It appears we spoke too soon about the prowess of the random number NFL picks for Week 15. The week 14 picks, as you may remember, went 10-6 -- we thought, "Hey, the random number generator is getting the hang of this!" Um, not so much. It did correctly forecast the woeful Panthers to win their second game of the year, the Jets over the Steelers, and these two picks that came very close to the actual score:
Prediction: Lions 21, Buccaneers 19 Actual: Lions 23, Buccaneers 20
Prediction: Colts 33, Jaguars 26 Actual: Colts 34, Jaguars 24
After that, though, it was all downhill -- 6-10 for the week, 55-65 for the season since we started doing this in Week Eight.
With that, here are the week 16 picks. Since, for the rest of the season, there's a Thursday night game each week, we'll be posting these picks on Wednesdays. This week, there's also a game on Saturday, Christmas night. (The matchups aren't particularly appealing in either case.) As a reminder, here's how it works: I use random.org's list generator and its true random number generator to sort the teams playing in a random order, then generate random numbers to match with each team name as a score prediction. I have adjusted the number range to be 0-49. 49 is the highest number of points scored by anyone this year except for 59 now scored twice; by the Raiders against the Broncos and the Eagles against the Redskins. Putting the range up to 59 would probably result in too many 50+ scores, so I'm limiting it to 49, seven touchdowns.
This week's caveat: I throw out any random number generated that is an unusual or virtually impossible football score; the generator came up with two twice, four, five and 11. There were a few more low scores chosen this week, but also some high scores -- and no, I don't really think the Bengals are going to beat the Chargers. But you never know.
Panthers 35
Steelers 21
Cowboys 41
Cardinals 44
Titans 48
Chiefs 24
Ravens 35
Browns 21
Patriots 10
Bills 3
49ers 35
Rams 48
Redskins 33
Jaguars 44
Jets 42
Bears 47
Texans 3
Broncos 31
Lions 14
Dolphins 35
Colts 24
Raiders 36
Chargers 9
Bengals 35
Seahawks 48
Buccaneers 14
Giants 12
Packers 38
Vikings 31
Eagles 7
Saints 28
Falcons 32
As usual, some of these look pretty good, some... not so much. The Bears to score 47 against the Jets? 40 against Minnesota is one thing.... still, the random numbers pick them to win. As always, this is just for fun; SB Nation Chicago is not responsible for any real money you might lose from any legal wagers on these games.