Toby’s NFL Week 12 Betting Recap

TOBY’S NFL WEEK 12 BETTING RECAP – We absolutely needed that one over at Wreathway Rainmakers LLC. Hopefully that was enough rain to wash away the drought that had been specifically affecting my betting process.

Although, I did drop to 0-1 in my Locks of the Week, I went 10-5-1 overall and aside from the aforementioned Tampa/Indy debacle, hit all of my remaining “green” games.

Related: NFL Fantasy Football Week 13 Sleepers

Since “Green Games” sounds weird, I am officially renaming them “High-Confidence Picks” through the power vested in me by the President of the Conch Republic. 

The week was off to a great start, as ol’ Tobes was 4-0 on the early games and my sights were set on the ever-elusive perfect week*. 6-5-1 isn’t great for the rest of them, but I’ll take it over a complete collapse.

(In reality I don’t know if I ever want to have a perfect week, because I would feel so much regret over not putting in a 16-game parlay).

Week 12 All Games: 10-5-1

All Games Season Total: 89-88 

Hey now, back over .500! Take that, randomly flipped coin! You don’t know football, George Washington!

Week 12 High Confidence Picks: 4-1

All Games High Confidence Total: 36-40

I guess George is still better than me when the stakes are high.

Let’s go through the games in chronological order and see where we went wrong. By we I mean where I went wrong, but this is a team sport and credit is shared around here.

GREEN BAY @ DETROIT (Pick: Green Bay)

Started off by overruling my numbers right off the bat, as they loved Detroit in this one. But guess who never really loves the Detroit Lions? Me! I never truly trust this franchise, no matter the situation.

During the offseason I plan to adjust the way my algorithms treat and weight recent performances, as right now they are putting far too much stake in season-long performance. Green Bay has been not-awful the past few weeks while Detroit has been trending the opposite way.

Both of these teams have tricky lines this week, which I’ll get to in my preview column coming soon to a web browser near you!

WASHINGTON @ DALLAS (Pick: Dallas)

This one was simple, and I overthought it a bit when the spread jumped to 13.5 and lowered it to “medium” confidence. I shouldn’t have done that. The Cowboys beat the absolute piss out of bad teams (/Tuco voice). The Commanders, well – they are a bad team. End of scene.

Ron Rivera is a dead man coaching. Their offensive strategy of “let Sam Howell pass 50 times a game doesn’t seem to be working all that well. They’ve traded away both their edge rushers for moderate compensation.

I’m not a huge Chase Young fan, but how much does it benefit you to trade him for a third rounder when you’re very likely to get that in a compensatory pick if you let him leave? Maybe they plan on going on a spending spree this offseason. That’s the only way it really makes sense to me. 

SAN FRANCISCO @ SEATTLE (Pick: San Francisco)

Similarly to the game above, there was no deep thought here. San Francisco absolutely owns Seattle recently, and even if Geno Smith were fully healthy I’d have predicted a blowout here. It’s Wednesday and DK Metcalf still hasn’t gained an inch of separation.

MIAMI @ NEW YORK JETS (Pick: Miami)

Guys, the bookies gave us Miami -9.5 against Tim Boyle. This actually happened! I pray that you took advantage of it, because I doubt we’ll see a game this obvious for some time. I have no idea I made Tampa Bay my lock of the week when I had this game to choose from as well. 

Miami didn’t even play that well and still won by 20, because they were playing against, you know, Tim Boyle. 

Oh, and, ummm…the Jets are actually going to start him again. The New York Jets as we speak are once again preparing to subject themselves to the fate of a guy who was bad at Directional Kentucky. This week they host the Falcons, and you can get the Falcons -2.5. Yes, the Falcons are bad. Yes, the Falcons start Desmond Ridder. They do not, however, start TIM FREAKING BOYLE. Tim Boyle makes Mac Jones look like Tommy DeVito. I’ve already locked this bet in before I even start looking at this week’s matchups.

NEW ORLEANS @ ATLANTA (Pick: New Orleans)

I should have known better than to put any faith at all in the massively disappointing right arm of Derek Carr, and I suffered the fate that I undoubtedly deserved.

I’m so tired of seeing the Derek Carr Saints, and they are essentially stuck with him through at least 2024. This team has the teeming electricity of Jameis Winston and Taysom Hill on their roster yet they keep giving us this unwatchable trash offense. They should be ashamed of themselves.

JACKSONVILLE @ HOUSTON (Pick: Jacksonville)

This pick was based purely on vibes and I just got lucky here. This one could have gone either way but in the end, the Jags D was able to stop the Texans’ attempt at a game-winning drive and force a 58-yard field goal from a kicker who’s maximum range appears to be about 57.9 yards. An excellent finish to this one.

For the record, I agreed with the decision to kick that field goal. 

