Week 3 picks are up, get 'em while they're hot
With 18 teams currently at 1-1 and several big names on the injury report, we're going into Sunday with more uncertainty than usual. But we still like a few potential upsets.
Heading into Week 3, more than half of the NFL has a 1-1 record. While we have a fairly good idea of which 2-0 teams are legit and which 0-2 teams still have a chance to contend, the 18 squads sitting at .500 are a little tougher to peg.
Are the Steelers the team that upset the Bills in Buffalo, or the one that got roasted at home by the Raiders? Are the Packers the team that laid an egg against the Saints, or the one that finally woke up in the second half against the Lions?
Week 3 might provide us with a little more clarity, but there’s only so much we can expect to learn. It’s a long season, after all. At the very least, we might start to see signs of which teams are coming together.
Six of this week’s matchups will pit two 1-1 teams against each other, and the three of us mostly agree on who will emerge with a winning record:
(Quick note about this week’s picks: There are several injury statuses to key players that remain up in the air. It’s possible we might have to change a pick or two, depending on if we hear any concrete news about whether, say, Carson Wentz or T.J. Watt will be playing. )
Several of these games, whether due to injury or not, left us waffling a bit. So let’s discuss how we decided on some of Week 3’s trickier contests.
Sarah’s picks
Taking the Panthers over the Texans Thursday night was the biggest no-brainer of this week. Unfortunately, the rest of slate wasn’t as simple. Here’s a look at the other 15 games on deck (my picks are in bold):
Washington at Bills
Bears at Browns
Ravens at Lions
Colts at Titans
Chargers at Chiefs
Saints at Patriots
Falcons at Giants
Bengals at Steelers
Cardinals at Jaguars
Jets at Broncos
Dolphins at Raiders
Bucs at Rams
Seahawks at Vikings
Packers at 49ers
Eagles at Cowboys
I’m feeling most confident in these picks (Last week: 3-0)
I’m going with a theme for this week’s section: I feel good picking against a team if its quarterback was injured last week and a backup is starting — or possibly starting* — for the first time this season.
Despite my affection for Justin Fields, I’m worried about him in his first NFL start. That’s not a knock on Fields; I simply don’t trust Matt Nagy to adapt his offensive scheme to fit Fields’ strengths. Nor do I trust the Bears’ OL against Myles Garrett and Jadeveon Clowney. I expect the Browns will pressure Fields early and often Sunday. In those circumstances, he has a tendency to try to do too much, as we saw last week with his ugly interception:
Fields has never lost a game in the state of Ohio, but I think that streak ends this weekend.
I can’t say I’m ever too confident in the Titans. They could win or lose any of the games on their schedule, and I wouldn’t bat an eye. Their first meeting this season with the Colts, however, is the exception to my unofficial rule, thanks to Indy’s QB situation:
Lastly, the Raiders might be 2-0, but we’ve seen them get off to hot starts before only to watch them crash and burn like many others who have pilgrimaged to Sin City. I can’t fully buy into them as contenders just yet, and Jacoby Brissett will almost assuredly play better this week than he did last week when he entered in relief of Tua Tagovailoa. That said, the Raiders’ pass rush, one of the more pleasant surprises so far this season, should continue to feast:
Better figure out how to talk to your kids about a 3-0 Raiders team.
*I’m not including Ben Roethlisberger in this category, despite his uncertain status for Sunday. I know he’s 39 now and has suffered major injuries since, but Terrell Suggs’ words from 2016 will always be true: “He’s gonna act like ‘aw, I’m not playing, I don’t know, I did individual [workouts] a little bit.’ But then he’ll walk his big ass on out there and [I’ll be like] ‘how you doin’ Benjamin.’”
I’m feeling least confident in these picks (Last week: 2-0 or 2-1*)
Who asked for a Falcons-Giants matchup? Yuck. The Giants, after playing on Thursday night last week, are a little more rested, so I went with them. That’s as much thought as I was willing to put into this one.
Speaking of the Giants, I made a mistake last week of relying too much on recent history when I picked them to beat Washington. Until then, Daniel Jones had never lost to WFT. So this time, I’m going to try the opposite and take the Vikings, who are a grim 0-7 against the Seahawks since Pete Carroll has been in Seattle.
Both teams will be looking to get the taste of last week’s deflating loss out of their mouths, but the Vikings are a little more desperate (and won’t be playing in primetime, when Kirk Cousins almost always turns into a pumpkin). And if Dalvin Cook is somewhat healthy, Mike Zimmer will not hesitate to hand him the ball 30 times and let him try to imitate what Derrick Henry just did against Seattle’s suspect run defense.
I kinda already regret this pick, though. It feels like a Charlie Brown and the football scenario. I might change my mind still if Cook is a late scratch or his status changes from “little sprain” to medium or worse.
Finally, I know better, after 20 years, not to underestimate Tom Brady so I will never feel certain going against him. The Bucs have been the best team so far in 2021, but they’ve looked vulnerable at times and will be facing their toughest challenge yet this Sunday in LA. They could be without a couple of key players (Antonio Brown, Jason Pierre-Paul), too.
