Alternative Picks: Week 13, 2020

The grind that is the COVID-affected 2020 football season has approached the final quarter of the season. Andy still has a solid lead in the picks segments, but a couple big wins the last three weeks have brought Tony back to within striking distance.

Here are the standings:

We’re one bye week game away from being done with them for the season, assuming COVID doesn’t push any games into the hypothetical week 18. So far, so good, at least according to what has hit the media so far, knock on wood. Here are the alternative picks for this week:

1) Andy: Chiefs over Broncos – Even if Denver gets its entire QB room back, they’re not beating the Chiefs this week.
2) Tony: Steelers over Football Team – Pittsburgh had another weird week in week 12 … but gets to follow it up with another relatively easy week 13 match-up.
3) Tony: Raiders over Jets – The Raiders have struggled the last few weeks, but they get a nice cure for that in NY. Or NJ, I guess.
4) Andy: Seahawks over Giants – Daniel Jones hasn’t been great, but he’s managed to keep the Giants competitive at times. Colt McCoy managed the game alright against Cincinnati on Sunday. Can he do the same against Seattle? I doubt it.
5) Tony: Packers over Eagles – The Packers are fighting to get home field advantage in the playoffs, and need to keep pace with the Saints. The Eagles are still in the hunt for the NFC East, but losing isn’t likely to hurt them much in that race.
6) Andy: Dolphins over Bengals – I’m not quite ready yet to say Miami has arrived, though I do think they are headed quickly in the right direction. They should be able to take another fairly simple step with a win over Cincinnati, whose ascent abruptly stopped when Joe Burrow shredded his knee.
7) Tony: Bills over 49ers – Getting into the decent matchups now…never would have guessed heading into the year that picking Buffalo over San Francisco would be this high on the list. It’s not a given, with the 49ers getting their running game back–but the Bills actually appear to have taken a big step forward this year.
8) Andy: Ravens over Cowboys – Baltimore has struggled the last month, but not nearly to the depths of Dallas. The Cowboys apparently are the worst team in the worst division in the NFL’s last several seasons.
9) Tony: Colts over Texans – The Colts are coming off an ugly loss, and the Texans are coming off an easy win. That doesn’t change the fact that the Colts are a decent team, and the Texans aren’t.
10) Andy: Bears over Lions – Chicago continues to have a ridiculously bad QB situation. Detroit should feel unshackled due to Matt Patricia finally losing his job. My first inclination is the Lions should be in the perfect spot to pull an upset here. That said, my first inclination has usually been wrong this season, so I’m picking the Bears.
11) Tony: Saints over Falcons – The Saints/Broncos game on Sunday was an embarrassment to the league–one team playing without a real quarterback due to Covid, and the other team playing without a real quarterback simply due to the ego of their head coach. I’d like nothing more than for the Falcons to crush the Saints on Sunday. But even if they roll out Taysom Hill one more time, I just don’t see them pulling it off.
12) Andy: Chargers over Patriots – Ha. I was hoping you’d pick that one. If Hill plays again, the Falcons are winning that game. Herbert continues showing he’s the future of LA’s second team. Newton is showing that he’s not a worthy heir to Tom Brady.
13) Tony: Vikings over Jaguars – Oh, how I hate picking the home team…I have no doubt that the Vikings will find a way to make this game difficult–but they should find a way to win.
14) Andy: Browns over Titans – I was going to take the Jaguars. But, oh well, I ended up with them anyway. The only thing I know about this game for sure is, with Derrick Henry, Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt running the ball, it should be a fast game. Both teams go back and forth between looking great and looking crappy. Flip of a coin says Cleveland wins this week.
15) Tony: Cardinals over Rams – I’m surprised you took that game #14…and surprised you took the Browns.  They’ve looked good, but in winning 4 of their last 5, they haven’t exactly beaten anyone significant–nor by any large margins. A rolling Titans squad is a big ask–that would put them on the playoff scene for sure. Meanwhile, Rams-Cardinals is a couple of teams that struggled in last second losses this past Sunday…guess I’m thinking the Cardinals defense comes up with a way to pull it off?

The writers’ straight-up picks returned to at least a reasonable level of success. Their records wouldn’t win them many Super Bowls, but they would at least be viewed as competent players.

Here are their picks for week 13.