NFL Picks and Predictions Week 12: The Ultimate Bettor's Guide

You know what's better than watching football? Making money while watching football.

Last week, in total, our picks against the spread went 7-6. That's not great or poor overall. Fifty-three percent crosses over the tough threshold of being able to fight another day, though, so we'll take it as a win. Luckily, we went 3-2 in our "locks."

Every game tells a different story, but looking at what a team has accomplished on the season—not just in the box score but on film—will give you an edge over those who just stick to historical trends. We've been able to cross the thresholds of 52.5 percent in our season-long picks while coming within 2 percent of our 60 percent goal of our "locks."

This is the first week since Week 3 where there will be a 16-game slate. Despite three games already unfolding on Thanksgiving, this is still a loaded week of NFL action. This gives us more opportunities to take advantage of the market. If you're driving back home Sunday, I hope that turkey was worth it.

All picks ATS: 77-67-5 (.534)

Locks of the Week ATS: 32-23-1 (.580)

Thanksgiving Recap

Tom Pennington/Getty Images

Philadelphia Eagles @ Detroit Lions

The Lions pulled it out here 45-14. The Philadelphia defense just hasn't looked good in a while. In back-to-back weeks, they've lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Detroit, who both scored 45 points against them.

Those are two of the worst teams in the league. How did this squad regress so quickly? I would point to offensive time of possession. At Oregon, head coach Chip Kelly would always rotate 20-plus defenders into the game, and at the NFL level, where playing time is more situational and rosters are tighter, his defenses are going to have to look different.

Currently, he still hasn't adapted. His team's 26:14 time-of-possession average in a 60-minute game means the defense is on the field for longer than anyone else in professional football. The Lions, who looked destined for the first overall pick, are now 4-7, while the Eagles, who looked like they were going to pull away from the NFC East pack, also dropped to the same record.

Carolina Panthers @ Dallas Cowboys

When your quarterback throws a pick-six on the first drive of the game, it's probably going to be a long day. When your quarterback again gets hurt, this time for the season, on national television, it's even worse. The Cowboys really need to think about tanking here. Even if the injury was minor to Tony Romo, there's no reason to do anything but keep him on ice until next summer.

A 3-7 team versus a 10-0 team, and some were convinced that under Romo, Dallas had a chance to win. We learned the hard way that Romo isn't worth seven wins. Dallas just had no chance in this game after that pick-six. You could just hear the energy leave the stadium on the broadcast. "Again?"

Carolina won 33-14.

Chicago Bears @ Green Bay Packers

Eddie Lacy and Jeff Janis are capable of making explosive plays, according to this game. Janis' return might have been the highlight of the night in Green Bay's 17-13 loss. In the end, though, the Chicago Bears and Jay Cutler just looked better. It was frightening.

Davante Adams can't be trusted to catch a ball. General manager Ted Thompson gave an insane amount of money to a slot receiver in Randall Cobb, and he's the only thing propping this franchise up right now. One week after losing to Brock Osweiler and their former team, John Fox, Adam Gase and Cutler pieced together a big win.

With only six losses, the Bears aren't totally out of the playoff picture in the NFC. Vic Fangio has this defense looking good, which helped the Bears pull off the upset of Thanksgiving.

Buffalo @ Kansas City

Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Opening line: Buffalo @ Kansas City (-3.5)

Current line: Buffalo @ Kansas City (-6)

This game opened with a 3.5-point line in favor of the home team, Kansas City. The Chiefs, who have one of the loudest and most passionate crowds in the NFL, absolute deserve at least three points for home-field advantage. So, they're only slight favorites on a neutral field?

Kansas City has won its last four games by double digits. The Chiefs are quietly the hottest team in the NFL, relative to what they looked like earlier in the season. Andy Reid losing Jamaal Charles has somehow been a blessing in disguise. It's really one of the most puzzling aspects of this season.

From a power-ranking standpoint, this line is off. The Chiefs shouldn't be looked at as the team that got mopped by the Packers. Take them and earn your wife a nice gift to make up for ignoring her family on Thanksgiving while watching those horrible early games.

The pick: Kansas City (-3.5)

Minnesota @ Atlanta

Ann Heisenfelt/Associated Press

Opening line: Minnesota @ Atlanta (+2.5)

Current line: Minnesota @ Atlanta (+1)

I don't really mind that the Minnesota Vikings lost to the Green Bay Packers last weekend. It happened last year, and the Vikings still finished the season as one of the winningest teams against the spread in recent memory. This year, they've continued that title.

