Straight-up NFL picks, Week 6: Seahawks-Bengals might be a mess

Week 6 isn’t a great lineup in terms of marquee NFL games. You know how I know? Because a showdown between the one-win Minnesota Vikings and one-win Chicago Bears may be the most interesting game on the slate.

Sure, other games with playoff implications exist, but this NFC North showdown between 1-4 teams could divine the immediate future for each franchise. A win for the Bears provides more evidence Justin Fields deserves more time to prove he’s a franchise quarterback and, just maybe, that head coach Matt Eberflus deserves to be there with him. A loss for the Vikings could send a team laden with veteran talent to a seller’s market at the trade deadline and portend a significant rebuild for the first time in a decade.

Meanwhile, a Minnesota win would provide proof the team is better than its record and capable of a playoff run, even from the depths of the NFC standings. A Chicago loss hastens the dawn of a new era for a team that looked hopeless the first three weeks of the season.

There’s plenty more on tap. Week 6 promises 15 games, headlined by battles between 2022 playoff teams like Seahawks-Bengals and Cowboys-Chargers. It’s not a great slate, but it’s an interesting one. Here are this week’s picks:

and:

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