NFL picks 2019, Week 11: Please don’t let upsets destroy our experts this time

The most brutal week of upsets, at least so far, is in the books. Everybody on our 10-expert panel left Week 10 with a losing record after the NFL dished out a ton of unexpected results.

Nobody predicted the one-win Falcons would go on the road and snap the Saints’ six-game winning streak. And just about everybody thought the Chiefs would beat the Titans, and the Giants would beat the Jets. Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

The NFL can be an unpredictable, but Week 11 looks ripe for a return to normalcy. Few games have the panel split at all. Just about all our experts think the Cowboys, Bills, Saints, and 49ers will get back to winning, while the Falcons and Dolphins will return to their losing ways.

The few games that were actually tough to agree upon included the pillow fight between Washington and the Jets, as well as two pivotal divisional matchups.

Jaguars-Colts and Steelers-Browns are key duels in the AFC

Nick Foles is finally back for the Jaguars and he’ll probably be facing the Jacoby Brissett-led Colts in his return. Brissett told reporters that he felt ready to play in Week 10 after suffering a knee injury the week prior, but he was held out by coach Frank Reich instead.

Even if Brissett’s back, it’s still a hard game to figure out. Jacksonville only got eight throws out of Foles in Week 1 before he suffered a broken clavicle that landed him on injured reserve. With Gardner Minshew at the helm, the Jaguars had moments of brilliance along with stretches of ineptitude.

The Jaguars desperately need a win to get back to .500 and in the thick of the AFC South and AFC Wild Card races. The Colts need to bounce back from a loss to the Dolphins if they hope to keep pace with the Texans for the division title.

Similar stakes are on the line in Cleveland on Thursday. The Browns’ playoff chances aren’t quite shot yet, but they can’t afford many — if any — missteps. A win against the Steelers would get the Browns to 4-6 and keep hope alive, while Pittsburgh has a chance to make it five in a row and improve to 6-4. There just doesn’t seem to be much trust that Mason Rudolph is actually the quarterback capable of getting the Steelers in the postseason.

Our experts are leaning toward the Jaguars and Browns in those two contests.

Meet the Good Dog of Week 11: Toby

Tiberius StoneyCreek Eggleston is a purebred beagle who goes by the name Toby. He is two years old and has lived with SB Nation editor Sam Eggleston, along with Kim and Shaylyn Eggleston, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan his entire life. He loves Kim more than anything in the world, especially enjoys trying to run away to chase other mammals, and is a master at being cute, most notably when there are treats on the line.

Toby made his picks by having a blue bowl and a red bowl in front of him with a piece of kibble placed in each. The red bowl represented the home team of each game, and the blue bowl represented the visitors. Whichever bowl he ate out of first was his pick, and he was pretty happy that he also got to then eat the loser kibble as well.

Toby made some very good choices this week, such as Baltimore winning behind the ability of Lamar Jackson, and San Francisco getting back to winning. Of course, Toby also showed some questionable decision making, like picking Denver to beat Minnesota, Sam’s team of the Chargers upsetting Kansas City, and Cincinnati topping the Raiders. When asked why he picked so many cats to win (Lions, Jaguars and Bengals), he simply stared off into space, perhaps thinking fondly of his feline companions Milo and Binks.

Week 11 picks

Here are all our picks for Week 11, although they can still change by Friday, in case injury news changes our mind. The guest picker of Week 11 is Eric Thompson, a manager at our Vikings blog, Daily Norseman: