Ranking NFL wild-card playoff contenders, plus NFC North overtakes Prisco’s Power Rankings and Week 13 picks

Welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Pick Six newsletter! 

If you’re getting together with your family for Thanksgiving this week and you plan on playing games against them, I hope you live by the words of Jim Harbaugh.  

“I’d lay down my life for my brother, but I would not let him win a football game.” 

Those words came from Jim before facing his brother John on Monday night. I have three brothers, and my goal in life is to never let them beat me at anything, so I know exactly how Jim feels. 

The problem for Jim is that he ended up losing to John with the Ravens topping the Chargers, 30-23. In today’s newsletter, we’ll be grading both teams, plus we’ll be making some early Week 13 picks and unveiling Prisco’s latest power rankings. 

Oh, and I should note that the rest of this week is going to be a little different around here. We won’t have a newsletter on Thursday (Thanksgiving), so the next time you’ll hear from me after today will be on Friday. Cody Benjamin, who regularly handles the Wednesday newsletter, will once again be manning things tomorrow so that I can get an early start on my Thanksgiving wine drinking. 

As always, here’s your daily reminder to tell all your friends and neighbors to sign up for the newsletter. To get them signed up, all you have to do is click here. 

1. Ravens top Chargers: Grades and notes from Baltimore’s Monday night win

The third edition of the Harbaugh Bowl went down Monday night, and for the third time, John Harbaugh was able to beat his brother Jim. This was a close game at halftime with the Ravens leading just 14-13, but Baltimore (literally) ran away with things in the second half on the legs of Derrick Henry, who rushed for 140 yards in the 30-23 win. 

Here are our grades from the game: 

RAVENS GRADE: A

John Harbaugh improved to 3-0 against his brother, and he went all-out to get this third win. The Ravens head coach made several bold calls in the game, including a decision to go for it on fourth down from his own 16-yard line on a drive that ended with a Baltimore touchdown. Harbaugh’s aggressive coaching made a dangerous Ravens offense even more dangerous. The Ravens won this game by putting the ball in the hands of Derrick Henry, who steamrolled the Chargers defense for 140 yards on a night where the Ravens rushed for 212 as a team. Lamar Jackson didn’t put up huge numbers, but he was efficient and he made several big plays. The biggest story for the Ravens may have been the way their defense played in the second half. The much-maligned unit held the Chargers to just 83 yards in the second half. This was an impressive win over a possible playoff team, and that’s something that should give Baltimore confidence come January.

Ravens note

• Fourth-down magic. During the second quarter, John Harbaugh made a bold call when he decided to go for it on fourth down from his own 16-yard line. It was a call that almost never happens in the NFL: It marked the first time that a team went for it on fourth down from that deep in their own territory in the first half of game since 2012. The last team to do it was the Rams, who converted their fourth down on a fake punt. The Ravens used a tush push with Mark Andrews at QB to convert a fourth-and-1. The gamble also paid off because the Ravens ended up getting a TD on the drive. 
• Mr. Monday night. Lamar Jackson threw two TD passes against the Chargers, and in his career, he’s now thrown 22 TD passes on Monday night compared to zero interceptions. That’s the highest TD total in Monday night history for a QB with zero picks. With the win, Jackson is also now 18-4 following a loss, which is the second-best record in the Super Bowl era, trailing only Patrick Mahomes. 

CHARGERS GRADE: C+

For the first two quarters, the Chargers went toe-to-toe with the Ravens, but then the wheels fell off the wagon in the second half. Justin Herbert completed just 44.4% of his passes during a second half where he was under constant pressure, which led to three sacks. The Chargers struggled to move the ball on the ground, and it didn’t help that they lost J.K. Dobbins to an injury in the first half. The biggest surprise was that the Chargers’ vaunted defense, which had surrendered the fewest points in the NFL heading into Week 12, got bullied by the Ravens offense. The Chargers got a reality check, and the reality is that they’ve struggled to beat the NFL’s best teams. They’ve faced five teams that currently have a winning record this year, and they’ve gone 1-4 in those games. Jim Harbaugh has turned this team around, but the Chargers are going to have to kick it into another gear if they want to be a dangerous team come January.

Chargers notes

• Chargers defense is falling apart. Through the first nine weeks of the season, the Chargers surrendered just 13.1 points per game, but over the past two weeks, that number has shot up to 28.5 points per game, which includes the Ravens scoring 30. The Chargers are also surrendering 421.5 yards per game over the past two weeks after only surrendering 302.1 yards per game through the first nine weeks. 
• Jim Harbaugh can’t beat his brother. The two Harbaugh brothers have now faced each other three times, and John has gotten the best of his younger brother all three times. The Ravens coach is now 3-0 against Jim, which includes a win when the two brothers coached against each other in Super Bowl XLVII. Based on how things are going, there’s definitely a possibility that we could soon get a fourth meeting between the brothers in the playoffs. 

