NFL 2016: Week 12

Busy with the holiday, and the only games I got to see this week were Tom Brady stomping the 49ers under the Santa Clara drizzle, and...

IMAGE(http://www.csnne.com/sites/csnne/files/styles/article_hero_image/public/2016/11/22/raiders_derek_carr_112116.jpg)

... our mighty bandwagon continuing its Commitment to Excellence!

So let's just go straight into Pick 'Ems

San Diego at Houston: Even though Brock Osweiler is so ineffective that Football Outsiders' numbers place him at about the effectiveness of a replacement level QB kneeling down every snap from the shotgun, the Texans are 6-4, largely on the back of their 4th ranked run offense, and their 4th ranked pass defense. They simply smother passing attacks and then make other teams have to beat them at their own ground-and-pound style of football. San Diego is the exact opposite: they're the 5th ranked pass attack and the 5th ranked run defense. The two have this in common: these approaches bring them wins at home, but they're both 1-4 on the road. Since Houston is at home, I'm picking them here.

Jacksonville at Buffalo: The best 2-win team ever hits the road looking for win number 3. Both teams are building up some impressively long injury reports, but Shady is expected to start and that's pretty much all that matters on the Bills' side. No matter. This is the week the Jaguars passing game starts to come alive. You just wait. Jacksonville.

Carolina at Oakland: Start saying it with me: Derek Carr, "MVP". With the Raiders currently sitting at 8-2 and gearing up to chase that first round bye position, it's a discussion that's going to start heating up. This week, last year's MVP comes to town, with a team that has picked itself up off the mat and gotten to 4-6 thanks to wins in 3 of the last 4. Cam is still dangerous, but there's no stopping the pride of Fresno. TOUCHDOWN, RRRRRRRAAAIIIIDDDERRRRSSS!!

Kansas City at Denver: In a year of, let's face it, not the best football, the AFC West is a lone shining beacon of actual competition. KC and Denver are both 7-3 and yet they're looking up at the 8-2 Raiders, making these head-to-head divisional contests almost playoff level games. Denver continues to get as much as it can out of Siemian, who is "dealing with discomfort in his shoulder" (you have to switch hands sometimes, dude). Denver's been kind of turnover happy lately, which plays well for KC, because they really don't rank all that highly in any phase of the game except for their #1 turnover differential. Still, both teams have been much sounder at home than on the road, so I'll take the home team Denver this time. Especially after KC lost to a bunch of Aguayo field goals last week, WTF.

Green Bay at Philadelphia: Well, so much for thinking the Packers couldn't slide further. A week after Tennessee threw 47 points up on them, Washington dropped 42. This is a team in free-fall, going into the 3rd game of a 3-game road trip. Philly's hot start petered out, but they've been trading wins and losses in competitive games. Green Bay still has a powerful passing game and a high ranked run defense, and their shoddy pass defense might not be something Philly is in position to exploit. If Green Bay loses their 5th straight, it could actually put the Mike McCarthy regime at risk. So I'm probably doubling down on last week's mistake, but give me Green Bay to at least clamp the artery.

Make your Week 12 picks now!

Week 11 Results
EvilDead: 5-0
garion333: 5-0
Oddsmakers: 5-0
Abu5217: 4-1
Bubs14: 4-1
ballnchained: 4-1
Jayhawker: 4-1
tboon: 4-1
Certis: 4-1 oh god no
Minase: 4-1
MilkmanDanimal: 3-2
Vector: 3-2
cube: 3-2
Rat Boy: 3-2
LeapingGnome: 3-2
PorkSmoothie89: 3-2
TheGameGuru: 3-2
*Legion*: 3-2
iaintgotnopants: 3-2
Torq: 3-2
Bighoppa: 3-2
MoonDragon: 3-2
Infyrnos: 3-2
karmajay: 3-2
oldmanscene24: 3-2
jonfentyler: 2-3
UpToIsomorphism: 2-3
onewild: 2-3
Stele: 1-4

