rushing. The Ravens are currently averaging 211.2 yards per game on the ground, which is such an absurd number that I can’t even hit that average in Madden.
Also, the Ravens are averaging 6.1 yards per carry. Basically, Derrick Henry might not get tackled in this game. Every carry he has might go for a touchdown.
If the Ravens are able to run the ball, that will allow them to control the clock, which will keep Daniels off the field, which would be another good thing for Baltimore, because when Daniels is on the field, no one can stop him. Through five weeks, Daniels has been one of the most explosive rookies in NFL history. With 1,135 passing yards and 300 rushing yards, he’s the first player in NFL history have at least 1,000 passing yards and 250 rushing yards through his first five career games.
That being said, I can’t pick against the Ravens and that’s mostly because Lamar Jackson never loses to NFC teams. Over the course of his career, he’s 21-1 against the NFC, a record that includes nine straight wins.
The Commanders are off to their best start since 2008 at 4-1, but I don’t think they’ll be making it to 5-1.
The pick: Ravens 34-31 over Commanders
Early pick: The SportsLine Projection Model gives the Commanders a 50% chance of covering at Baltimore. See all the model’s early Week 6 spread picks and score projections at SportsLine.
Detroit (3-1) at Dallas (3-2)
4:25 p.m. ET (Fox)
The last time these two teams met, it ended up being one of the wildest games of the season. It happened in Week 16 last year and the Cowboys beat the Lions 20-19. You might remember that game better as the one where Lions offensive lineman Taylor Decker appeared to catch the game-winning two-point conversion with 23 seconds left, but it didn’t end up counting because the ref said Decker never reported as an eligible receiver. I’m pretty sure people in Detroit still debate this call to this day.
The only reason I’m mentioning that play is because Dan Campbell was asked about that game this week and apparently, there’s still some fury inside of him because of how things played out. I think what I’m trying to say here is that the Lions are going to be out for revenge and I’ve seen enough nature documentaries to know that you don’t mess with a Lion that’s out for revenge.
One big advantage for the Lions going into this week is that the Cowboys defense is banged up. They definitely won’t have Demarcus Lawrence and they likely won’t have Micah Parsons — you know, the two guys who just happen to be two of their best defensive players. The loss of Parsons and Lawrence didn’t hurt too much in Week 5 because the Cowboys played a team with a non-functional offense (the Steelers), but the loss of that duo could sting this week especially when you add the fact that DE Marshawn Kneeland is also out. Basically, the Cowboys are going to be down a lot of pass-rushing depth, which means Jared Goff might throw for 400 yards in this game.
Of course, even if Goff puts up big numbers, this game could still be close, because there’s a good chance that Dak Prescott will be able to match Goff throw for throw. The Cowboys QB will be going up against a Lions defense that’s surrendering 258.3 passing yards per game, which is the sixth most in the NFL.
This feel like it’s going to be an old-fashioned Texas shootout and I’ve watched enough “Beverly Hills Cop” to know that people from Detroit never lose in shootouts.
The prediction here is that the Lions get their revenge on the Cowboys and they rub it in by making sure that Taylor Decker catches at least one pass, which will almost certainly be a touchdown.
The pick: Lions 34-27 over Cowboys
Buffalo (3-2) at N.Y. Jets (2-3)
8:15 p.m. ET (ESPN)
I’ve never seen a team clinch a division title in Week 6, but that might happen with Buffalo this week. OK, so the Bills can’t technically clinch the AFC East with a win on Monday night, but I feel like I can confidently say that if they beat the Jets in this game, they’re going to coast to the division title.
I mean, just look at the AFC East: The Patriots are the worst team in football and the Dolphins aren’t much better than New England as long as Tua Tagovailoa is out. That leaves us with these two teams and the Jets feel slightly overrated this year, which leaves us with the Bills … or is it the Bills feel slightly overrated this year, which leaves us with the Jets?
I guess that’s what we’re going to find out on Monday night. The Bills biggest problem is that Josh Allen hasn’t looked like Josh Allen this year. In their Week 5 loss to the Texans, he completed just 9 of 30 passes, which was the fewest completions since 1992 by any quarterback who threw at least 30 passes in a game.
I never thought we’d see someone pull a Stan Gelbaugh, but Josh Allen managed to do it. This seems like an obvious bounce-back spot for Allen, but I’m not even sure that’s going to happen. Allen has been a total disaster in road games this year. In three games away from Buffalo, the Bills are 1-2 and Allen has averaged just 150 yards per game through the air while completing just 48.7% of his passes. He’s also averaging just 25.7 yards per game on the ground, which means he’s barely totaling 175 yards of offense in road games.
To add to that, the Jets defense has been one of the best in the NFL this year. They’ve given up the second-fewest yards per game and the fifth-fewest points per game.
Although Aaron Rodgers is banged up, this might be the one game where that’s a good thing because it could lead the Jets to go with a run-heavy game-plan, which is probably what they need to do to beat the Bills. If this game was in Buffalo, I’d probably pick the Bills by two touchdowns, but with Allen struggling on the road, I’ll take the Jets in an upset.
Oh and let’s not forget that fact that Jets just FIRED THEIR HEAD COACH. When that happens, things generally go one of two ways in the next game: You get blown out or you get the one-game interim coach bump. I’ll say the Jets get the bump.
The pick: Jets 22-19 over Bills
NFL Week 6 picks: All the rest
Bears 20-17 over Jaguars
Packers 23-20 over Cardinals
Colts 24-17 over Titans
Texans 27-13 over Patriots
Buccaneers 27-24 over Saints
Broncos 19-16 over Chargers
Steelers 20-13 over Raiders
Falcons 31-20 over Panthers
Bengals 30-27 over Giants
BYES: Chiefs, Rams, Dolphins, Vikings
Last Week
Best pick: Last week, I predicted that the Texans would beat the Bills by exactly three points, and guess what happened? The Texans beat the Bills by exactly three points. If I had missed this pick, I would have put all of the blame on Stefon Diggs. After forcing his way out of Buffalo, there was no way he wasn’t going to get revenge on his old team. At this point, I think it’s pretty clear that Diggs wanted to win just so he could walk by Josh Allen after the game and give him the the side eye of all side eye.
If anyone ever gives me side eye like that, I will certainly want to know how I wronged them in life.
Worst pick: After Andy Dalton was named the starter in Carolina, I jumped on the Andy Dalton hype train, and that train came to a crash in Week 5. Due to my job as the unofficial president of the Andy Dalton Fan Club, I convinced myself to pick the Panthers over the Bears last week and that ended up being one of the three worst predictions in human history, up there with that newspaper headline that said the internet would be a passing fad.
The internet is not a passing fad. The only passing fad is Andy Dalton.
Picks record
Straight up in Week 5: 6-8
SU overall: 36-42
Against the spread in Week 5: 5-9
ATS overall: 32-43-3
You can find John Breech on Facebook or Twitter and if he’s not doing one of those things, he’s probably watching “Inside Out 2” for the ninth time this week because that’s the only thing his daughter wants to watch.
Read the full article here