Finally, you can check out our full takeaways from the game here.  

2. Prisco’s Week 13 Power Rankings: Steelers take a huge tumble

We have a new team in the top five this week and that team is the Minnesota Vikings. The NFC North has actually taken over Prisco’s Power Rankings this week, as the division has three teams ranked in the top seven. 

Let’s check out Prisco’s top five. Actually, let’s just check out the top seven:

1. Lions (same as last week)
2. Bills (same as last week)
3. Chiefs (same as last week)
4. Eagles (up one spot from last week)
5. Vikings (up one spot from last week)
6. Ravens (up one spot from last week)
7. Packers (up one spot from last week)

I’m not going to spoil the rest of the Power Rankings here, but I am going to give you a few nuggets. Here’s what has changed since Prisco’s last Power Rankings: 

• The biggest jump this week went to the Dolphins. Tua Tagovailoa has been on fire during the month of November, which included throwing four TD passes against the Patriots in Week 12. Prisco was so impressed with Miami’s 34-15 win over New England that he bumped them up six spots from 21st to 15th. 
• The biggest jump in the NFC went to the Buccaneers. Tampa Bay throttled the Giants, 30-7, and Pete loves when NFL teams throttle other NFL teams. Prisco rewarded the Bucs for their win by moving them up three spots from 19th to 16th. 
• The biggest tumble this week went to the Steelers. Prisco was NOT impressed with their Thursday night loss to the Browns, and as such, he had to punish them by dropping them five spots from fourth to ninth.  
• Finally, let’s get the bottom of the Power Rankings. The Raiders were ranked dead last heading into Week 12, but after a decent showing against the Broncos, Prisco moved them up one spot to 31st. The new last-place team is the Jaguars, who somehow fell in the rankings despite the fact that they were on a bye. The Jags just can’t win. I think Prisco punished them for keeping Doug Pederson.  

If you want to know where your favorite team ended up in Prisco’s Week 13 Power Rankings, be sure to click here. If you want to argue with Prisco over his rankings, you can do that on Twitter by clicking here. I argue with him all the time about everything. 

3. Breech’s Week 13 NFL picks: Dolphins pull off Thanksgiving upset

It’s Thanksgiving week and because of that, I thought about ranking my favorite Thanksgiving side dishes instead of handing out picks, but I hate side dishes. That being said, I do like pumpkin pie. And I like wine. If those count as side dishes, then those are my favorites. And I will also eat anything that has sweet potatoes in it. 

OK, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get to three of my picks for Week 13: 

• Miami (5-6) at Green Bay (8-3): The Dolphins have lost 12 straight games when the temperature is below 42 degrees, and it’s going to be below 42 degrees on Thursday night at Lambeau Field. Usually, that would be enough to get me to pick against them, but Tua Tagovailoa is on such a hot streak that I have to take the Dolphins. PICK: Dolphins 27-24 over Packers
• Steelers (8-3) at Bengals (4-7): The Bengals season is on the line here. Sure, I feel like I say that every week about the Bengals, but this week, it’s actually true. I think Joe Burrow goes off and the defense slows down the Steelers just enough to pull out the win.  PICK: Bengals 23-20 over Steelers. 
• Eagles (9-2) at Ravens (8-4): The NFL’s two leading rushers — Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkely — will be facing each other in what is definitely my favorite game of the week. The Ravens have the second-best rush defense in the NFL, and I think that’s going to be the thing that pushes them over the edge here. PICK: Ravens 34-31 over Eagles

If you want to check out the rest of my picks for Week 13, be sure to click here. 

4.  Ranking NFC wild-card contenders: Packers on top

We already unveiled Prisco’s Power Rankings today, but we’re not done ranking things because we’re also going to rank wild-card contenders. Cody Benjamin went through and ranked all the wild-card contenders in the NFC. Since only three teams will earn a wild-card berth, we’ll take a look at the top three teams in his rankings, aka the teams Cody expects to get in. 

1. Packers (8-3). “They are 8-3 despite an imperfect and occasionally injury-riddled year from Jordan Love, which speaks to the balance of Matt LaFleur’s attack, also headlined by a bruising Josh Jacobs.”

2. Vikings (9-2). “Somehow 9-2 after a string of ugly wins over inferior foes, the Vikings have elite skill talent, and are still getting mostly above-average stuff from Sam Darnold under center. Brian Flores’ bend-but-don’t-break defense may have to do more heavy lifting when it’s time to play dominant offenses.”

