Finally, the last incomplete week of NFL football is over: Under the current scheduling system in the league, week 12 is the last one in which proper NFL bettors can blame themselves for not betting “upsets” and/or claiming too many unknowns are in play. Every team has played 11 games now and, though one or even two unexpected teams may rise to end the season on a surprise winning streak, we can fairly well glean where most will finish at regular season’s end.
We can expect to see more balance on the table as the sportsbooks tune the lines and odds even more finely as well. At an even 11 games played, just 12 of the league’s 32 teams are within one game of ½00 either way, as opposed to the 21 or so we should expect after 16 games.
So let’s put that last week of chance to rest with the NFLbets’ roundup of week 12 results with scores adjusted for point spreads runs below; scores marked in bold indicate those games in which the SU and ATS result differed.
• Indianapolis Colts 17 at Houston Texans 16½. NFLbets has warned anyone who will listen or read to stay away from these AFC South interdivisional games, but you wouldn’t listen, would you…?
• Tennessee Titans 37½, Jacksonville Jaguars 20. …all right, this one was actually pretty easy.
• Carolina Panthers 31 at New Orleans Saints 24. Same goes for these interdivisional NFC South games. Wait, what’s that? New Orleans at Atlanta on Thanksgiving? Ah, well, there are exceptions to every rule – especially the rules that you make up yourself.
• Cleveland Browns 30, Miami Dolphins 24. This game featured the 2019 Cleveland Browns that we expected at the beginning of the season: TDs by Jarvis Landry, Odell Beckham, Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt; over 300 yards passing from Baker Mayfield; four sacks and two picks from a defense playing without Myles “The Swinger” Garrett.
Good for Cleveland – and NFLbets fully expects the Browns to take their next two ATS – at Pittsburgh, vs Cincinnati – as well. But weeks 15 and 16 put Cleveland at Arizona and vs Baltimore, leading us to believe that this preseason vogue pick in the “To Win the 2019 AFC Cahmpioship” prop is destined for an 8-8 finish. Place your bets elsewhere after week 14…
• Washington 19, Detroit Lions 12½. Here NFLbets was, thinking the Lions were set to go on a mini-run of SU wins to end the season, get Matt Patricia an extension and fool everybody into betting on them through September 2020. But, ah, it just ain’t gonna happen.
• Cincinnati Bengals 10, Pittsburgh Steelers 9½
• New York Giants 14 at Chicago Bears 13. Here’s a good bet: You can pretty much take the under in any game involving any of these teams for the rest of the year.
• Dallas Cowboys 9 at New England Patriots 7½. The greatest mystery in the NFL is just how Jason Garrett manages to hold on to his job in Dallas. To say Jerry Jones rewards loyalty has become a parodic understatement.
• Buffalo Bills 16½, Denver Broncos 3. For more on the Bills (as well as the Cowboys and Garrett’s, likesay, inability), click here. Look, NFLbets just wants to see how these guys perform against, you know, a team with a winning record.
• San Francisco 49ers 34, Green Bay Packers 8
• Seattle Seahawks 17 at Philadelphia Eagles 8. NFLbets wasn’t surprised one whit by either of these results, but reckons that the next Seahawks-49ers should be one serious bitch to bet – and a potential NFC divisional game? Forget it. Hope it doesn’t happen.
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31½ at Atlanta Falcons 22. Can we all agree that a 2-0 SU/ATS run by the Falcons is no big deal? At 4-6-1, hey’re still bottom-10 ATS, and NFLbets figures they’ll be bottom-5 by the end of 2019…
• New York Jets 34, Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders 0
–written by Os Davis
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