The Wildcard’s NFL Picks - Week 13
Last Week: 10-6
Season: 115-61-1
New Orleans Saints (9-2) at Atlanta Falcons (4-7)
Monday 7.00am NZT
There’s no Thursday Night game this week because it was supposed to be Cowboys vs Ravens but with all the covid jazz the Ravens are going through (there was even talk of a possible forfeit/player strike) even the NFL wasn’t gonna force Baltimore to play on consecutive days with a weakened and underprepared squad to begin with. Come to think of it... nah, not even the NFL. But I did have to second guess myself there.
First player to get a shout out this week... how about Younghoe Koo?
That includes 21 made field goals in a row (although he did miss one that was ruled off for a roughing the kicker flag). He outscored the Raiders all by himself last week – Koo kicked five field goals, the Raiders scored six points. Absolutely did not see that one coming, it was so bad that Jon Gruden apologised to the fans afterwards. Always a tell when that happens. The Falcons were fantastic. They stopped Josh Jacobs on 4th & 1 on the first defensive possession of the game, forced a fumble the very next defensive play, got a three and out the next one, and the turnovers kept on coming as the scoreboard blew out further. A pick-six early in the second half was the standout but they had five turnovers on the day. The sort of performance you simply don’t expect from the Falcons.
They’ll be in for a very different contest against Taysom Hill’s Saints. Unorthodox where Derek Carr screams orthodoxy. Carr’s the superior player by far but styles make fights, after all. That Saints vs Broncos game where neither team had a proper quarterback... it sounded like a really funky gimmick and for about three maybe four possessions it was. Then it became tedious and I barely paid attention to the rest of the game other than to check the score. What stands out for the Saints these days has nothing to do with a QB though, it’s that defence returning to such high levels.
New Orleans’ Defence, Last Four Games:
Wk 9 at Tampa Bay: 3 points allowed, 194 total yards against, 3 turnovers
Wk 10 vs San Francisco: 13 points allowed, 281 total yards against, 4 turnovers
Wk 11 vs Falcons: 9 points against, 248 total yards against, 2 turnovers
Wk 12 at Denver: 3 points against, 112 total yards against, 3 turnovers
You might notice the Falcons in there from just a couple weeks ago. Yeah, that’ll do it.
Wildcard’s Pick: Saints by 10
Detroit Lions (4-7) at Chicago Bears (5-6)
Monday 7.00am NZT
‘Twas a sad day for the pencil sharpener industry. Not so bad for Detroit Lions fans though after Patricia gapped it with a 31.4% winning percentage. Total record of 13-29-1 as Lions head coach. That’s straight up awful for a team that has a stable and capable quarterback. What a waste of Matt Stafford’s middle career (although Staff had some injuries, sure). Patricia made Jim Caldwell look like Bill Belichick... this was a 9-7 team when he took over. Speaking of Belichick, the trend of his role players doing wonders at the Patriots and then being worse when they leave is very much the same (worse, even) with his coaching tree...
The Bears have lost five games in a row. They were 5-1 and now they’re 5-6. They have been a little bit better offensively since Mitch Trubisky came back in but this feels like a perfect opportunity for the ol’ interim coach bounce.
Wildcard’s Pick: Lions by 6
Cleveland Browns (8-3) at Tennessee Titans (8-3)
Monday 7.00am NZT
Oh buddy this one’s a running back extraordinaire right here. Nick Chubb missed a lot of time earlier this season but his last three games he’s had at least 110 rush yards at at least 5.7 per carry. Two scores to take his season’s tally to six rushing touchdowns. All up he’s got 719 yards on a mere 115 carries which is absolute madness. 6.3 yards per carry. Kareem Hunt did a pretty great job of it while Chubb was out but with the both of them in there this team has been immense on the ground...
Chubb has 10 runs of 20+ yards which is the most in the NFL this year despite missing six weeks in the middle of things. He has topped 100 yards in five games, failed to do so in only two. At this rate he’s gonna get to 1000 yards this season in only 10 games... and what’s more is that Kareem Hunt is on pace to do exactly the same (in a few more games, tbf). Imagine two 1000 yard rushes on the same team, goddamn.
And then we’ve got league leading rusher Derrick Henry who had ANOTHER stomper of a game against the Colts, 27 rushes for 178 yards and three touchdowns. With Dalvin Cook getting hurt last week that’s put Henry 127 yards clear for the rushing title with about a third of the season left. You just can’t stop this dude... and you know what else? Zero fumbles. Not a single one. Clyde Edwards-Helaire is the next best rusher without a fumble and he’s barely halfway to Henry’s 1257 yards with a mere 692 (which is still tenth, to be fair – just shows how far ahead Henry and Cook are... Chubb is the only dude outside that duo averaging more than a hundred yards per game, apart from him only James Robinson (80.9 yds/g) is averaging more than 75).
