Week 5 was either incredible or devastating, depending on the path you chose.
Last week’s column recommended the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings as top picks, while suggesting the Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills as the teams to avoid – the Bills for the sake of saving them, not out of fear of them losing. I suggested the Packers as a potential option if you saved them the previous week, but also recommended holding off one more week to use them in Week 6 – this week – against the Jets, and instead selecting the Vikings at home to the Chicago Bears.
So, I left you with a decision of your own to make and, unfortunately, there was a right and a wrong one – not what I had intended. In an ideal world both teams would have won, but those of you who went the route of Green Bay suffered the wrath of London, while those of you who opted for the Vikings are CRUISING into Week 6 after the Jaguars – the most popular Circa pick of Week 5, and one I specifically said to avoid – were upset by the Houston Texans.
Those of you who picked Green Bay likely aren’t reading this column anymore, while those of you who picked the Vikings are now wondering if the plan is still to pick the Packers this week since that’s the sole reason we saved them a week ago. Green Bay looked relatively awful on both sides of the ball in the second half of its loss to the New York Giants, while the New York Jets were a well-oiled machine in a blowout win over the Miami Dolphins. Are these performances enough to give me pause?
Short answer: No.
Pick: Green Bay Packers
Just to reiterate, I said to avoid the Packers due to high projected ownership in Week 4 when they beat the New England Patriots in overtime. Then I said you can pick them in Week 5, but it might be best to pick the Vikings instead in order to save the Packers for Week 6. Well, this is where the Green Bay carousel ends. You’re officially using the Packers this week, while I will finally be done writing about this team after featuring them prominently in this column since Week 4.
I’m not scared of the Jets. Hey, maybe I should be, considering I said the same thing about the Giants a week ago, but I just can’t get there on this team. The Giants were getting run out of the stadium by Green Bay in the first half before a pretty remarkable and entirely unexpected second half turnaround. The Packers were largely the architects of their own demise, but Brian Daboll put in something of a masterclass to get that offense moving up and down the field. Robert Saleh isn’t capable of doing the same. The Jets also don’t have a Saquon Barkley, despite how well Breece Hall’s been running the last few weeks.
While I do believe Green Bay’s defense will have more success against Zach Wilson and the New York offense, it’s actually the matchup between the Packers offense and Jets defense that should have you feeling most confident about this pick. The Jets rank 19th in EPA/play on defense, 23rd against the pass, and 22nd in success rate, despite a very weak opposing schedule. The quarterbacks they’ve beaten are Jacoby Brissett, Mitch Trubisky/Kenny Pickett, and Skylar Thompson. Their two losses, both by 15 points, came against Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow. Burrow and Jackson combined for six passing touchdowns against the Jets. Brissett, Pickett, Trubisky, and Thompson combined for one. What group do we think Aaron Rodgers falls into?
I’m just not seeing too many path’s to victory here for the Jets, who will really struggle to get back into this game against the Packers secondary if they fall behind early, which seems likely given how Green Bay typically responds to a loss. It’s very narrative-y – not without merit, though – but the Packers have never lost back-to-back regular season games under Matt LaFleur. While we don’t want to fall into the gambler’s fallacy thinking there’s no way Green Bay can lose two in a row, the fact that they’ve always responded so well under this regime certainly warrants mentioning. The Packers are 10-0 in the regular season off a loss under LaFleur, with an average margin of victory of 14.8. They’ve won eight of those 10 games by 15-18 points, and none by less than a touchdown.
Also working in our favor here is an incredibly small ownership projection on Green Bay this week. The majority have either already selected the Packers or been temporarily scared off by what we saw from this group in London. Take them with confidence this week and we can forget about them for the rest of the season.
Avoid: Los Angeles Rams
The Rams are currently 10.5-point favorites at home to the Carolina Panthers pretty much across the board at the time of writing – the biggest favorite of the week. I couldn’t possibly want less to do with the Rams this week. Given their schedule thus far the majority of people still have the Rams available for selection, and we can expect many to use them this week given the general lack of options.
Baker Mayfield’s injury means P.J. Walker will likely start for the Panthers this week, and while that’s gross, it’s not like Mayfield was providing literally anything positive for this offense. Walker orchestrated a 34-10 upset of the Arizona Cardinals in Phoenix last year, so there’s at least some reason to believe the Rams could be on upset alert here. There’s also the fact that L.A. looks like utter garbage, has no semblance of a run game, is a disaster on the offensive line, and has Matthew Stafford playing at what certainly looks to be like less than 100% right now. And for those into this sort of thing, the Panthers could get the classic new coach bump after firing Matt Rhule earlier this week.
This is very likely a Rams win, but with the team struggling and ownership expected to be incredibly high, stick with the Packers in Week 6 and you’ll hopefully be celebrating a comfortable 1 p.m. ET victory before sitting back and rooting for chaos in the 4 p.m. slate.