NFL straight-up picks, Week 9: How did the trade deadline affect a week of toss-up games?

Week 9 is low on important games. It’s loaded with nearly impossible to predict ones, however.

The Pittsburgh Steelers host the Tennessee Titans in a battle between one untrustable, slightly injured quarterback (Kenny Pickett) and a rookie second round pick making his second career start (Will Levis). The New York Giants face a Las Vegas Raiders team that just fired its head coach and offensive coordinator and demoted its starting quarterback — moves that would lead you toward New York if not for the fact Brian Daboll’s team has the structural integrity of a dental floss suspension bridge. The Green Bay Packers are a mess but host a Los Angeles Rams team for whom, once again, Matthew Stafford is playing hurt (if playing at all).

So, yeah, lots to unpack and plenty of details we’ll have to make assumptions about before we get actual, meaningful updates on player statuses. That means this week’s picks are probably going to be a mess, which is a bummer coming off a momentum-building Week 8. Our full slate of picks for Week 9 follows, along with some breakout analysis 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.