3. Commanders (7-5). “Careening back to Earth at 7-5 after a red-hot start from Jayden Daniels and Co., the Commanders lack consistency under Kliff Kingsbury’s offensive direction. Dan Quinn’s defense has also been leaky through the air. Daniels’ athleticism should keep them competitive until the end, though.”

First team out: Buccaneers (5-6)

You can check out Cody’s full rankings here. We also ranked the AFC playoff contenders, which you can see here. 

5. NFL playoff picture heading into Week 13

With the NFL season heading into December this week, now seems like a good time to break down the playoff picture. 

Here’s a look at the top-seven teams from each conference:

AFC
1. Chiefs (AFC West leader): 10-1
2. Bills (AFC East leader): 9-2
3. Steelers (AFC North leader): 8-3
4. Texans (AFC South leader): 7-5
5. Ravens: 8-4
6. Chargers: 7-4
7. Broncos 7-5
First teams out: Dolphins (5-6), Colts (5-7), Bengals (4-7)

The Chiefs are currently in the top spot, but there’s no guarantee  they’re going to hold onto to it due to their tough schedule down the stretch. Over their final six games, the Chiefs have to play four teams who currently hold an AFC playoff spot (Steelers, Chargers, Texans, Broncos). On the other end of the AFC, the Dolphins are one of the hottest teams in the NFL with three straight wins, while the Colts have the easiest remaining strength of schedule, so it won’t be easy for the Broncos to hold on to that final spot. 

NFC 
1. Lions (NFC North leader): 10-1
2. Eagles (NFC East leader): 9-2
3. Seahawks (NFC West leader): 6-5
4. Falcons (NFC South leader): 6-5
5. Vikings (9-2)
6. Packers (8-3) 
7. Commanders (7-5) 
First teams out: Cardinals (6-5), Buccaneers (5-6), Rams (5-6), 49ers (5-6)

At this point, it feels like four of the seven spots in the NFC are locked up with the Lions, Eagles, Vikings and Packers all likely getting in. To miss the playoffs, one of those teams would have to totally collapse. The race for the top seed in the NFC will also be interesting to watch. The Lions are currently in the driver’s seat, but they have the sixth-toughest remaining strength of schedule. Four of their final six games will be coming against the Bills, Packers, Vikings and 49ers. If the Lions slip up, that could open the door for the Eagles to steal the top seed, and it could also open the door for Minnesota or Green Bay to win the NFC North. 

If you want a full look at the playoff standings, we’ve got the right here.   

6. Extra points: Two-time Pro Bowler coming out of retirement 

It was a busy 24 hours in the NFL, and since it’s nearly impossible to keep track of everything that happened, I went ahead and put together a roundup for you.

• Pro Bowl linebacker coming out of retirement. After announcing his retirement in July, Shaq Barrett has changed his mind and decided that he wants to play. The two-time Pro Bowler has applied for reinstatement and once that’s granted, his contract rights will revert to the Dolphins. At that point, Miami can either keep him or cut him. It will be interesting to see how much he has left in the tank. Barrett turned 32 years old on Nov. 17, but he did record 3.5 sacks last season with the Buccaneers. You can read more about Barrett’s return here. 
• Demarcus Robinson facing DUI charge in Los Angeles. The Rams receiver was arrested on suspicion of DUI just hours after catching a TD pass against the Eagles on Sunday night. Robinson was pulled over just after 5 a.m. Monday morning after police spotted him going more than 100 mph in an area just a few miles away from the Rams’ practice facility, according to the AP. 
• Tyreek Hill legally in the clear. When Tyreek Hill got detained back in September, he was given two citations for the incident, but those have now been thrown out and Hill won’t be facing any punishment. You can read more about the situation here. 
• Jameson Williams won’t face gun charges. The Lions receiver was pulled over on Oct. 6 and Detroit police were investigating whether to hit him with a charge for carrying a concealed weapon, but that won’t he happening. Williams is now in the clear. Williams had been taken into custody for carrying a concealed weapon at the time, but was later released at the scene. You can get the full details of the story here. 
• Raiders designate Aidan O’Connell for return from IR. It’s starting to look like Aidan O’Connell will be the Raiders starting QB on Friday against the Chiefs. O’Connell, who was designated to return from injured reserve on Monday, has been out since October due to an injured thumb. Although O’Connell will likely be the starter, the Raiders can turn to Desmond Ridder if O’Connell isn’t quite ready to play. Gardner Minshew was the starter in Week 12, but he’s out for the season after breaking his collarbone in Las Vegas’ loss to Denver.