Season to Date
Bighoppa: 35-19
Bubs14: 35-19
ballnchained: 35-19
Oddsmakers: 33-21
iaintgotnopants: 32-22
Certis: 32-17
jonfentyler: 32-22
Jayhawker: 32-18
Abu5217: 31-18
EvilDead: 31-23
tboon: 31-23
Torq: 30-24
MilkmanDanimal: 30-24
*Legion*: 30-24
Infyrnos: 29-25
PorkSmoothie89: 29-25
TheGameGuru: 29-25
onewild: 29-20
Rat Boy: 28-26
garion333: 28-21
MoonDragon: 28-26
UpToIsomorphism: 27-27
Minase: 27-22
oldmanscene24: 26-28
Zaque: 26-23
karmajay: 26-28
LeapingGnome: 26-28
cube: 23-31
Vector: 21-33
Kush15: 18-17
Top_Shelf: 16-18
Paleocon: 15-10
Running Man: 14-10
Stele: 12-23
Jowner: 4-1
Gumbie: 3-2
Docjoe: 2-3
Nomad: 2-3

Every week I remember to pick my season just gets worse

In people that have picked every week, I am last. Dead last. The lastest. There is no Last of Us. It's Last of Me. I went 3-2 and it did nothing.

Vector wrote:

In people that have picked every week, I am last. Dead last. The lastest. There is no Last of Us. It's Last of Me. I went 3-2 and it did nothing.

Hey, that is a skill unto itself. You probably couldn't repeat it even if you tried.

This is the first week I pick all home teams. Here's hoping...

MoonDragon wrote:
Vector wrote:

In people that have picked every week, I am last. Dead last. The lastest. There is no Last of Us. It's Last of Me. I went 3-2 and it did nothing.

Hey, that is a skill unto itself. You probably couldn't repeat it even if you tried.

This is the first week I pick all home teams. Here's hoping...

Ha! I picked all away teams.

Couldn't we have just put Aretha back on stage for halftime? One song would cover the whole thing.

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MilkmanDanimal: 30-24
*Legion*: 30-24

San Diego Chargers at Houston Texans: I'm very disappointed in this San Diego team, which has stopped losing in insanely entertaining ways. They were much more fun the first four weeks or so. Maybe they'll be more fun next year when they wind up the Clippers to the Rams' Lakers. 7-9 Lakers, but Lakers nonetheless.

Jacksonville Jaguars at Buffalo Bills: I don't want to suggest I'm expecting a blowout, but Bortles is going to Bortle the hell out of the stat sheet in the fourth quarter.

Carolina Panthers at Oakland Raiders: All I'm saying is if the Raiders really want to stick it to the Panthers, they should win with David, not Derek.

Kansas City Chiefs at Denver Broncos: The Chiefs had issues moving the ball against Tampa's secondary, and I will never forgive them for making Chris Conte look good.

Green Bay Packers at Philadelphia Eagles: The interesting part of this game to me is going to be watching the battle between Carson Wentz not throwing it deep vs. the Packers' nonexistent secondary. Classic Stoppable Force vs. Moveable Object battle.

So much for Sam Bradford not turning the ball over.

Heart says Panthers, head says Raiders.

Carolina is still without Oher, and the team isn't taking Kuechly on its West Coast trip. (The Panthers are playing Seattle next week and elected to stay out there for the week in between.) And Oakland's O-line seems to be the real deal.

Hmm tried to make my picks and it says something went wrong. In case I forget to enter them again I'll post them here: San Diego, Buffalo, Raiders, Chiefs, Eagles

Ugh. I thought my Sports Hate for Jerry Jones' team was as high as it could get. Instead it has no limit.

Zaque wrote:

Hmm tried to make my picks and it says something went wrong. In case I forget to enter them again I'll post them here: San Diego, Buffalo, Raiders, Chiefs, Eagles

Make sure to log in.

