NFL Week 13 Picks: Predicting Teams Due for a Loss

Half of all teams playing this week will lose. That's just a fact in the NFL. While ties do happen, they're not common, and at this late point in the season, no team is looking to tie a game and hope that does them any favors come playoff time.

In the following slides, I detail four teams that are going to exit Week 13 with another check in the loss column.

Cincinnati Bengals (at Pittsburgh Steelers)

The Cincinnati Bengals are one of the most surprising teams of 2011. With a 7-4 record in a year they were pegged to be one of the league's worst.

Behind rookie quarterback Andy Dalton, the team has managed to compete in the difficult AFC North division and are just a few short weeks away from perhaps clinching a playoff berth.

However, for that to happen, they will have to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers on their home turf, and that doesn't seem the most likely outcome of Sunday's contest.

The Steelers have already beaten the Bengals once this season, and if they want to have a chance to win their division—or, at the very least, earn a wild card spot in the playoffs—they need more divisional wins.

Pittsburgh has been up and down all season long but have still only lost three games. Their bruising defense, while tempered with age and likely without starting safety Troy Polamalu, will bring pressure on every down while their offense, which struggled in Week 12, will regain their focus and shred the Bengals secondary.

Winning on the road is hard, and winning a divisional game in Pittsburgh is even harder. Look for the Steelers to grab another win in this most important late-season contest.

Miami Dolphins (vs. Oakland Raiders)

A number of teams have been surprising this year, including the Oakland Raiders.

They started the season solidly with the help of starting quarterback Jason Campbell and running back Darren McFadden. Though Campbell and McFadden have been hurt, they have continued their success with Carson Palmer under center and Michael Bush responsible for the running duties.

While the Miami Dolphins have found themselves a surge of their own after opening the season 0-7, winning three straight until falling in Week 12 to the Dallas Cowboys by a single point, they're clearly outmatched by a Raiders team with momentum and experience on their side.

The Raiders understand how important this season is to the team, after losing owner and figurehead Al Davis earlier this year and fighting critics who disagreed with the signing of Palmer and doubters who believed the team's success was simply a fluke that would correct itself.

Though Miami has proven that a season is clearly not over until Week 17, their best efforts won't prove enough against Oakland this week.

New York Giants (vs. Green Bay Packers)

The New York Giants are on their typical late-season slide, with the team winning .750 of their games in the first eight weeks of the season since 2004 and just .440 of them in the final eight.

While the team is on a three-game losing streak and need a win to keep them in the playoff discussion in the NFC East, the schedule hasn't done them any favors, seeing them follow up a tough game in Week 12 against the New Orleans Saints with their hardest test of the season—the undefeated Green Bay Packers.

Though the Giants had success earlier this season against another high-powered passing offense, defeating the New England Patriots in Week 9 by successfully keeping quarterback Tom Brady off the field, a similar strategy isn't going to prove as fruitful this week.

The Packers have their Achilles heel, to be sure—their porous secondary that is prone to giving up the big play—they've managed in recent weeks to more than make up for it on offense.

The Giants, in contrast, have fallen increasingly flat in both the passing and running games, which won't help them in their bid to best the 11-0 Packers on Sunday. It'll be another big loss at home for the Giants this week.

Indianapolis Colts (at New England Patriots)

While it's never safe to assume anything in the NFL, it's pretty easy to guess that the 0-11 Indianapolis Colts aren't going to walk out of their contest against the New England Patriots with their first victory of the season this week.

The Colts defense allows the most points of any squad in the league, at 29.7, while their Patriots counterparts—despite all of the injuries and issues—allow just over 20 points.

At the same time, the Colts offense is putting up an average of just 13.6 points per game while the Patriots, with one of the best offenses in the NFL, average 30.1.

That's a recipe for yet another blowout Colts loss. With a team so difficult facing one that has been so bad as to not yet win a game, those lowly Colts will have to wait another week to get that ever-elusive victory.