Straight-up NFL picks, Week 16: Road winners and a de facto playoff game for the Jaguars and Jets

Jaguars-Jets on Thursday night is a de facto playoff eliminator. Eagles-Cowboys isn't, but it's gonna be fun -- even without Jalen (...)

Week 16 of the NFL season will parse down a playoff field where only five teams — the Houston Texans, Chicago Bears, Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Rams and Arizona Cardinals — have been eliminated from the postseason. That means plenty of opportunities for needy teams in a slate filled with road underdogs.

That starts on Thursday night with a de facto playoff game between the New York Jets and Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jaguars have rallied from 2-6 to make waves in the fecund water park kiddie pool that is the AFC South. The Jets, on the other hand, have slid in the opposite direction and now have to rely on Zach Wilson to reverse those fortunes. That’s a big ask — and it’s got our three-man panel split on the outcome of Week 16’s first game.

That’s one of only three games in which our experts didn’t see eye-to-eye. A do-or-die game between the ugly offenses of the New Orleans Saints and Cleveland Browns is a concern. So is a tragic showdown between the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Rams that once looked like a possible Super Bowl preview but instead is a battle between two putrid teams who don’t even own their upcoming top five draft picks.

Here’s our full slate of picks for Week 16, with explanations below.

And here are those selections in a better-formatted screenshot of our actual picks sheet, which unfortunately struggles to translate to our editing software.