Alternative Picks: Week 5, 2020

Tony hurt his own cause last week with four misses among his picks. That powered Andy to a big win and a 10-game lead in the standings. The stakes are higher for him this week than the Titans’ COVID count, if he wants to keep Andy in his sights.

Here’re the standings:

And the alternative picks for week 15:

1) Andy: Seahawks over Vikings – Russell Wilson is on fire and DK Metcalf has twice as many catches (6) over 20 yards this season as the nearest competitor. He may double that this weekend against the inexperienced and, in some cases, just bad Vikings secondary.
2) Tony: Ravens over Bengals – Joe Burrow as to be in the lead for Offensive Rookie of the Year … but his team is going to have a hard time keeping up with the reigning MVP.
3) Tony: Steelers over Eagles – Not a lot of today’s young fans know this, but during the 1943 season, the Steelers & Eagles lost so many players to military service that the teams joined together and called themselves the Steagles. If they did that today, they’d just call it the Steelers, because hardly any Eagles would make the cut.
4) Andy: Rams over Football Team – Boom! That might be the best game prediction write-up to ever appear on this site. Mine won’t be that good, but … if Los Angeles and Washington were to join together, they’d be called the Rams because … Washington doesn’t have a nickname.
5) Tony: Chiefs over Raiders – Wow, the best write up (as declared by you) followed up by possibly the worst. Meanwhile, the Raiders head to Kansas City, and the Raiders have regained some of the bad boy attitude of the 70’s. Unfortunately their bad boy antics these days are refusing to keep a mask on, and getting caught in maskless photo ops at charity events–and the NFL is a lot less fun than it was in the 70’s. None of which has anything to do with the fact that the Chiefs will destroy them on Sunday.
6) Andy: 49ers over Dolphins – I disagree. Any opportunity to make fun of the current status of the Washington Football Team is far from the worst write-up ever. And we’ve had some really bad write-ups. Regarding this game, Miami is better, but far from good. San Francisco is beat up, but still good enough to beat the Dolphins at home.
7) Tony: Bills over Titans – Missed opportunity to reference Super Bowl XIX in that pick. As for my pick, the Titans are hoping for a Music City Miracle that the game just happens…but even if it does, they’re likely going to be missing several players. Add in a Bills team that has been solid so far, and the Titans likely drop their first game.
8) Andy: Cowboys over Giants – Yeah, the Super Bowl XIX reference popped into my head after I sent this. I might have added it after the fact if you hadn’t brought it up. Jagoff. Anyway … on another note, do you think it’s more bothersome to Giants fans that Tom Landry left New York to build the Cowboys into supposedly “America’s Team”? Or is it more bothersome to Cowboys fans that after Jerry Jones whacked him at a golf course, that he reportedly went back to becoming a Giants fan for his final years? Or … maybe nobody really cares. Dallas is bad, but the Giants are worse.
9) Tony: Cardinals over Jets – How did we get this far without picking against the Jets? I realize Arizona is on the road, and coming off a two game losing streak that hasn’t seen them play that well…but it’s Adam Gase.
10) Andy: Saints over Chargers – Brees clearly holds a vendetta against his old team. He seems like the angry, grudge-holding type. This is probably his last chance to exact revenge. He’ll be motivated.
11) Tony: Panthers over Falcons – Wouldn’t have picked this one heading into the season, but the Panthers are 2-0 since CMC went down with an injury, and the Falcons haven’t won a game since 2019.
12) Andy: Patriots over Broncos – Stidham v Lock? Hoyer v Rypien? Not exactly how the networks drew this one up when the schedules came out. But New England is better than Denver.
13) Tony: Buccaneers over Bears – Finally letting you pick a game at risk…Pats had another COVID case, I think? This game features two 3-1 teams–one that people expected–although I’m not 100% sure why–and one that I doubt many did. It also features one team that just played it’s best half of football all year (at least their QB), and one that just lost their first game of the year, after benching the quarterback that no fans wanted in favor of the one that most fans wanted.
14) Andy: Browns over Colts – Let’s be real. Does anyone REALLY want Nick Foles? I would say they wanted Trubisky less. I can pretty much guarantee I’m going to get this game wrong. Why? Because I’ve held off on becoming a believer in Cleveland. I am picking them here because I’m jumping on board. They have a nice, solid history of sucking. But even when they haven’t sucked, they’ll convince you they’re on to something and then pull the rug out from under you. It’s kind of like being a Vikings fan on extra large doses of steroids.
15) Tony: Jaguars over Texans – Other than being the home team, I’m not sure how the Texans are favored here. Firing Bill O’brien helps in the long run, but it doesn’t solve all of the issues he created. Jaguars aren’t very good either, but they have more interesting pieces on both sides of the ball than Houston.

While his alternative picks were abysmal, Tony only cost himself one game in the straight-up picks.