TAMPA BAY @ INDIANAPOLIS (Pick: Tampa)

My lock of the week was easily picked by Gardner Minshew and the baby horses, as they mostly controlled this one throughout. Tampa made it interesting at the end – and my hopes were for a late touchdown followed by a missed two-point try – but it would have been an undeserved lucky win if I got it. 

I’m still not off of Tampa Bay – I just think that Indy is completely unpredictable and I need to be careful with them going forward. 

NEW ENGLAND @ NEW YORK GIANTS (Pick: New England)

This was my least confident pick last week by a lightyear and I didn’t watch a second of it outside of the missed field goal by New England at the end.

Looking at the box scores, it appears that Tommy DeVito can absolutely play at least well enough to stick to an NFL roster, while Mac Jones’ NFL career may be just about over.

What a fall from grace for a guy who threw a couple short passes in 2021 and impressed everyone by being mostly competent, to whatever this is. He’s going to make Zappe Hour a thing, which is unforgiveable. 

CAROLINA @ TENNESSEE (Pick: Tennessee)

Anytime I can pick a bad team against the worst team, I’m taking it. Bryce Young is only a few months into his NFL career and he’s already gotten a coach fired. 

PITTSBURGH @ CINCINNATI (Pick: Pittsburgh)

They made this one closer than it needed to be, but there were not enough lucky tipped-pass bounces to allow Cincy to steal this one. The Steelers are still not a good offense but in the first game since their independence from (Matt) Canada, they put up over 400 yards of total offense and looked like an NFL team.

I don’t think there were tremendous schematic wrinkles, and while Pat Freiermuth was heavily involved, they still only got 5 targets to George Pickens. In my opinion, they just stopped treating living to turn 2nd and short into 3rd and shorter, as if it were the 1988 NFL season. 

I should have made a quick post on Saturday begging everyone to take Jake Browning over 200.5 passing yards, as “backup QB going off against the Steelers” is generally as close to a lock as you can get. Even more than Tampa over Indy! Browning looked awful but he still cleared the mark, naturally. 

LOS ANGELES RAMS @ ARIZONA (Pick: Arizona)

This was also a vibes-based pick, but this one was dumb. LA absolutely owns Arizona. The rate of “ownership” in the NFC West is higher than any other division. Don’t buck these trends, self!

CLEVELAND @ DENVER (Pick: Denver)

This was another relatively easy pick, as I will live to bet against a rookie 5th pick only getting a single point in a game played on top of a mountain. That was one of my grandfather’s central tenets of sports gambling. He was a very geographically focused bettor with a keen eye on the topography of the 1933 Portsmouth Spartans season. Where was I?

Oh yeah, Dorian Thompson-Robinson. DTR! Has there ever been a successful NFL QB with a hyphenated last name? The Curse of the Dash! DTR hurt himself sucking out there on Sunday, so it looks like we’re going to get a Joe Flacco game. In 2023! Joe Flacco! Who would have guessed? I don’t know about you but I’m pretty pumped for it. 

BUFFALO @ PHILADELPHIA (Pick: Buffalo)

This looked like the right pick for most of this game, but Josh Allen reverted to “I hate possession of the football” Josh Allen at the worst possible time and at that point I had a feeling that Buffalo would find a way to lose. A shame as Allen played out of his mind outside of that throw.

They still looked like they would pull it out until Jake Elliott did what Jake Elliott does and made a ridiculous field goal in windy rain from 58 to send this game to OT where he hit again to end this one as a push. This was like the kick that the Houston kicker missed, but 80 times more difficult. 

KANSAS CITY @ LAS VEGAS (Pick: Las Vegas)

This was a bet on historical trends and for awhile it looked great, but in the end Las Vegas ran out of gas and just couldn’t hang with the Chiefs. 

BALTIMORE @ LOS ANGELES CHARGERS (Pick: Baltimore)

Everyone remembers the bad beats, but for every bad beat there’s a lucky win like this. I guess actually for every bad beat, there are half the bettors on the other side of it? Nah, that doesn’t sound as good. I hate when routine things are made to sound so routine!

I hated this game on both sides, but if I had to pick between the absolute GOATS of losing and the best team in the NFL, I’ll take the best team in the NFL. And Zay Flowers rewarded me by running a meaningless late handoff all the way to the endzone before finishing it with one of the best celebrations in recent memory. 

The Chargers need to clean house and relocate to like, Anchorage. 

CHICAGO @ MINNESOTA (Pick: Chicago)

This game was the difference between a good week and a great week, and the Bears came through when they needed to and gave me that great week.

One truly good game was not enough to sell me on Josh Dobbs, and as far as I’m concerned, this was a game between two bad teams. When one of those bad teams is getting 3.5 points, that’s the one I’ll generally take.