Tony needed one more big week to harbor any realistic chance of catching Andy in this contest. Instead, week 16 turned out to be a tie.

Week 16 Tie, 8-8
Season Andy 122-117-1

Here’s the last set of alternative picks for the 2019 regular season.

1) Tony: Patriots over Dolphins – Lots of options at the top, but I’ll stick with the Pats at home, with the comforts of their own in house video equipment.

2) Andy: Saints over Panthers – Focusing week 17 on teams that have something to play for. The Saints are in the mix for a bye and potentially home field in the playoffs.

3) Andy: Packers over Lions – Green Bay has an outside shot at the top seed in the NFC and a pretty decent chance at a bye. Detroit has a pretty good shot at being the first team to have its lockers cleared out.

4) Tony: Rams over Cardinals – The easiest of the games are off the board, so now it comes down to picking from good teams that have nothing to play for, bad teams that have a lot to play for, or games that are completely meaningless. This is one of those meaningless games, but the talent differential is enough for me to move it up the board.

5) Andy: Chiefs over Chargers – Kansas City gets a bye if they win and New England somehow loses to Miami … ok, not a likely scenario, but the Chiefs are playing for the playoffs and the Chargers just want to go home.

6) Tony: Bills over Jets – Buffalo does have the 5th seed locked up in the AFC…but they’re just a better team.

7) Andy: Cowboys over Washington – I looked at the Bills game a couple times but worry about the motivation factor. That could come into play here, although Dallas has a shot at the playoffs. Washington is out and just wants to go home.

8) Tony: 49ers over Seahawks – This game shouldn’t be this high on the list, but the 49ers are trying to hang on to the top seed, and the Seahawks are likely starting a RB that a week ago was serving up shots as a celebrity bartender at a Raiders tailgate.

9) Andy: Titans over Texans – Tennessee is in with a win. Houston’s spot is pretty much already set in stone. Give me the Titans in the return of Derrick Henry.

10) Tony: Browns over Bengals – Kind of surprised this game fell this far–not that the Browns are good, but the Bengals are that bad. Their pride & the cross state rivalry might get them to play their hearts out–they’ve already locked up the first overall pick–but not sure the Bengals playing their hearts out is enough to beat the Browns, even with the Browns complete lack of heart.

11) Andy: Broncos over Raiders – I thought about Browns, but now that the Bengals have wrapped up the top pick, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them win one. Not like it would be beyond this Browns team to pack it in a week early. Not really much to see in this game other than I think the Broncos may be excited to think they may be onto something in Drew Lock, whereas the Raiders are mostly just on something.

12) Tony: Colts over Jaguars – Neither team is playing for anything other than pride…but Indianapolis is just a little bit better than Jacksonville, who might just get another coach fired.

13) Andy: Falcons over Buccaneers – No idea at this point. Flip of a coin.

14) Tony: Ravens over Steelers – A no brainer if Lamar Jackson plays, but I think that the Ravens backups are better than the Steelers backups…a lot of whom will be playing due to injury.

15) Andy: Eagles over Giants – Picked this game for two reasons. First, it sticks Tony with the Vikings’ game, which he hates. And second, because I had to pick one of the two. Eagles are beat up, but ultimately they seem to be finding themselves a little bit here at the end of the season. They certainly are better than the Giants, anyway. They should win.

16) Tony: Bears over Vikings – Would be so Viking like to lose this game, even if it is meaningless…

Andy needed pretty much a clean sweep to have any realistic chance of catching Tony in the straight-up picks. He got a pretty clean win in week 16, but still has a large hill to climb.

Week 16 Season
Tony 9-7 152-89-1
Andy 13-3 145-94-1

 

And our final regular season picks:

Tony Andy
Patriots Patriots
Saints Saints
Packers Packers
Rams Rams
Chiefs Chiefs
Bills Bills
Cowboys Cowboys
49ers 49ers
Texans Titans
Browns Bengals
Broncos Broncos
Colts Colts
Falcons Falcons
Ravens Steelers
Giants Eagles
Bears Vikings