They opened up against Atlanta as 2.5-point favorites, but that number has since dropped a point-and-a-half. Who thinks the Falcons should be favorites here?

I would say defensively and in the backfield, the Vikings are a tier above Atlanta. If defenses don't win games, quarterbacks do. I'm not going to pick a team that is behind in those two categories as the favorite to win a game, even at home in a dome against a cold-weather team.

There's nothing real special about this game; Minnesota is more than just a single point better on a neutral field. The Falcons have lost four of their last five games, with their last two wins coming in a 10-7 game against Zach Mettenberger's Tennessee Titans and 25-19 in overtime against the Washington Redskins. Good luck heading into draft season, Atlanta fans.

The pick: Minnesota (+2.5)

Tampa Bay @ Indianapolis

Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Opening line: Tampa Bay @ Indianapolis (-3)

Current line: Tampa Bay @ Indianapolis (-3)

This game is one of my favorites of the week. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been hot recently, but we can't forget they have letdown potential. If Jameis Winston's college career is any indication, right around the time that you finally sell yourself on his potential, he'll have a stinker.

He's just not consistent enough on a week-to-week basis. Against Dallas, he fumbled at the goal line in crunch time after posting a 55.8 passer rating. Against Philadelphia, he threw five touchdowns and had a 131.6 passer rating. It's hard to make the claim that you know what you're getting from a quarterback who had a 75.8 passer-rating swing in two games.

Indianapolis has been the better team overall this season and hasn't yet lost under Matt Hasselbeck, the 40-year-old who made Atlanta's Matt Ryan look like a college quarterback comparatively. Side note: Hasselbeck is a role model for taking a razor to his dome before his hairline went downhill—maybe even an American hero.

Three points go toward home-field advantage. This is a three-point line. The Colts are the more talented and accountable team. This one is a layup.

The pick: Indianapolis (-3)

St. Louis @ Cincinnati

Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

Opening line: St. Louis @ Cincinnati (-7.5)

Current line: St. Louis @ Cincinnati (-10)

Case Keenum almost pulled off a road victory last week, but the Cincinnati Bengals are a totally different monster than the Baltimore Ravens, who are still in the running for the first overall pick. The Bengals, despite recent slips, are still an amazing team.

Top to bottom, Cincinnati has the strongest squad in the NFL. Hue Jackson, the offensive coordinator who is as creative as Chip Kelly (if not more so) is going to be a head coach again in the recent future. Honestly, it might not be a horrible idea to move Marvin Lewis into a general manager spot so Jackson can take over as the head man for the Bengals.

With all of that being said, Cincinnati covering a 10-point line, after back-to-back slip-ups, seems unlikely. I love the Bengals' money line. Any given Sunday and all that jazz, but there's virtually no way the Rams win this game. Still, I have faith in the future 8-8 team to keep it within one score. It's not the sexy pick, but it's the right one on paper.

The pick: St. Louis (+10)

Miami @ New York Jets

Al Pereira/Getty Images

Opening line: Miami @ New York Jets (-4.5)

Current line: Miami @ New York Jets (-4)

We completely wrote off the Miami Dolphins before they moved their tight end coach Dan Campbell up to interim head coach. Now, they look halfway decent. It makes sense that a younger, seemingly more aggressive coach can get the best out of his players in the short term.

On the other side, the Jets are cooling off quickly. After they won four of their first five games, we anointed them as potential threats to test the Tom Brady-led Patriots in the AFC East. We're now eating our words as they've dropped down to a .500 record with four losses in their last five games.

Every time anyone ever suggests that a team can steal the crown from New England, our hopes are crushed in a matter of weeks. The majority of New York's losses have been close, but that 34-20 fumble against the Oakland Raiders sticks out like a sore thumb. Geno Smith didn't even perform out of line from a normal Ryan Fitzpatrick game in that matchup; the Raiders just dominated the Jets in the trenches.

Still, they've played at a more consistent and higher level than Miami this season.

How long is Campbell going to keep his streak going? It can't last all year, right? Do we trust the Dolphins to even beat the Jets if this game were in Miami? The Jets are four-point favorites, and I'm willing to give up that point over a field-goal victory. I just can't trust the lows this Dolphins team has had earlier in the season.

The pick: New York Jets (-4)

San Diego @ Jacksonville

Brian Blanco/Associated Press

Opening line: San Diego @ Jacksonville (-4.5)

Current line: San Diego @ Jacksonville (-4)

Don't bet on the San Diego Chargers for the rest of the season. After a long battle with attrition, they've thrown in the towel. It's hard to look at what they did against the Kansas City Chiefs last week and expect much of anything out of them from here on out.

