NFL picks 2019, Week 6: Which team is the favorite for the No. 1 draft pick? Hard to say

Ties are exceedingly rare in the NFL, so — for all intents and purposes — somebody has to win the game between 0-5 Washington and the 0-4 Miami Dolphins.

The Dolphins are bad by design after stripping the roster bare in a full-fledged tank job. They’re scoring just 6.5 points per game and have given up an average of 40.75 points on defense. Miami’s “closest” game was a 30-10 loss to the Chargers in Week 4.

So it really underlines just how awful Washington is when our expert panel isn’t even confident it can beat the Dolphins. Even worse, unlike the Dolphins, Washington’s disastrous season is an accident. Jay Gruden was just fired as head coach because the front office believes its severely deficient roster should somehow be winning games.

Half of our panel doesn’t think Washington interim head coach Bill Callahan will fare much better. There are high stakes on the line too. It looks like a foregone conclusion that neither team makes the playoffs. However, the loser will be likely be the favorite to finish the season with the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.

Usually it’d be a bad decision to pick the Dolphins to win, but this time it actually makes some sense.

San Francisco improved to 4-0 with a 31-3 beatdown of the Browns in Week 5. The Patriots are the only other undefeated team in the NFL, and the 49ers are top four in points scored, yards gained, points allowed, and yards allowed.

Yet, our panel still doesn’t quite believe in the team. Stephen White, James Brady, and I are the only ones who think the 49ers can travel to Los Angeles and beat the Rams in Week 6. The others are siding with the home team.

The Rams are coming off back-to-back losses to the Buccaneers and Seahawks, and appear to have severe problems on defense and along their offensive line. Only six teams hit the opposing quarterback less than the Rams defense, and protecting quarterback Jared Goff has been a problem for the offense.

But Jimmy Garoppolo is still an enigma who’s hard to figure out. Maybe the upcoming matchup against the defending NFC champions will finally reveal if the 49ers are contenders or pretenders.

Baxter Thomas is a rescue who lives with his mom, a Falcons fan, and his dad, a Patriots fan (much to Baxter’s mom’s chagrin), in Atlanta. His hobbies include napping, hanging out in his backyard, and being extremely sassy.

Baxter applied a combination of strategies to come up with his picks for this week’s games. He’s watched enough Patriots and Falcons games with his parents to be confident in his dad’s Patriots over the Giants on Thursday night. He’s also spent enough time giving his mom the side eye for yelling about how bad the Falcons are while he’s trying to nap on Sundays to know a Falcons win is a long shot regardless of the opponent.

Beyond those games, Baxter mostly just went with teams with animal mascots, because he adores other animals, even the ones who are way too big to play with him. One exception was the Packers over the Lions, because this boy does love cheese.

Here are all of our Week 6 predictions, with the caveat that they’re not locked in Friday, just in case injury news makes an expert change their mind.

Our guest this week from the NFL blogs is Ed Valentine, the manager at our Giants site, Big Blue View.