Although the Rams haven’t been a paragon of consistency, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sean McVay has spent a significant amount of time game planning for this specific matchup. Not necessarily because I think he’s looking for revenge against Brady for Super Bowl 53. Instead, I think he wants the Rams to assert themselves as the team to beat in the NFC. If both the Rams and Bucs play their cards right, the outcome of their meeting could be the deciding factor for who ends up as the NFC’s top seed.
*As I said last week, I had planned to include the Chiefs-Ravens game, but I didn’t actually offer an analysis due to the Ravens’ mounting injuries. It was a loss for me either way, but it’s up to you whether you want to count it against me in this particular section.
Why I made these upset picks (Last week: 1-1)
I’m probably being foolish by predicting the Bengals will beat the Steelers, when most of their rivalry, especially in the last six years, has been as if they’re the Loki to the Steelers’ Lady Sif:
Granted, for the Bengals to pull off their second straight upset over Pittsburgh, a lot will depend on T.J. Watt’s health. If he’s hampered or unable to play, the Steelers’ pass rush will suffer dramatically, as we saw last week. If he’s more or less the same T.J. Watt we’re used to seeing each week, pray for Joe Burrow. The Cincinnati offensive line can’t keep him upright even against a mediocre opponent. I’m betting (in theory, not with actual money, fwiw) on the former and that Burrow will be ready to shake off his three-interception performance from last week.
I recently watched the second episode of Impeachment: American Crime Story. I wouldn’t call it *bad*, but it’s not particularly good either. Still, sometimes it’s nice to have a show like that to watch while I work out: I’m not invested in it, but it makes the time go by faster. Anyway, I was struck by a line from Clive Owen as Bill Clinton, in reference to Clinton’s 1996 re-election bid: Clive-as-Clinton said that when he first found out how much he was leading in the polls in Florida, he was upset because there’s nothing he loves more than a fight.
For certain types of pathologically successful people, they need that fight. They need those doubters. Aaron Rodgers, who just called out his critics who claimed he wasn’t focused on football, is one of those guys. I hope you’re not going against him in your fantasy league this week because he’s about to light it up Sunday night.
Of course, there will be other factors at play when the 49ers host the Packers. Rodgers doesn’t play defense, after all. But whatever concerns there are about the Green Bay defense, there are just as many about the San Francisco offense. Their running back corps, in true 49ers fashion, is decimated by injuries and the ground game is a major component of their offense.
Christian’s picks
So, some news. After an absolutely delightful period with DraftKings, I’ve taken a job writing at USA Today’s For The Win. There’s gonna be a lot of football, a little gambling, and I’ve already published a beer of the week feature so it’s now established, no takebacks. That means I’ll be writing less here, but I don’t plan on abandoning you guys, especially given how much our audience has grown lately.
Seriously, you all don’t know how much it means to see that subscriber rate keep going up. Thank you, from all of us.
My picks will persevere as well, as least for the time being, though you’ll be able to find them at FTW as well. Last week started pretty well for me, until the Seahawks Seahawked their way to failure, Mike McCarthy attempted to shoot his own foot and missed, and Clyde Edwards-Helaire became the bane of both fantasy owners AND Chiefs fans in the same six-hour stretch. I still landed at 11-5 which, hell, I’ll take that every week.
This week appears similarly chalk-y, though I’ve got a couple upsets on the books. Part of me wants to back the Football Team in Buffalo, but part of me also saw what they allowed Daniel Jones — currently the fourth-best quarterback in fantasy football, somehow — to do to them in primetime last week. I also chose the Seahawks to push the Vikings to 0-3 because no team in the league generates more unearned confidence than Seattle.
Washington at Bills
Bears at Browns
Ravens at Lions
Colts at Titans
Chargers at Chiefs
Saints at Patriots
Falcons at Giants
Bengals at Steelers
Cardinals at Jaguars
Jets at Broncos
Dolphins at Raiders
Bucs at Rams
Seahawks at Vikings
Packers at 49ers
Eagles at Cowboys
Let’s talk a little more:
Pick I like the most (1-1)
Broncos over Jets. Teddy Bridgewater is kicking ass by generally being the opposite of Teddy Bridgewater. He doesn’t quite have the revenge stakes of Sam Darnold facing the Jets, but he’s another quarterback New York traded away only to be better off elsewhere.
Toughest game to pick (1-1)
Packers over 49ers. The Niners have a pass rush of ruining Green Bay’s depleted offensive line and the Pack are still the team that spent the first six quarters of their season getting rolled by the Saints and playing touch-butt with the Lions. But Aaron Rodgers has reason to be pissed off beyond the general state of his life, and that’s a return to his home region and a game against the team that snubbed him at the top of the draft board 16 years ago.
16 years. Holy shit. Time is a motherf**ker.
Upset pick I like the most
An LA team is playing the most hyped game of the SoFi Stadium era, which would be meaningless if this were the Chargers, but people seem to generally like the Rams (or, at the very least, not avoid them like politics at a family Thanksgiving dinner like Los Angelinos typically do with the Bolts). Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey can cut off some of Tom Brady’s avenues to prosperity, while the Tampa secondary has been iffy early and has a lot of options to shut down against the Rams. Sure, running back is a problem … but if there’s one quarterback equipped to handle an offense where the rushing game is about as useful as an airplane armrest ashtray, it’s Matthew Stafford.