Baker Mayfield’s turn to talk now...
Ha. Well played.
Wildcard’s Pick: Titans by 3... but it’s a coin toss tbh
Las Vegas Raiders (6-5) at New York Jets (0-11)
Monday 7.00am NZT
Wildcard’s Pick: Raiders by 12
Cincinnati Bengals (2-8-1) at Miami Dolphins (7-4)
Monday 7.00am NZT
The only thing of relevance here is that when the Dolphins win they’ll be 8-4 and either tied with the Bills (if they lose) or one game behind in the AFC East. Which sounds amazing for a team that has made the playoffs once in the last decade, twice since 2002, and only four times all up since Dan Marino retired. Two of those four playoff appearances being as division champs. As to when they get to those playoffs... their last postseason win came in 2000.
So, yes, a potential playoff run would be incredible and it’d be huge for Tua Tagovailoa to be a part of early in his career. Defence and special teams have been the key to the castle for Miami but their quarterback (and hopefully he’s healthy for this one) is going to be the face of the franchise one day if all things go to plan. Only problem with those playoff chances and that vacant division title is that these are their remaining games:
Chiefs (A), Patriots (A), Raiders (H) & Bills (H)
Best case scenario they’re playing the Bills in that final week as an effective playoff playoff. More likely they lose at least three of those and are left begging for other results to go their way for them to scoop up a wildcard entry. There are seven playoff teams this year though so there’s still a decent chance. Gonna have to win a tough game or two over the rest of the campaign. I figured I might as well test the waters on the playoff machine and sorry to say the Fins ain’t gonna do that...
But it must be nice to be in contention for once.
Wildcard’s Pick: Dolphins by 9
Jacksonville Jaguars (1-10) at Minnesota Vikings (5-6)
Monday 7.00am NZT
Over the last five games the Vikings are 4-1 and Kirk Cousins has done this:
72.4% COMP | 1293 YDS | 12 TD | 1 INT | 10.26 AY/A | 124.3 RATE
Sneakily doing his best work while nobody is watching, as always. The one game that was televised in primetime there was the Cowboys game which they lost. They’ve got too much ground to make up but at least they’re putting up a fight. Just looking ahead at some of these games... feels like quite an easy round to predict. There are at least six games where there’s an obvious favourite. This is one of them. The NFL tends not to play to expectations but I’ve been kinda bad the last few weeks so I could use a big 12-3 week or something like that to get me going again.
Wildcard’s Pick: Vikings by 7
Indianapolis Colts (7-4) at Houston Texans (4-7)
Monday 7.00am NZT
The Colts have one of the best rush defences going. Seventh fewest rush yards allowed at the fifth fewest yards per attempt. And that’s including the fact that one man has acted as a complete exception to that rule. One man has utterly denied the trends, revolted against them in fact. That man is Derrick Henry and this is what he’s done against the Colts...
Week 10: 103 yards on 19 rushes (5.42 per attempt)
Week 12: 178 yards on 27 carries (6.59 per attempt)
So basically it goes like this...
Derrick Henry vs IND: 281 yards at 6.1 Y/A
Everyone Else vs IND: 840 yards at 3.3 Y/A
I mean... yeah. Wow.
By the way, Houston have allowed 1702 total yards at 4.9 yards per attempt. Only the Dallas Cowboys are worse in both of those categories... must be a Texas thing. What they do have is Deshaun Watson continuing to do the most astounding things – only Thanksgiving he threw 17/25 for 318 yards with 4 TDs and not a pick to be seen. His passer rating was 150.4, his best mark of the year. After a slow start against some very good AFC teams he’s been on the most incredible tear but nobody’s really noticing because the team is still losing. Well, they’ve won three out of their last four but that includes wins over Jacksonville and Detroit which barely count.
The only other player I can compare Watto to this season was Dak Prescott before he got hurt where he was single-handedly keeping Dallas in games they had no business to be close in. Again, must be a Texas thing. But Dak was still turning the ball over a few times whereas Watson’s not thrown a pick since week five. Enormous respect there – I wrote about it last week and it’s even more true now. After the obvious top tier of Mahomes, Wilson, Rodgers... Deshaun Watson is the next man up. No matter how bad Bill O’Brien might’ve run this team into the ground this is going to be a very coveted job simply because they’ve already taken care of the hardest thing to take care of in this game: they have an elite quarterback.
But they’re gonna get rolled by the Colts, most likely.
Wildcard’s Pick: Colts by 10
Los Angeles Rams (7-4) at Arizona Cardinals (6-5)
Monday 10.05am NZT
Wildcard’s Pick: Rams by 6
New York Giants (4-7) at Seattle Seahawks (8-3)
Monday 10.05am NZT
Sounds like Daniel Jones wasn’t as bad as first feared, he’s been doing some limited work in practice and while I dunno if he plays this game... not sure it matters because they’re losing either way. Might as well make sure he’s healthy for the run in of the most competitive division race out there where all four teams are still in with a chance of finishing in any order. On account of mutual uselessness.
