Alternative Picks: Week 10, 2020

The roll continues. The writers were pretty good in week nine, but Tony missed two to Andy’s one. So the gap widens.

Andy went first this week. Here are their picks.

1) Andy: Packers over Jaguars – The silence you hear in Lambeau Field Sunday won’t have anything to do with the Packers getting beat by Jacksonville.
2) Tony: Steelers over Bengals – The Steelers survived a scare against the lowly Cowboys. I suspect it will light a bit of a fire under them.
3) Tony: Saints over 49ers – The 49ers will have some weapons back…but not enough to hang with the Saints, as long as Michael Thomas doesn’t try to beat up any teammates again this week.
4) Andy: Ravens over Patriots – This isn’t going to be like a re-match of great playoff games from the past. The Patriots are in a rebuild and, even struggling a bit right now, Baltimore is a contender. This should be a pretty simple game.
5) Tony: Dolphins over Chargers – Not sure why this game is only 2.5 points in Miami’s favor…they’re at home, and while they honestly haven’t looked as good since Tua took over, they’re playing a team that is making NFL fans forget about the Falcons giving up leads…but hey, they’ve got cool uniforms.
6) Andy: Browns over Texans – I’m kind of looking forward to Tua vs Herbert. It’s a far cry from the classic 1981 season playoff game between these two teams, but these two QBs give both organizations their best hopes in quite some time. On another note, Cleveland has generated some headlines the last couple years with Baker being Baker, Odell being Odell and Myles Garrett swinging his helmet at Mason Rudolph. That’s kind of blurred the fact that the Browns are actually pretty good. Houston isn’t.
7) Tony: Raiders over Broncos – Las Vegas is drawing plenty of attention for Covid related reasons–becoming the first team to lose a draft pick over their failure to follow pretty basic instructions–but they’re quietly sitting in the second wildcard spot, and facing a Broncos team that is the best of the lousiest in the AFC.
8) Andy: Bears over Vikings – Sure, Minnesota has played much better the last couple weeks. Sure, the Bears look inept. The Vikings nearly never win in Soldier Field, no matter how each team is playing. Kirk Cousins has looked completely inept against Chicago every time they have played. And the Bears are still a better team overall than the Vikings. That Minnesota is a favorite going into Chicago on Monday night mystifies me … that said, every time I’ve been mystified this season, I’ve been wrong. … Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
9) Tony: Buccaneers over the Panthers – The Panthers have looked decent, despite being 3-6, and just took it to the Chiefs–but they’re still losing those tight games–might be because they’re struggling to find ways to involve DJ Moore (says the DJ Moore owner in several leagues)?
10) Andy: Bills over Cardinals – Surprisingly, this might be one of the more entertaining games on the schedule this week. Kyler Murray and Josh Allen are two of the better young QBs in the game right now. Both of these teams have a strong shot at the playoffs, but I think Buffalo is a little ahead of Arizona overall.
11) Tony: Eagles over Giants – With a win on Sunday, the Eagles would basically wrap up the NFC East…which is actually making me re-think this pick a little bit …
12) Andy: Seahawks over Rams – You should be rethinking all of your picks a little bit given how this season has gone. Ba dump bump. The Rams are solid and methodical. The Seahawks are awesome on offense, but putrid on defense. But Russell Wilson is better than Jared Goff.
13) Tony: Lions over Football Team – Russell Wilson is better than most QBs in the league, including Josh Allen and Kyler Murray — the two QB that have beaten him in the last three weeks — I’m fine with the Rams here. I’ll let you close out picks with the two good teams, and I’ll take the two putrid teams–Detroit never really even looked like a threat to the previously hapless Vikings on Sunday … yet I’ll still take them over Football Team.
14) Andy: Titans over Colts – Both of these teams rank as playoff-teams-but-non-Super-Bowl-contenders-in-the-AFC, as far as I am concerned. I think both are solid. The Colts are better than I thought, but Philip Rivers has mostly shown he should have retired a year or two ago. The Titans are a little less than I thought they’d be. They keep finding themselves in tight games against teams that aren’t that good. Then they blew the game against Cincy a couple weeks ago. Maybe that served as a wake-up call, because they made pretty convincing work of Chicago last week. I think the Titans are a little better and they are at home on a short week.

Tony had been keeping the weekly picks relatively close, but Andy put some distance between them in week 9.

Here are their straight-up picks for week 10.