NFL picks: The Falcoholic staff and friends predict Falcons vs. Saints and other Week 3 games

We were all so excited to see what Deion Jones would do to ruin Drew Brees’ day this time around. Sadly, we don’t get that opportunity this week with Jones on IR, but our staff is still confident the Falcons come away from this week’s game against the Saints with another win.

As a matter of fact, only one person is rolling with the Saints this week, and it probably won’t shock you that it’s our frenemy John Hendrix from our Saints site, Canal Street Chronicles.

Can the Browns finally get a dang win on Thursday night? Will the Bud Light flow freely through the streets of Cleveland, Ohio? The majority of our pickers this week think so. The Browns tied with the Steelers in Week 1 — hey, at least it wasn’t a loss! — and they should have beaten the Saints in New Orleans last week. Having a kicker blow it to the tune of eight points worth of missed kicks is just flat out bad luck, which is about the only thing that the Browns have been consistent about. The Browns haven’t won a game since Dec. 24, 2016. They have to be due, right?

Next up is a battle of the big cats when the Bengals travel to Charlotte to take on the Panthers. Perhaps it’s because we’re fresh off of a fun Falcons win against the Panthers, but our pickers are siding with the Bengals in this one.

The Patriots’ loss to the Jaguars last week didn’t faze anyone. It’s almost unanimous — the Patriots are the expected winner this week against the Lions.

The Steelers have a whole lot of stuff going on, and none of it is particularly great. They tied with the Browns in Week 1, got owned by Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs last week, and this week they take on the hotter-than-Tampa-Bay-weather Ryan Fitzpatrick and the Buccaneers. Antonio Brown missed team meetings on Monday, and Le’Veon Bell is still holding out in protest of the team’s decision to place him under the franchise tag yet again this season. But most of our pickers don’t think Fitzpatrick can keep working his Fitzmagic this week.

Our reader guest picker this week is DatboyAnthony30. Anthony was the clear-cut winner this week, as the only reader who went 5-1 with his picks last week. Congratulations, Anthony, and thanks for playing.

That meant my dog, Baxter Thomas, didn’t have to pick a reader guest picker, so I let him pick this slate of games instead. Baxter is rolling with a tie for Saints vs. Falcons. He also picked the Lions despite the fact that his Patriots fan dad was in the room. Take these with a grain of salt, because he is a dog and really doesn’t know that much about football. He still might be better at this than I am. We’ll find out, as he’ll be picking the rest of the games for the remainder of the season alongside our squad.

Here’s this week’s full slate of picks. If you want a chance to be selected as next week’s guest picker, submit your picks in the comments.