As a full-season sample, the Jacksonville Jaguars are also the better team on paper. That sounds crazy, considering Philip Rivers' early-season success in 2014 and at times in 2015 against teams such as the Green Bay Packers. Blake Bortles of the Jaguars is finally starting to limit his boneheaded plays, and it's paying off for Jacksonville.

Right now, the Chargers are in the mix for the first overall pick. The Jaguars are thinking about a playoff run. San Diego is also going west to east in a morning game. Jacksonville is also coming off an extended break.

There's a lot going on here, and none of it favors the Chargers. Unless Rivers can put the team on his back, which he hasn't been able to go since receiver Keenan Allen went on injured reserve, this is a Jacksonville ballgame, and I'd feel decent about the Jaguars covering a four-point line.

The pick: Jacksonville (-4)

New York Giants @ Washington

Al Bello/Getty Images

Opening line: New York Giants @ Washington (+1.5)

Current line: New York Giants @ Washington (+2.5)

The New York Giants are quietly competent. This has the feel of one of their low-seeded playoff teams that end up making a splash in January. I'm more interested in the home team, though.

The Washington Redskins got torn to shreds against the Carolina Panthers last weekend, and I don't expect them to look much better for the rest of the season. They don't really have a quarterback, their offensive line isn't as good as we thought it was after they beat the St. Louis Rams, and they're not much better on the defensive side of the ball either.

How are the Redskins going to score 20-plus points? In four of their last six games, they couldn't surpass that mark. The other two games, which they won, were against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New Orleans Saints, who might have the two worst defenses in the league.

The only other team Washington has beaten other than St. Louis is Philadelphia, who we're learning had a vastly overrated defense after these last two games. The Giants had a week of rest after taking the New England Patriots into a 60-minute game. I'll take the Giants straight up, and give me them as long as I can turn in my win with a field goal.

The picks: New York Giants (-1.5)

Oakland @ Tennessee

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Opening line: Oakland @ Tennessee (+2)

Current line: Oakland @ Tennessee (+1.5)

The Tennessee Titans are not a good football team. The firing of Ken Whisenhunt won't fix every issue for the franchise. Tennessee is still fronted by a spread offense with a quarterback who holds onto the ball deep into the play, paired with an offensive line that doesn't hold up on the edges.

This line opened with the Oakland Raiders being favored by two points, and it hasn't had much action. Some might be cautious to take the Raiders on the road, but Derek Carr has been one of the more efficient passers in the red zone since his rookie season last year. And with Amari Cooper out wide, it's not hard to get to the 20-yard line.

The Titans defensive backs are the strength of the team, but even boundary players such as Darrelle Revis struggled with Oakland's Rookie of the Year candidate. This line is equivalent to the Raiders being seven- to eight-point favorites at home, but I'm still willing to ride with them based on the recent failure of Tennessee on Sundays. The Titans just manage to lose all of these close games.

The pick: Oakland (-1.5)

New Orleans @ Houston

Bob Levey/Getty Images

Opening line: New Orleans @ Houston (-3)

Current line: New Orleans @ Houston (-3)

I don't know what has gotten into the Houston Texans, but after a 1-4 start, they've rattled off four wins in their last five games. After the Miami Dolphins' 44-26 win, everyone wrote the Texans off for the rest of the season. Now, they're sitting at 5-5 and tied for first in the AFC South.

New Orleans has a fairly decent offense. The Saints can score points. The problem is that their defense, along with Tampa Bay's, might be the worst in the NFL on a consistency basis. The term “defense wins championships” isn't a lie. No matter how good your offense is, your defense has to be good to win 10 games in this league.

The Denver Broncos and Saints are basically opposite teams. Denver has a strong defense and no offense. New Orleans has a strong offense and no defense. The Broncos are in the running for the second-best record in the better conference in the NFL, while the Saints are trying to tread at an even record in a weak division.

J.J. Watt is taking over games and looks like his 2014 and 2013 self now. I'm not going to go against the team that keeps winning with no credit, while everyone is enamored with the team that gets bonus points for losing close games. The Texans are three-point favorites but should be higher than that when accounting for both power rankings and home-field advantage.

