NFL Week 13 Picks

Well, now, Week 12 was very very good to me. I picked 11 of 16 games correctly in the FiveThirtyEight NFL Forecasting Game, for a positive score of 97.3 points (the FiveThirtyEight model picked 10 of 16 correctly for 78.6 points), and am now ranked in the top 32% of players. Up from the cellar!

This week's picks:

Buffalo Bills beat New England Patriots -- 59%
Cleveland Browns beat Houston Texans -- 91%
Baltimore Ravens beat Denver Broncos -- 91%
Chicago Bears beat Green Bay Packers -- 53%
Jacksonville Jaguars beat Detroit Lions -- 53%*
Minnesota Vikings beat New York Jets -- 59%
Pittsburgh Steelers beat Atlanta Falcons -- 53%*
Philadelphia Eagles beat Tennessee Titans -- 61%
Washington Commanders beat New York Giants -- 53%**
Miami Dolphins beat San Francisco 49ers -- 53%*
Seattle Seahawks beat Los Angeles Rams-- 61%
Kansas City Chiefs beat Cincinnati Bengals -- 100%
Las Vegas Raiders beat Los Angeles Chargers -- 53%
Dallas Cowboys beat Indianapolis Colts -- 79%
New Orleans Saints beat Tampa Bay Buccaneers -- 53%

Single asterisks represent picks of mine that differ from the FiveThirtyEight model's. The double asterisk on the Commanders/Giants game means that FiveThirtyEight left that pick at 50/50 instead of predicting a winner.

My picks could change if I notice e.g. an important injury or whatever, but they'll change before game time and be noted in updates to this post.

Some thoughts:

• I've given up my "never bet against Tom Brady unless he's playing the Chiefs" rule. The Bucs are falling apart and nothing's likely to get better until Brady retires so they can start building a team around The Next Guy. Unless they're playing the Texans, I'm probably going to pick them to lose.
• While I've never had a "never bet against Aaron Rodgers" rule, it's the same situation. That team is a wreck and needs to move on from Rodgers.
• FiveThirtyEight has San Francisco picked to beat Miami. I disagree. The 49ers are a good team this year, but I'm starting to think that Tua (especially in combination with Tyreek Hill) is the real thing and that the Dolphins just may take the AFC East.
• I always pick the Chiefs to win with 100% likelihood. If you tell anyone I seriously considered breaking that rule for the Bengals game this week, I'll call you a liar. But I seriously considered breaking that rule for the Bengals game this week.