NFL Week 16 predictions: Picks against the spread for every game

Falcons general manager Terry Fontenot raised a lot of eyebrows when he selected Michael Penix Jr.with the eighth pick in the draft last spring.

It looked to be a strange choice, considering Atlanta had signed free agent Kirk Cousins to a four-year, $180 million contract just a few weeks earlier. Sunday, we’ll start to learn if there was a method to the madness as the Falcons, still in contention for the NFC South title at 7-7, replace the ineffective Cousins with Penix for their home game against the Giants. Cousins, 36, gave it a good go on a repaired Achilles tendon, but he has become slow and indecisive.He’s probably the main reason the Falcons have lost four of their past five games, as he’s thrown one touchdown pass, nine interceptions and been sacked 11 times in that span. Nobody really knows whether Penix is going to be great or terrible.

More likely he’ll be somewhere in between.I’m willing to lay the 8.5 points against the long-gone Giants to find out. Though Penix has thrown just five passes in the NFL, he launched 1,685 of them for 13,741 yards over six college seasons at Indiana and Washington.

He knows what he’s doing, and should be able to unlock Atlanta’s offensive weapons — Bijan Robinson, Drake London, Kyle Pitts and Tyler Allgeier — better than Cousins did. The pick: Falcons -8.5. My first inclination was to ride with Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams in the week after their first breakout performances as Jets.After all, it will be a very Lambeau-like 24 degrees on Sunday at MetLife, and the Rams have been practicing in temperatures in the 70s and 80s. Throw in that the Jets’ other top players endured the chills in such places as Ames, Iowa, Madison, Wisc.

and Columbus, Ohio, and you start to get the idea they might thrive. But on the other side of the argument, the Rams are in first place in the NFC West and are desperately trying to hold on to that spot — or any playoff berth.They have a QB-coach tandem in Matth...