The pick: Houston (-3)

Arizona @ San Francisco

Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

Opening line: Arizona @ San Francisco (+9.5)

Current line: Arizona @ San Francisco (+10.5)

Las Vegas knows that no one is taking the San Francisco 49ers here. That's why this line is outrageously high. A 10.5-point favorite on the road? If you translate that to a game in Arizona, the Cardinals would be 16.5- or 17-point favorites. Those lines don't exist in the NFL.

I don't think anyone in San Francisco wants to repeat the early-season beatdown of the first time these two teams went at it. We've known the NFC West to be a self-sabotaging division that eats their own, with plenty of upsets on record. Also, with Colin Kaepernick on the bench, San Francisco won't have a higher passer rating throwing to its opponents than its own players this go around.

If the public zigs, it's your responsibility to align yourself with Vegas liability and zag. Again, these aren't attractive bets, but these are the ones where professional bettors make their marks.

The pick: San Francisco (+10.5)

Pittsburgh @ Seattle

Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

Opening line: Pittsburgh @ Seattle (-3.5)

Current line: Pittsburgh @ Seattle (-4)

The Seattle Seahawks are basically out of the playoff race. The Pittsburgh Steelers are one of the best teams in the league on a season-long basis. I mean, how many other teams would have beaten the Arizona Cardinals with their third-string quarterback?

Marshawn Lynch is out for this game. This team is shutting down. I get that Thomas Rawls is a quality replacement, but Lynch has been the non-vocal leader of the team and face of the franchise for an era of Seahawks football. With him gone and playoff hopes deep into the distance, it has to change how some in the locker approach this game.

The Steelers won't be more than three-point dogs against anyone in the league after this matchup. If Pittsburgh was in the NFC, where would it rank? First? Second? The Steelers beat the Cardinals already, so the only real competition they could get is from Carolina. That same conference has the Seahawks in the middle of the pack. Vegas messed up.

The pick: Pittsburgh (+4)

Sunday Night Football: New England @ Denver

Jeff Haynes/Associated Press

Opening line: New England @ Denver (+5.5)

Current line: New England @ Denver (+3)

Brock Osweiler looks competent. He just beat his former head coach and offensive coordinator, who know his weaknesses as well as anyone in the league. He did better than Peyton Manning's average performance this year. So why did the Denver Broncos open up as 5.5-point underdogs at home?

It's getting to the point where you're just paying a tax to pick the New England Patriots. The Patriots have won all 10 of their regular-season games, but they covered only five of those lines against the spread. Vegas is too good at what it does for you to just blindly pick a team on a week-to-week basis.

Denver still has a great defense, and New England is looking more and more like it's going to slip as it faces bad matchups, as it almost did against the New York Giants a few weeks ago. If this game were in New England, the line would have opened at either 11.5 or 12 points. That's way too high. The Broncos might be the second-best team in the AFC this year. The public is giving a quality team no respect, and anytime you can go against the public with solid logic, it's time to pull the trigger.

The pick: Denver (+5.5)

Monday Night Football: Baltimore @ Cleveland

Brynn Anderson/Associated Press

Opening line: Baltimore @ Cleveland (PK)

Current line: Baltimore @ Cleveland (-3)

When looking at this game, my initial reaction was excitement to bet against Matt Schaub, who has a tendency to throw pick-sixes. The deeper I look, though, the more I want to align myself with the Baltimore Ravens, even without Joe Flacco starting at quarterback.

If you've ever played football at any level, you understand the emotional waves that can occur during a season. What separates franchises is the stability to ride through them as those waves crash. Baltimore is a team with pride. It fights until the end of games, even if it doesn't win.

The Cleveland Browns, since their 2-4 start, have gone 2-8 in the worst way: with back-to-back-to-back-to-back double-digit losses. They can't even seem to control their locker room, as Johnny Manziel, who was starting for the squad, has been moved to third string after a video surfaced of him rapping to Future while holding a bottle of Aces during their bye week.

Now, if this were 90 percent of NFL players, it would be an absolute non-story, but because of Manziel's short leash, the franchise had to do something. That's the story of the Browns. They set standards, shoot below standards and then are late to make an adjustment until it's too late.

The Browns are three-point favorites this week. Expect them to shoot short of that goal, too.

The pick: Baltimore (+3)

Locks of the Week

Patrick Smith/Getty Images

1. Baltimore (+3) @ Cleveland
2. Pittsburgh (+4) @ Seattle
3. New Orleans @ Houston (-3)
4. Tampa Bay @ Indianapolis (-3)
5. Minnesota (+2.5) @ Atlanta

All lines courtesy of OddsShark.com.