Pick Six: Ravens-Jags picks, plus what you need to know about the NFL heading into Week 9

Hello football friends, and welcome to the Thursday edition of the Pick Six newsletter!

There is football on tonight, but I can't promise the Ravens will give us anything actually resembling football. 

After losing Lamar Jackson and Tyler Huntley to injury, the Ravens will be going into tonight's game with three quarterbacks who have zero career starts: Joe Fagnano, Kedon Slovis, Austin Reed. I know what you're thinking, and no, I didn't make up any of those names. Fagnano, who is an undrafted rookie, will be the Ravens' starting QB tonight. Obviously, the biggest question with him has nothing to do with football; it's HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE YOUR NAME? And the good news for us is that he actually answered that question this week. You can see it here. 

We'll be making picks in that game, plus we'll be taking a look at the big QB trade that the Ravens are about to make. Oh, and to keep up with our QB theme, we'll also be ranking every quarterback in the NFL. 

As always, here's your reminder to tell all of your friends to sign up for the newsletter. To get them signed up, just click here. Let's get to the rundown. 

One reason the NFL is the most unpredictable sports league on the planet is because you can't even predict what's going to happen from day to day. Over the past 24 hours alone, we have seen two different teams announce they'll have a different starting QB this week, one team announce it will probably have a different QB and one team announce it might have a new QB. Plus, there's another team that's finalizing a trade for a QB. 

Let's go over everything that happened, starting with the proposed trade: 

It's already been a wild week, and it could get even crazier over the next few days with the trade deadline coming up on Nov. 10. 

Five days ago, this looked like it was going to be a huge AFC showdown, but then Lamar Jackson went down with an injury that could end up keeping him out for the rest of the year. The Ravens then turned the offense over to Huntley, but he also got injured. 

So who do the Ravens have left? The Jacoby Brissett deal won't be finalized until after this game, so Baltimore will be rolling with Joe Fagnano. The undrafted rookie out of UConn got to play nearly 2.5 quarters against the Bills, and he wasn't able to do much of anything against a bad Buffalo defense. And unfortunately for Fagnano, things aren't going to get any easier tonight. 

Here's one reason why each team should be feeling confident going into the game: 

You can get a full preview of the game from Jared Dubin by clicking here.

If you're thinking about betting on the game, here are a couple of props. 

If you're wondering how my props are doing this year, I'm 11-21 (5-11 on kicker props and 6-10 on all other props). It's gotten ugly. I clearly need to re-evaluate my entire process. I think what I'm trying to say here is that you should still be fading me until further notice. As a matter of fact, I'm going to fade myself. 

Jared Dubin's pick: Jaguars 27-6 over Ravens
John Breech's pick: Jaguars 30-13 over Ravens
Jordan Dajani's pick: Jaguars 28-13 over Ravens
Tyler Sullivan's pick: Jaguars 28-16 over Ravens
Prisco's pick: Jaguars 27-16 over Ravens

We are all taking the Jaguars in a blowout. All of us picked the Seahawks over the Bears on Monday, and we saw how that worked out for Seattle, so I might have to put the Jags on upset alert here. 

If you want to know which way all of our experts are leaning, you can check that out on our CBSSports.com picks page. 

Welcome to the part of the newsletter where we hand out picks. We have five NFL writers — Pete Prisco, Jordan Dajani, Tyler Sullivan, Jared Dubin and me — handing out picks each week. If you're wondering who did the best last week, I can tell you it wasn't me. I know that, because I was the worst. I don't think I've won a week since early September. I might have to retire from making picks. 

Anyway, if you're new here, here's how things work: I'll give you one Week 9 pick from each writer and then direct you to the rest of their picks for the week. That way, if you like their pick, you can click over and check out all their Week 9 predictions; if you hate it, you can ignore the rest and move on with your life. 

For more Week 9 NFL picks, you can check out our CBSSports.com picks page here. 

Every week during the NFL season, we rank all 32 starting quarterbacks, and for our first ranking in November, there's a very familiar face on top: Josh Allen.

The ranking is handled by Garrett Podell, who breaks down every possible QB stat to figure out who should be on top. Here's a short explanation from Garrett of how his QB ranking works: "These rankings are fluid and designed to tell the story of each starting quarterback's respective rise and/or fall throughout the season." 

Basically, this ranking isn't based on what any QB has done in the past; it's only based on what they've done this year.

After eight weeks of action, let's check out the top three names on the list, plus the QB who's ranked dead last: 

1. Josh Allen, Bills. He enters Week 9 leading the league in yards per pass attempt (8.7), second in the NFL in total touchdowns (20, 11 passing and 9 rushing), second in expected points added (EPA) per dropback (0.26), 10th in completion percentage (65.9%) and eighth in passer rating (101.1). The 2024 NFL MVP has led his Buffalo Bills to a 6-1 record and the No.1 seed in the AFC, and Allen is back atop our quarterback power rankings entering Week 9.
2. Jared Goff, Lions. Goff is averaging 280.6 passing yards per game (third in the NFL) with 15 passing touchdowns (tied for fifth in the NFL) and just one interception. Goff is the fourth quarterback to have those numbers through the first seven games of a season, joining Tom Brady (2015 and 2016), Alex Smith (2017) and Patrick Mahomes (2019). 
3. Brock Purdy, 49ers. He is third in the league in completion percentage (69.2%), fourth in pass yards per attempt (8.3), tied for fifth in passing touchdowns (15) and third in passer rating (110.1). Purdy is squarely in the MVP race and could get the top spot back on this list after another week or two of strong production.
...
32. Joe Fagnano, Ravens. Fagnano will be the second undrafted rookie quarterback to start a game in Ravens history, joining Anthony Brown (2022). He made his NFL debut in Week 8 after both Lamar Jackson (thumb) and Tyler Huntley (turf toe) went down on Sunday. He threw for 91 yards and an interception on 10-of-21 passing in a 36-10 defeat against the Bills.

Based on Garrett's ranking, the Ravens are not going to be a fun team to watch tonight. Anyway, Garrett ranked every starting QB in the NFL, and if you want to see his full list, you can do that here. 

The most frustrating thing about the NFL's 17-game season is that I'm not exactly sure when the halfway point of the year is anymore for each team, but we're going to pretend it's today. We're going to celebrate the midseason by naming our midseason all-rookie team.

Let's take a look at who the top rookies have been at each position on offense: 

QB: Jalon Daniels, Buccaneers
RB: Jeremiyah Love, Cardinals
WR: K.C. Concepcion, Browns
WR: Denzel Boston, Browns
WR: Carnell Tate, Titans
TE: Kenyon Sadiq, Jets
LT: Spencer Fano, Browns
LG: Kadyn Proctor, Dolphins
C: Jake Slaughter, Chargers
RG: Vega Ioane, Ravens
RT: Blake Miller, Lions

Based on the offensive team here, the Browns clearly deserve some credit for getting their draft right this year. They hit several home runs, especially at receiver. The most surprising name on this list is definitely Daniels. Every name on the offensive side of the ball was either a first- or second-round pick, except for Daniels, who made the Buccaneers roster as an undrafted free agent. 

Josh Edwards was in charge of putting this team together, and if you want to see who made the cut on the defensive side of the ball, we've got that here.  

It's been a busy few days around the NFL, and since it's nearly impossible to keep track of everything, I put together a quick roundup for you.