As things stand, the Lions are officially still alive in the playoff race after beating the Vikings on Sunday, but one team is no longer alive and that team is the Houston Texans.
I think I can say with 100% confidence that I will not be picking the Texans to win a game for the rest of the season, which means I’ve already spoiled one of my picks for Week 14, because now you know that I’m picking the Texans to lose to the Seahawks.
Actually, before we get to the picks, here’s a quick reminder that you can check out the weekly picks from every CBSSports.com NFL expert by clicking here.
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I’ll be honest, if you plan on watching this game on Thursday, you probably don’t even need to start watching it until the fourth quarter and that’s because we all know how the first three quarters are going to play out.
And right now, it’s especially impossible to predict what Minnesota’s going to do because the Vikings are the laughing stock of the entire NFL after losing to the Lions on Sunday.
Although the Vikings loss to Detroit was embarrassing, the Steelers probably aren’t laughing at them and that’s because THEY ALSO almost lost to the Lions.
I feel like the NFL should really embrace the fact that this game features the only two teams to play the Lions this year and not win.
The fact that the Vikings have a bad rush defense is good news for Big Ben, because it means the Steelers should be running the ball a lot and I have to think that’s what he wants, because there’s a good chance he’s barely going to be functional playing on three days rest.
This game feels like a coin flip, but there is one thing that has me leaning Minnesota: The Steelers are 0-3 against the spread in games versus NFC North teams this year and they haven’t been much better straight-up .
I mean, I’m pretty sure I still have some leftover Thanksgiving turkey in my refrigerator that was in there the last time they played, which reminds me, I should probably go check on that because there is a rather unpleasant odor coming from my fridge.
Speaking of the NFL scheduling department, I feel like someone there must really hate the Ravens because they are definitely getting the short end of the stick here.
They played the Ravens in Week 12, then had a bye in Week 13 and will now be playing them again in Week 14, which means the Browns have basically been prepping for Baltimore since the day after their Week 11 game ended, which was on Nov.
This is the first time in 30 years that a team has gotten to play two straight games against the same team.
I’m not sure what the Browns did during their bye week, but I’m guessing they threw Mayfield in an ice bath and let him sit there for 12 straight days.
In the modern NFL, conventional wisdom says that you need to be able to throw the ball forward to win, but these two teams have both thrown conventional wisdom out the window this year.
That being said, I have no idea what either of these offenses are going to look like this week and that’s because they’ve both been bad lately.
For as long as I can remember, the NFL has been forcing horrible NFC East games upon us in prime time, but the one time I WANT to watch an NFC East game in prime time, the league instead decides to have it kick off at 1 p.m.
Between the Browns getting two straight games against the Ravens and Washington-Dallas being at 1 p.m., it hasn’t been a good week for the NFL schedule maker.
After eight weeks of play, Washington was 2-6 and it looked like they were going to duke it out with the Giants for the title of worst team in the NFC East.
Usually, that would be enough to convince me to pick them and I probably would this week if they weren’t facing Dak Prescott.
They’re giving up more than 263.9 yards per game through air this year, which is the third-worst number in the NFL.
I’m not sure if the NFL has an equivalent of the Washington Generals always losing to the Harlem Globetrotters, but if they do, it’s probably the Buffalo Bills against Tom Brady.
However, I’m horrible with theories: I still don’t understand string theory, I fell asleep once trying to comprehend quantum theory and the only theory I somewhat understand is chaos theory, which says the Bills should actually have a chance to win, or maybe it doesn’t say that, I’m not sure.
The biggest upside for the Bills going into this game is that the Tampa area is not expecting 60 mph gale force winds this week, which means I think the Bills offense might actually light up the scoreboard after only scoring 10 points on Monday.
In that first game, the Rams couldn’t stop Arizona’s rushing attack, they couldn’t stop Kyler Murray and now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t really think they stopped anyone in a Cardinals uniform.
Since that loss to the Cardinals in Week 4, the Rams are 5-3, but there’s kind of huge catch there: They’re 5-0 against teams that are currently under .500 and 0-3 against teams that are .500 or better.
Also, when I say struggle, I mean he’s 9-70 against teams with a winning record and he’s never beaten a team that’s at least five games above .500 when he faces them.
The Cards have Kyler Murray back, they’re going to be at full strength and I’m still not convinced that Stafford has what it takes to beat a good team late in the season.
Now, did I know that a Ben Roethlisberger retirement story was going to leak out the night before the game? Of course I did.
Worst pick: Last week, I literally spent two paragraphs explaining why you should never pick against the Chargers in odd weeks and apparently, I don’t know what an odd number is, because I picked against them anyway even though their game against the Bengals was in Week 13.