NFL Picks Week 6: San Francisco 49ers and Winning Teams Sure To Collapse

We witness it every NFL season, a team gets out of the gates hot and reels off a few wins in a row.

Most of the time the culprit is a talented team that we expected to be great, but sometimes its the lovable loser who we know can't sustain the effort for 16 games.

This season, the lovable losers in question are the Buffalo Bills, San Francisco 49ers and the Detroit Lions.

Which are poised to fail as the season wears on, here are three winning franchises who are sure to stumble down the stretch in 2011:

San Francisco 49ers (4-1)

The Niners have a stranglehold on the NFC West five games into the season at 4-1, but there's no way Alex Smith can continue to play at his current level.

San Francisco's rush defense is for real it seems, ranked fourth in the NFL, but the pass defense and pass offense is too poor for the playoffs.

I'll take the defending NFC West champion Seahawks to repeat this season, especially when they move to just 1.5 games back of the Niners after San Francisco loses on Sunday at Detroit.

Washington Redskins (3-1)

This one is clear as day, and after Sunday, on its way to reality. The Redskins have the spotlight on them far too early in the season and cannot maintain their winning ways for 12 more games.

At some point the talent of the Eagles, Cowboys and Giants will come to life and knock the 'Skins back to the NFC East basement.

Houston Texans (3-2)

Two weeks ago the Texans were 3-1 and in position to take over the AFC South division, but an injury to wideout Andre Johnson and a brutal home loss to the Oakland Raiders has them 3-2 going into Baltimore.

Houston will easily be 3-3 after Sunday and trailing the Tennessee Titans by a half of a game for the division.

The Texans have never made the playoffs in their short history, and it doesn't look to be in the cards in 2011 either.