NFC East Down The Stretch...
New York Giants (4-7): Seahawks (A), Cardinals (H), Browns (H), Ravens (A) & Cowboys (H)
Washington FT (4-7): Steelers (A), 49ers (A), Seahawks (H), Panthers (H) & Eagles (A)
Philadelphia Eagles (3-7-1): Packers (A), Saints (H), Cardinals (A), Cowboys (A) & Washington (H)
Dallas Cowboys (3-8): Ravens (A), Bengals (A), 49ers (H), Eagles (H) & Giants (A)
Washington are probably the strongest team at this time but they also arguably have the hardest remaining fixtures. Although the Eagles might argue with that... the Eagles are woeful so I don’t give them a hope. Funny thing is the Cowboys are last but all four NFC East teams should lose this week so the Cowboys beat the Bengals (both teams with backup QBs) then that could put them first in a fortnight. Then it’s all down to those last two games where they’ll certainly blow it. Honestly, only Washington would even partially deserve it at all but are they gonna win the two games they probably need to? Can the Giants get a couple wins? They might beat Dallas but it looks very much like they’re in for four straight losses coming up. The futility remains.
Wildcard’s Pick: Seahawks by 14
Philadelphia Eagles (3-7-1) at Green Bay Packers (8-3)
Monday 10.25am NZT
I mean... imagine going back to five minutes ago and telling your almost-current self that the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl a couple years ago with this same coach and Nick Foles at quarterback, after Carson Wentz had looked like a potential smoky MVP before being injured. And that that team was legitimately great and worthy of the championship. We all know it happened... but reminding ourselves about it right now is jarring. It’s one of those things where they played the salary cap so well that all these value players who did amazing for them were suddenly too valuable and they simply haven’t replenished the cupboard. As for Wentz, I’ve explored his capitulation before and every week it looks less likely that he’ll ever be back to his old standards which makes you think that a) the superior talent around him earlier in his career was a major factor in what he did back then, and also b) the injuries must have taken a toll on him, surely.
How about old mate Aaron Rodgers, now 37 years old, doing a bit of all this...
1st in touchdown passes (33)
1st in touchdown percentage (8.7%)
1st in passer rating (117.6)
1st in yards after completion (1625)
Not bad. Not bad at all. And to think I got pushback when I had him second third on my preseason QB rankings. She’s gonna be an interesting MVP race after all because Rodgers is arguably matching Wilson and there’s fascinating narrative arguments for both of them but realistically Patrick Mahomes remains the best player in the league so it’s all about whether that’s just too predictable for people to realise that and vote for him, could go either way.
Wildcard’s Pick: Packers by 11
New England Patriots (5-6) at Los Angeles Chargers (3-8)
Monday 10.25am NZT
Wildcard’s Pick: Pats by 3
Denver Broncos (4-7) at Kansas City Chiefs (10-1)
Monday 2.20pm NZT
This might as well be an every week thing now. Nobody’s even surprised when he does these amazing feats right before our eyes. As much as I wanna see Russell Wilson get that MVP award for sentimental reasons... it ain’t him. Not any longer. He’s only dropped a tiny bit from where he was earlier on but a tiny bit is the only margin of error you get against Patty. Chuck in the speed of Tyreek Hill and it’s undefendable, just as the Buccs. Mahomes is playing better now than he did when he was MVP (the last time).
Meanwhile here’s Drew Lock’s mum unleashing on the NFL for the pretty pathetic act of forcing the Broncos to play last week without a quarterback. They ended up starting Kendall Hinton who was a wide receiver on the practice squad and hadn’t played in a proper game since college and there was this weird soundbite on the telly about how some Broncos staffers hadn’t even heard of him before he was named to start... which honestly reflects worse on those staffers. Nothing to do with Hinton if these other jokers don’t pay attention to the people around them. Anyway, Hinton was mostly used to hand the ball off or to get his legs moving on designed runs. He threw the ball nine times for one 19-yard completion and two interceptions. Objectively terrible (although the sheer funkiness of the experiment got me wondering what you might achieve with an actual quarterback in that kinda system... Mitch Trubisky feels like a guy you could try it out with).
But I digress... here’s Mrs Lock...
Wildcard’s Pick: Chiefs by 20
Washington Football Team (4-7) at Pittsburgh Steelers (11-0)
Tuesday 11.00am NZT
Undefeated after eleven weeks with their remaining opponents serving up a 29-25-1 combined record. I expect the Steelers to drop a stupid one along the way – perhaps here against an improving WFT? - and that game against the Bills in a couple weeks I suspect I’ll pick them to lose but it’ll be a stunner if they finish any lower than 14-2. Which even then might not be enough for a first round bye because with the added wildcard team this year only one team gets that first round bye and the KC Chiefs have only lost once and show no signs of slowing down.
