Week 13 is set up to be a good one with games spreading out from Thursday to Monday. Thanksgiving will feature six teams in action, with a game on Saturday as well. All 32 NFL teams are in action with no byes; the final bye weeks will be upon us next week. Let’s check our confidence level for all 16 Week 13 NFL games as we set our confidence pool picks.
The Packers at Lions will kick off the Thanksgiving Day slate. Kickoff is set for 1:00 ET in that game. Action will then shift to the Chiefs at the Cowboys. It’ll be capped off with an AFC North showdown as the Cincinnati Bengals head to Baltimore to face the Ravens. Last week’s article started off hot, sweeping the high-confidence picks. The Buffalo Bills on Thursday and the Philadelphia Eagles got us in the confidence level. Those were the only two picks we missed in the entire pool for a solid day.
Week 13 NFL Confidence Pool Picks
High Confidence Picks
1.Chargers Over Raiders
2.Rams Over Panthers
3.Seahawks Over Vikings
4.49ers Over Browns
5.Patriots Over Giants
The high confidence picks kick off with a couple of huge favorites, for good reason. The Raiders fired Chip Kelly; that’s great in showing, but that’s a bad football team. The Chargers are rested up from a buy and should easily take care of business in this one.
The Los Angeles Rams look like they could maybe be Super Bowl champions this season behind the play of MVP candidate Matthew Stafford and a brutally strong defense. The Panthers will be missing Jaycee Horn and Tre’von Moehring in their secondary. This game will likely look worse than Monday night’s loss.
The Seattle Seahawks are for real. It’s the Sam Darnold revenge game as he welcomes the ex who dumped him into his team’s house. He’s going to want to show them what they are missing. JJ McCarthy is also unlikely to play after entering concussion protocol. That would leave rookie Max Brosmer as the starter. Seahawks roll.
Shedeur winning in his first start is all good and well, as he gets the nod again this weekend. But there’s a huge difference in the Raiders’ defense and the 49ers. The Browns’ defense may keep it from being a complete blowout, but this one could get ugly as the Sanders haters score a big win.
The New England Patriots wrap things up on Monday night as they head into their late bye. But don’t think they’ll just overlook this game with what’s been a fun Giants team to watch. New England leads the AFC at 10-2 and wants to do everything they can to secure that precious #1 seed. With the schedule ahead, just win the game in front of you, and they can do that. The Patriots will make it 11-2 on Monday Night Football.
Confidence Picks
6.Jaguars Over Titans
7.Dolphins Over Saints
8.Chiefs Over Cowboys
9.Ravens Over Bengals
10.Broncos Over Commanders
11.Eagles Over Bears
The Jacksonville Jaguars just keep finding ways to win football games. Luckily for them, the Tennessee Titans are very good at losing football games. Tennessee is still the worst team in football, and the Jaguars are a playoff team and fighting to stay that way. Give me the Jags.
The Miami Dolphins have slowly put together a solid run. They’ve won three of their last four games and are coming in fresh and rested off a bye week. The New Orleans Saints have kept themselves in games and made them respectable, but the Dolphins have made me a believer over the second half of the year so far.
If you get those Thursday games in your pool, here’s the first one I would use. The Cowboys are getting a lot of love about how they deserve some respect. Patrick Mahomes is going to humble them on Thanksgiving in front of the world. It’s the perfect letdown spot after a massive win, and the Chiefs have their backs pinned against the wall. They found a way last week, and they’ll get it done in front of the world on Thursday.
Thanksgiving game #2. The Ravens have had the Bengals’ number lately, winning three of the last four matchups against them. Things are clicking with a healthier Lamar Jackson, and they now find themselves in the playoffs on the back of five straight wins. Joe Burrow will give them all he’s worth, but I’ll take the Ravens to come out on top.
The Denver Broncos are another team rested up from their bye and ready to get back into action. We’ve already taken the Patriots and Chargers to win. These are the teams they are facing in the race for the #1 seed and their division, respectively. Washington isn’t the same team they were last year. Give me Denver to score the victory and keep par with the teams they are battling.
The Philadelphia Eagles are coming off a loss to the Cowboys last week. I’ve been high on the Bears, and that’s worked out well. But the best team in football is coming off a loss and ready to prove something. It honestly doesn’t matter who they are playing.
Toss-Ups
12.Bills Over Steelers
13.Lions Over Packers
14.Cardinals Over Buccaneers
15.Falcons Over Jets
16.Colts Over Texans
A few tough games in the toss-up section this week. The Bills should easily be the better team in this matchup, but it scares me to bet against Tomlin and the Steelers with how the Bills have looked recently. I’ll ride with the Bills, but there’s a reason this one is this far down the list.
The Lions and Packers on Thanksgiving is a true toss-up where it’s two great teams in the same division, who know each other well. Either team winning shouldn’t surprise anyone. I’m rolling with the Lions to get revenge for the Week 1 loss.
The Buccaneers are one banged-up team. Baker Mayfield may play, or it may be Teddy Bridgewater. Either way, Jacoby Brissett has looked good, and the Cardinals have been close on a few occasions lately. This is the week I’m calling for the upset.
The Falcons and Jets wins the grossest game of the week award. The Jets are horrible, the Falcons are horrible about half the time. This is really a question of which Falcons team shows up. Either way, I respect myself too much to pick a Jets team this bad. So dirty birds it is.
I put the Colts and Texans at the bottom here because this is the game I’m struggling with the most. We are going to learn a lot, and I mean a lot, from these two teams and what their potential playoff runs will look like. I’ll side with the Colts, but it won’t be easy against that tough Texans defense.
