NFL Confidence Pool Picks Week 12
Welcome to Doc's Sports NFL Confidence Pool Picks, where we analyze the slate of NFL games each week and give you both the selections to make and the corresponding "confidence value" to go along with the pick.
I always found it interesting how holidays usually are associated with sports. The 4th of July is baseball, and Christmas Day has become tied to basketball. Nothing screams "Happy Thanksgiving" more than watching the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys play on Thanksgiving Day. Whether it's before your family feast or after, even families that don't follow professional sports are likely to have one of those two games on their TV.
I was on a deployment in the Navy for one Thanksgiving. Our ship pulled close to the shore (this was before the days of high-speed technology), and we "borrowed" a local transmission of the Kansas City-Detroit game. The commentary was in Spanish (we were in the Caribbean), but that didn't matter. We had ham and turkey, stuffing and gravy, and American football. Other than being with our families, we couldn't have asked for anything more.
The NFL this season continues to be a roller coaster ride. We bounced back with a good week, going 10-4 for 85 points out of 105. Sadly, we saw another franchise QB succumb to injury as Cincinnati's Joe Burrow hurt his wrist and is slated to be done for the season. Baltimore All-Pro TE Mark Andrews fell in the same game as Burrow’s with a likely season-ending ankle injury.
Doc’s Sports offers NFL expert picks for every game on our NFL predictions page.
The NFL has given their fans a Thanksgiving gift by having all 32 teams play, making the point selection process more convenient. Without further ado...
16 points- Dallas over Washington (Thur): I try not to use divisional rivals this high up, but these are teams headed in different directions. The Commanders are 4-8 ATS in their last 12 games against the Cowboys. Meanwhile, Dallas has the league's second-best offense and fifth-best defense.
15 points- Miami over NY Jets (Fri): The most interesting aspect of this game is it's the first "Black Friday" game in NFL history. Miami has owned the Jets in recent history, going 8-2 SU and ATS in their last 10 meetings.
Bonus points if you can tell me one of the colleges Tim Boyle, the Jets' new starting QB, played at.
14 points- Detroit over Green Bay (Thur): One of the sneaky, sexy pre-season picks to win it all, Detroit is certainly living up to its billing. These two met in Lambeau earlier in the year, and the Lions emerged with a 34-20 victory. Detroit has the 6th-ranked offense at 27.2 ppg but a below-average defense (22.9 ppg, 22nd in the NFL). Luckily, the Packers (20.2 ppg) are struggling to score.
13 points- Kansas City over Las Vegas: The drops on Monday night were alarming. However, when clicking, there aren't many teams that can compete with the Chiefs' defense. That would include the Raiders, who have lost five straight at home against their AFC West rival.
12 points- San Francisco over Seattle (Thur): San Francisco's Christian McCaffrey started another TD streak last week as the Niners rolled to an easy 27-14 victory over Tampa Bay. Many pundits may point to Seattle's 10-2 SU record at home against San Francisco. However, remember that 10 of those years included Russell Wilson as the Seahawks' QB. Their first year without him at the helm resulted in a 21-13 Niners win. San Francisco is 14-2 SU in their last 16 games against NFC opponents.
11 points- Philadelphia over Buffalo: The saying goes, "Good teams win, great teams cover." Philadelphia has the best ATS record (6-2-2) in the NFL. I'm not sure I'd call them a great team, but they continue to find ways to win. Buffalo, meanwhile, continues to struggle, only going 1-6 ATS in their last seven games. It should be one of the more exciting games of the weekend.
10 points- Minnesota over Chicago (Mon): This is the game where Chicago's franchise QB, Justin Fields, was injured earlier in the season, causing him to miss four starts. Backup QB Tyson Bagent went 2-2 in that span. Last week, Fields returned, and the Bears started losing again. In fact, Chicago is 3-17 SU in their previous 20 contests and 0-5 against Minnesota.
9 points- Baltimore over LA Chargers: If this were a playoff game, I'd be all over the Chargers. But Baltimore owns Los Angeles this century, going 8-3 SU in the 11 meetings between these AFC rivals since 2000. The Ravens have the 4th-best offense (27.6 ppg) and 2nd-best defense (16.1 ppg) in the league. After the Chiefs loss on Monday, the Ravens are breathing down Kansas City's necks for home-field advantage in the playoffs and look to win here to keep the pressure on.
8 points- Tennessee over Carolina: At this rate, Carolina might wish they had kept last year's interim head coach, Steve Wilks, at the helm. He was 6-6, while new HC Frank Reich is 1-9. Things are bad in Carolina: they have the 29th-ranked offense (16.3 ppg) and 31st-ranked defense (27.5 ppg). Allowing ten more points per game is not the equation for a winning team. The Titans always make it challenging, but they should easily win this game.
7 points- Cincinnati over Pittsburgh: What's worse: Having your Pro Bowl QB go out for the year or getting a new offensive coordinator in the middle of a season where your offense hasn't scored four touchdowns in a game once? Even without their star QB, Cincinnati's offense is in better shape than the Steelers.
6 points- Arizona over LA Rams: Arizona's surgically-repaired QB Kyler Murray has looked decent in his first two starts of the season, posting the Cardinals' second-highest passing total and averaging 6.5 ypc in 13 attempts and leading the Cards to half of their season total in victories. The Rams continue to struggle away from Sofi Stadium, going 2-10 in their previous 12 road games.
5 points- New Orleans over Atlanta: While they might not be as successful as Andy Reid's teams, the NFC South-leading New Orleans has done well coming out of their bye week, going 7-j3 SU in their most recent post-bye games. They're also 6-1 SU in the last seven meetings with Atlanta. The Falcons are playing musical QB after starter Taylor Heinicke tweaked his hamstring.
4 points- Tampa Bay over Indianapolis: Home-field advantage does not exist for Indianapolis, as they are 1-9 SU in their previous ten games at home. They have also recently struggled against teams from the NFC, going 1-7 SU in their last eight contests. Tampa Bay is 4-0 ATS over the last month of games.
3 points- Denver over Cleveland: Even though the Browns won their first game without star QB Deshaun Watson, they only managed to gain 259 total yards against defense ranked 27th in yards allowed. Denver is last in that category, but 726 of those yards came in their historic defeat against Miami. Throw that it's in Denver, and a loss seems inevitable.
2 points- Jacksonville over Houston: This game is surprisingly a battle for first place in the AFC South. When these two teams played back in September, Texans rookie QB CJ Stroud notched his first win in the NFL on the road. Jacksonville looks to repay the favor. The Jaguars are true road warriors, going a perfect 8-0 ATS over their last eight games as visitors.
1 point- NY Giants over New England Patriots: At this point in the season, who wins this game is truly anyone's guess. I'm going with the team that has an All-Pro at running back. There may not be three touchdowns scored in this game, as New England is 31st in the NFL in scoring (14.1 ppg), followed directly by the Giants (13.5 ppg). The defenses are slightly better, with the Patriots coming in at 23rd (23.8 ppg) and the Giants at 28th (25.9 ppg). Seriously, the NFL should PAY people to watch this debacle.
Here is my record for the season so far:
Week 1: 9-7 59 total points
Week 2: 12-4 119 total points
Week 3: 10-6 79 total points
Week 4: 10-6 97 total points
Week 5: 6-8 69 total points
Week 6: 11-4 84 total points
Week 7: 6-7 41 total points
Week 8: 11-5 101 total points
Week 9: No article
Week 10: 9-5 67 total points
Week 11: 10-4 85 total points
Total: 94-56 (62.7%) avg.80.1 points per week
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