Old man Roethlisberger doing what old men quarterbacks tend to do (understandably) and trying his darndest not to get hit. Hadn’t really thought about it but he is a very different guy these days from the bruiser he once was, riding shots from linebackers to hurl the ball deep. And this team is built to handle that too. Speedy receivers both going downfield or over the middle. Tough tight ends. They still get that big yardage but it’s designed in a different way. Been saying Mike Tomlin’s the borderline Coach of the Year for a few weeks now.
Umm... Bud Dupree busting his knee. Keep in mind that this was already a team that was without Devin Bush and with two key linebackers out for the season that changes the complexion of this defence entirely. TJ Watt is pretty fantastic but the way the commentators talk about him is pretty wanky... not having either Dupree or Bush the rest of the way is a disaster in all honesty. The task in the AFC is to stop Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in the playoffs and that task gets exponentially tougher with every starting calibre player unavailable, let alone Pro Bowl calibre defenders.
Seems like forever ago that the Football Team ran all over the Dallas Cowboys. And when I say ran, I mean RAN in all caps. The Football Team have topped 120 rush yards in three games, two of those were against the Cowboys and then there was the Bengals two weeks ago. This Antonio Gibson fella has 243 rush yards at 6.1 yards per attempt against the Dallas and 402 rush yards at 4.1 Y/A against everybody else. Gibson was a third round pick in the 2020 draft and is beginning to really break through which, combined with Alex Smith offering some sturdiness to the offence, has them in a great position to push for the NFC East title. Already said that I reckon they’re the best team in the division... a couple more wins should do it. Probably gonna have to wait ‘til next week though.
Wildcard’s Pick: Steelers by 12
Buffalo Bills (8-3) at San Francisco 49ers (5-6)
Tuesday 2.15pm NZT
Haha, he’s a good kid! The flamethrowers he was tossing earlier in the season have probably taken the heat out of Allen’s campaign, in a funny way. He was never gonna maintain that level but because he touched such heights at the start it feels like he’s regressed back to the mean now when he’s actually still added 10% to his completion percentage from 2019... with only about sixty fewer yards and with two more touchdowns (and five games remaining).
The Niners won a game last week. Richard Sherman came back and picked off Jared Goff, they also got a Javon Kinlaw interception, and Nick Mullens did enough without being particularly great to get them to the victory against the Rams and keep them in the hunt after three straight losses had seemingly doomed them. But they can’t really afford to lose more than one more game and not sure they have the capacity to stop the Bills from running on them which is a problem. However the Niners do have three NFC East teams to follow this so get the Ws there and then hope the Seahawks rest a few in week 17 with their own seeding already wrapped up and maybe 9-7 sneaks them in. Maybe. The Bills have bigger fish to fry though. They’re out for a first division title since 1995... which was also the last time they won a playoff game. But you have to love the swagger, dammit.
Wildcard’s Pick: Bills by 7
Dallas Cowboys (3-8) at Baltimore Ravens (6-5)
Wednesday 2.05pm NZT
Eleven players activated from outside their roster, practise squad and all that, just so that the Ravens could play against the Steelers. But nah the NFL care about the health and safety of their players. This game was supposed to be on Thursday night but having to three times postpone the Ravens vs Steelers they had to knock this one back to Tuesday night on the other end of the game week which means that Dallas, coming off a Thanksgiving game, will have gone nearly two weeks without a game. Basically a second bye week. A 12 day break. At the time of writing, this is the 13th game this season that has been postponed because of the coronavirus.
Yeah, umm... I hate having to watch the Cowboys these days. Every time I give up on them they do something interesting, every time I have any faith at all they demolish me. Which means that they might be due a big one here... the Ravens have struggled to get their run game going to the same degree this year with a few pesky injuries and that’s the first clue for Dallas because when teams have rushed for 150+ yards against them they’re 0-5. This is the team with the worst scoring defence in the league, the worst rushing defence, the second worst turnover tally on both offence and on defence, and it kills me a little bit inside to keep trying to come up with interesting things to say about them. So I won’t. If Lamar Jackson ever wanted a statement game to show he’s still the man we saw last year then this is it... assuming he’s recovered from his bout of the Rona. He can be activated before this game but only just before this game so it’ll mean no training with the lads and maybe John Harbaugh figures it’s only Dallas and they keep him out another week to be sure. In which case I’m not sure this’ll be much of a spectacle, sorry to say.
Wildcard’s Pick: Ravens by 10
BYE: Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-5) & Carolina Panthers (4-8)
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