I’m going to admit upfront, if you’re using our picks as a basis for gambling on games so far this season, you’re making a big mistake.

I’ve been a disaster and that continued into week four, as my 1-3 took me to 4-12 for the season.

Tony has been better, but not good. His 3-1 brought him to 8-8 for the year.

I feel a turnaround coming sometime soon here, but you’ve been warned.

Here are our picks for week five.

Andy

Atlanta (-3) at Washington – Washington has been a nice surprise so far, but the Redskins are still giving up 326 yards per game through the air. Atlanta is white hot right now. Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, Roddy White and others have torn the league up in their first four games. I expect that to continue with another comfortable win, despite the positive signs that are emerging as Robert Griffin III develops.

Green Bay (-7) at Indianapolis – I think the Packers are going to establish a winning streak over the next few weeks as the team bands together around the feeling that it has been victimized by several bad officials’ calls. They’d win this game either way, however, as the Colts have given up more than 230 yards and five touchdowns the first three weeks of the season while facing Jay Cutler, Christian Ponder and Blaine Gabbert. The run defense isn’t stellar either. Cedric Benson and Aaron Rodgers will both have stellar games this week in an easy win.

Seattle (+3) at Carolina – The Panthers give up more than 130 yards a game on the ground. Seattle’s Marshawn Lynch is pretty good. I don’t like West Coast teams heading east, as statistics show they don’t generally perform well. But I think Seattle has a good chance of bucking that trend and winning this game outright.

Upset of the week: San Diego (+165) at New Orleans – There aren’t a lot of upsets I’m comfortable with this week, but this one jumps out at me. The 0-4 Saints are favored by 3.5 points against a Chargers team that has looked better than I expected during a 3-1 start. New Orleans was decimated by the commissioner’s bounty gate suspensions and I’m not sure there is going to be a lot of fight left this week.

Tony

Cleveland Browns (+8.5) at NY Giants – Last week I predicted the Browns would keep it within the spread against an opponent that has a history of playing down to the competition. This week…we’ll stick with it.

Atlanta Falcons (-3) at Washington Redskins – I just don’t like the ability of the Redskins to keep up with the Falcons, even with the Falcons on the road. The condition of Julio Jones may play into that, but even if he’s hampered, the Falcons have options.

Houston Texans at NY Jets: Over 41.5 – If the Jets come out as flat as they did last week, they will find a way to get Tim Tebow into the game more (they may anyway), and at the worst he will find a way to put some points on the board in garbage time, which will ultimately provide the Monday Night crew something to blather on about, and give ESPN yet another reason to cram Tebowmania down our throats. As if they’ve needed a reason so far.

Upset of the Week: Seattle (+140, +3) at Carolina – Another week in which I don’t find a lot of value in the mid-range upsets or greater, unless you want to take a real long shot like the Browns (+305 at NY Giants), Colts (+250 hosting Green Bay), Chiefs (+235 hosting Baltimore) or Bills (+335 at San Francisco) catch fire against opponents that seem to have a knack for playing down to their opponents, but I don’t see any of those happening this week. And in normal circumstances I would probably grab the Chargers at +160 at New Orleans, but I still don’t trust a Norv Turner coached team.

So despite my normal stance against taking West Coast teams that are traveling east, I’ll take a shot on the Seahawks upsetting the Panthers, mainly due to their defense, which has not allowed a QB rushing TD in 18 games, just one in the last 63 games, and not allowed more than 33 yards rushing by a QB in 114 games (thanks to Paul Charchian for the stats).

On top of that, they have the tall, physical corners that can shut many passing attacks down, and their defense has 10 sacks in the last two games and they are allowing a second best 62.8 yards per game rushing. Not good signs for a team that is already struggling offensively, and gave up 77 yards in the final minute of last week’s loss to the Falcons.

To see our week five picks, click here.