This is my favorite time of the year. Christmas? Nah, not for me. Hanukkah? Not me, you mensch. Kwanzaa? My body is getting to the point where I’m only going to ever be comfortable in a dashiki. But not yet. No, I’m excited because Thursday Night Football is over and replaced by Saturday football! This Saturday and Sunday are full of great NFL gambling options for us to explore.
The NFL has a monopoly on ruining pre-Christmas togetherness.his season, they are going all out by giving us three games! The games aren’t exactly suckfests, either. Four playoff teams in three games, with one other fighting for their playoff lives.
Sorry family and friends, this weekend is taken for NFL watching and NFL gambling. Let’s get to the games!
Week 16 NFL Gambling Best Bets
Buffalo Bills (+6.5) at New England Patriots
The Patriots, fresh off a brand new cheating scandal, beat the Bengals Sunday. It wasn’t surprising, though it would have been hilarious if the Patriots had stolen Cincinnati’s signals and proceeded to lose, anyway. The Bills are coming off a win in which their offense pulled another no-show act, but because their defense is so good, it didn’t matter.
The last time the Patriots won a game against a team with a winning record was in week four against these very Bills. Since then, the offense has struggled to get anything done, with Tom Brady blaming the wide receivers for the fact that he is becoming more noodly armed by the week. The defense has continued to bail out the New England offense, which is pretty much the exact same thing that is happening for Buffalo. This won’t exactly be an offensive explosion.
These teams are first and second in the league in fewest points allowed this season. Josh Allen and Tom Brady aren’t expected to look like Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson. Both teams are going to rely heavily on their defense. The only real point of attack for either team is the rushing game, with the Patriots merely being the seventh-best team in the league against the run, and the Bills being the tenth-best.
All signs point to a Patriots victory, despite their underwhelming performances for the past two months. But all signs also point to a low scoring game. The first game was a six-point game, and there is no real reason to think it’s going to be any more this deep into the season. The Patriots are going to win by around 4-6 points. The Bills are going to hang close because they hang close every week. Take the Bills getting the points.
Carolina Panthers (+7) at Indianapolis Colts
No team that got the unholy crap kicked out of them on national television and saw their bleak chances of making the playoffs go up in flames should be favored by a touchdown. The Colts look like they have a “closed for the season” sign like a midwest Dairy Queen. They are probably going to let T.Y. Hilton limp around the field again, instead of doing the common sense thing and shutting him down for the season.
The Panthers are starting former “senior student-athlete of the year” Will Grier. The rookie from West Virginia is out to prove he is better than human interception machine Kyle Allen. If there was ever a game that Christian McCaffrey was going to get 45 carries and 10 receptions, this would be the week. While Indy is ninth in the NFL against the run, they have also given up on their season, so all bets are off.
Jacoby Brissett has only gone over 200 passing yards in two of his last six games. He also hasn’t had a QB Rating over 100 in the past five games. His completion percentage has also gone into a tailspin, as he failed to complete 53% of his passes in either of his past two games.
The Colts are toast and the Panthers are at least trying some things. I’ll take the Panthers getting the points.
Baltimore Ravens (-10.5) at Cleveland Browns
The Browns aren’t going to beat the Ravens again. We might as well get that out of the way first. The Ravens have won their past seven games by an average of 23.4 points. The Browns are generally bad at everything. They will finish the decade without a winning season and nothing they can do will change that.
The Browns came into the season as the hot pick to make the playoffs. That optimism lasted exactly one game when they were cornholed by the Titans to start the season. Since then, they have been one slow-motion train wreck after another. No offensive line. Odell Beckham playing the entire season with a sports hernia. Freddie Kitchens exposing himself as about as competent as whoever decided Freddy Got Fingered was a good idea.
Oh, and Myles Garrett tried to murder that apple-cheeked goon, Mason Rudolph.
The Ravens are still playing to ensure they get home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. There is every chance in the world that the Browns, the sixth-worst rushing defense in the NFL, are going to be down by 27 points at halftime. The Browns can probably cut two touchdowns off of that when the backups get into the game for the Ravens, but that won’t be enough. Take the Ravens giving the points. NFL gambling doesn’t have to be hard sometimes.
Jacksonville Jaguars (+7.5) at Atlanta Falcons
I spent two straight months saying that the Falcons should have fired their coaching staff midseason to get a jump start on a new staff to work with their offense. Instead, they messed around and started playing well enough that I’m actively wondering if the Falcons are actually going to fire their staff at all, or seize on their late-season momentum and bring everyone back, only to go through this entire process again next season. Like a snake eating itself!
Meanwhile, the Jaguars fired Tom Coughlin, who was set to retire after the season. To put this into perspective: The Falcons didn’t fire their coach despite the fact that their offense was non-functional, even with a former MVP at quarterback, and one of the best wide receivers of his generation on the field. The Jaguars fired their president two weeks before he was supposed to retire because they felt strongly enough that he was bad at his job. They offed him like a retiring cop in an 80’s crime thriller.
Anyway, the reason for the feared job security in Atlanta is that the Falcons are actually starting to win games. They have won four-of-six games, and are assuredly brimming with optimism over the fact that they beat the 49ers by half a football on Sunday. The Jaguars are butt. Actually, both teams are butt.
The Falcons don’t do anything right, and that includes playing badly. They are going to win this game by 35 points. Football is so very, very stupid, and so is NFL gambling (sometimes). Take the Falcons at home.
Kansas City Chiefs (-6) at Chicago Bears
The Bears are, horrifyingly enough, 7-2 on national television under the watch of Matt Nagy. The Chiefs have nothing to play for and are currently marching out former members of 98 Degrees at running back. Matt Nagy vs. Andy Reid! I genuinely don’t care about any of this. I do know that the Bears have a weird habit of winning games like this for absolutely no reason.
The Chiefs are the seventh-worst team in the NFL this season against the run, and the Bears will make a nominal effort to run the ball. Somehow, some unforeseen way, Tarik Cohen is going to ruin someone’s fantasy football championship by rushing for two touchdowns and catching another one out of the backfield.
Without a competent rushing attack, the Chiefs have to throw into the only thing that even remotely resembles a strength this season for the Bears: their secondary. They will probably keep the Chiefs under 30.
I have no reason to believe this is going to not blow up in my face, but the Bears are going to win this game. Their season is over, everyone is hurt, and they are going to win as a way to hurt their fans. Yes, we are sadists. All of us. Giardiniera-smelling sadists. With only NFL gambling to sate us. Take the Bears at home getting the points.
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