I've got a bad feeling about the SEA/TB game today. The story on Earl Thomas for the Seahawks is that he is the #1 reason they're able to do their scheme and without him being the single deep safety patrolling sideline/sideline, I could see some big plays happening for TB. Note that he's also often the final tackler on runs and other short plays; he's the fantastic backstop that masks the over pursuit of the rest of the team, imo.

Also, TB isn't a horrible team (I hear their kicker is AWESOME) that has started to pull it together lately? I feel like folks around SEA are talking like it's still the Bucs of the early season.

Anyways, I can see the story coming out of this game being, "Earl Thomas is the MVP on the SEA D; see what happened when he wasn't there?"

Or they destroy 52-10. Go Hawks.

Edit: And it's two straight TD throws by Winston, down 0-14. No Earl Thomas. Huh.

Jags and Niners threaten to send games to overtime, but ultimately endeavor to maintain their draft positions.

Missed the first quarter due to traveling, turned it on just to see Noah Spence grab his second sack of the day. Uh, not what I was expecting.

Also, is there a question of any sort that Earl Thomas is the MVP of that defense? He's got such ludicrous range and instincts that I think he's possibly the singly most irreplaceable defensive player in the league. There are a bunch of good pass rushers and corners, but there's only one Earl Thomas.

Whoa whoa whoa. Watch the Happy Talk there Milkman, your kicker missed another kick!

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Also, is there a question of any sort that Earl Thomas is the MVP of that defense? He's got such ludicrous range and instincts that I think he's possibly the singly most irreplaceable defensive player in the league. There are a bunch of good pass rushers and corners, but there's only one Earl Thomas.

Well, at least now that Ed Reed is retired.

Not having an Earl Thomas is why every attempt to export the Seahawks defense to other teams has come up short.

*Legion* wrote:

Jags and Niners threaten to send games to overtime, but ultimately endeavor to maintain their draft positions.

And the Bears threatened to win, but they dropped the potentially game winning TD on their 15th drop of the game (I don't know the exact count, but it was a lot).

Matt Barkley didn't look awful, but his receivers were. He was pretty consistently throwing behind his receivers early, but he Blake Bortlesed and started throwing some nice balls in the 4th. His practice squad recievers had no problem getting open, but nicely thrown balls kept going through their hands.

The Bears had 11 drops. Matt flippin Barkley played his best NFL game (I believe) and his receivers sh*t the bed.

*Legion* wrote:

Jags and Niners threaten to send games to overtime, but ultimately endeavor to maintain their draft positions.

FOX was nice enough to give me bonus coverage so I could really experience the Niners futility. Thanks.

WTF Raiders, why did you throw these past two plays? Carolina is going to get the ball back with over 1:30 and still a timeout in their pockets, down by only 3. Terrible decision there by JDR.

Cam has to burn their final time out at the line of scrimmage before the play clock expires. More bad management.

EDIT: Raiders defense comes through, bails JDR out.

I will admit that Tampa beating the Chiefs and Seahawks in consecutive weeks was not a thing I had viewed in my crystal ball.

Should capitalize that; Crystal Ball, the 1976 Styx album. Actually has a pretty good record picking games.

The opener for SNF remains an affront to the sense of hearing.

Welp, Oakland-Carolina was entertaining. I'll give it that.

Rat Boy wrote:

The opener for SNF remains an affront to the sense of hearing.

And the play on the field is an affront to the sense of sight.

Denver can't get out of their own way tonight. First the extra man on the FG that led to TD. Now coach takes away 15 yards on a 65 yard play because he's in the sideline.

The SEA-TB game made me physically ill. Such bad play. Shameful squandering of a 3 quarters of excellent defense.

Seriously, 3 points on offense? Disgusting.

Fortunately the rest of the NFC West lost as well, and the team has some key injuries that should be resolved soon. Still on track for a home playoff game!

Thank you, Kubiak!

Edit: And Boomshakalaka!!!!!!!!!