NFL Week 14 Picks: Bengals take down Steelers, Texans stun Patriots – CBSSports.com
“Mommy, what is that man doing to the goal post?”
If moms were upset with the way Cam Newton was dancing, they probably had a heart attack when Antonio Brown got to the end zone against the Colts.
Let’s be honest though, Brown did America a favor on Sunday by opening the door for parents to finally have the “birds and bees” conversation with their kids. I’m sure zero percent of parents actually had the conversation because the fourth quarter of an NFL game would be a weird time to have it, but at least it was nice of Brown to open the door.
If you somehow missed Brown’s touchdown celebration from Sunday night, here’s what happened.
Your Antonio Brown goalpost celebration supercut pic.twitter.com/5G8KJAcVud
— The Cauldron (@TheCauldron) December 7, 2015
I don’t grade end zone celebrations, but if I did, I’d give Brown an A+ because he combined everything you could possibly want in a touchdown celebration.
There was a touch of romance.
The goal post definitely outacts Gosling here, but I’ll take McAdams over Antonio Brown. (via @ekaycbs) pic.twitter.com/MAA8YzdWWn
— John Breech (@johnbreech) December 7, 2015
Of course, not everyone likes romance, so it’s always smart to throw in a video game element to get the gamer crowd.
ICYMI: 8-Bit Antonio Brown goalpost jumping, Super Mario Bros style (via @TheCauldron) pic.twitter.com/aJ3YUqYCF3
— Benstonium (@Benstonium) December 8, 2015
There was also a wrestling angle to the celebration.
Antonio Brown channeling his inner X-Pac, out here trying to give the goal post the “Bronco Buster”. pic.twitter.com/ucTnUB13Jr
— Mike Jackson, Esq. (@TheTruthJackson) December 7, 2015
Basically, with one straddle, Brown managed to please every demographic of the football-watching population, which I don’t think has ever been done in NFL history.
Really, the only downside to Brown’s celebration is that some poor security guard lost a chunk of her hair.
I can only imagine how the postgame conversation went between that security guard and her superior.
Security guard: “Hi. Do I get hazard pay?”
Superior: “No.”
Security guard: *Pulls out phone, shows Antonio Brown goal post video to superior*
Superior: “Actually, why yes you do. Here’s a check for all of our money.”
Of course, the most painful thing to happen over the weekend didn’t happen to Brown or the security guard. That honor belongs to this Buffalo Bills fan who decided to jump off the top of a car onto a folding table while trying to catch a football.
@BarstoolBigCat @barstoolsports @stoolpresidente pic.twitter.com/n3YLIDeFfJ
— TJ Barone (@TJ_Barone19) December 6, 2015
Apparently, this stuff is normal in Buffalo.
There seems to be at least 10 folding tables that get broken in half every time the Bills play at home. I have to think that the folding table industry is thriving right now in Buffalo.
Something else that’s thriving? My picks.
@johnbreech Dude, you were on fire this week! Congrats!
— olga bicos (@olgabicos) December 8, 2015
I got fifth-degree burns from being on fire in Week 13, but it was worth it. Let’s hurry up and get to the Week 14 picks before that fire burns out.
Actually, before we get to the picks, here’s your weekly reminder that you can check out the picks from every CBSSports.com NFL Expert by clicking here.
The reason you should click over and check out the other experts this week is because it turns out our fantasy football gurus are also unstoppable when it comes to picking games.
Jamey Eisnenberg and Dave Richard, who provide fantasy advice every week on CBSSports.com, also should probably start offering advice on game picks because they both went 11-5 this week.
They probably won’t start offering pick advice anytime soon though because right now is their busy season. It’s playoff time fantasy football and if you want to win your league title, I suggest checking out their fantasy stuff by clicking here.
If you don’t do fantasy football because you’re more of a picks person, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s get to this weeks picks.
Week 14 picks
The Vikings need to jumpstart their offense. (Instagram/Jackthewallaby)
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Minnesota (8-4) at Arizona (10-2)
Thursday, Dec. 10, 8:25 p.m. ET (NFL Network)
While I was eating some hummus over the weekend, I made a list of all the teams the Vikings have beaten this season that currently have a winning record. Here’s the list: Kansas City. That’s it. That’s the entire list.
(I also made a list of my favorite hummus flavors, but you don’t want to read that)
Anyway, the Vikings are 1-3 this season when they actually play a team with a winning record. That’s not to take anything away from Minnesota’s eight wins, because it’s not like they make their own schedule, but I am saying that I can’t in good faith pick the Vikings to win a game against a good team, especially on the road and especially after what happened on Sunday against the Seahawks.
Did you see what happened on Sunday against the Seahawks? It was a horror show. Things got so bad after the 38-7 loss that Adrian Peterson called out the Vikings coaching staff and a Seahawks linebacker even accused Teddy Bridgewater of playing scared.
The Vikings have a lot of issues to deal with this week and only four days to deal with them. That doesn’t seem like enough days.
The Pick: Cardinals 34-20 over Vikings.
LeSean vs. the Eagles is a modern day Hatfield vs. the McCoys. (Instagram/afman3333)
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Buffalo (6-6) at Philadelphia (5-7)
Sunday, Dec. 13, 1 p.m. ET (CBS)
The most absurd win of the NFL season came on Sunday when the Eagles beat the Patriots 35-28.
Let me just rehash real quick how the Eagles scored three of their five touchdowns in that game: Punt return, punt block returned for a score and pick-6. The odds of getting all three of those in one game is about negative-400 percent. Sure, that’s not a real number and my statistics professor from college probably wants to cut off both of my hands for typing that, but the point is that the Eagles offense is still bad and so is Sam Bradford.
Maybe Bradford will get it together this week, but probably not. What’s more likely going to happen is that LeSean McCoy is going to get revenge on his old team by running for 130 yards and two touchdowns. Then, he’s going to celebrate by doing that weird Aaron Hernandez dance he’s been doing all season.
LeSean McCoy borrowed this celebration from convicted murderer Aaron Hernandez: https://t.co/OAuQw8B39k pic.twitter.com/HrV96K0kfv
— SB Nation (@SBNation) November 29, 2015
If I had to pick between straddling a goal post on national television or copying Aaron Hernandez’s, I’m going with choice A every time.
The Pick: Bills 27-17 over Eagles.
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Washington (5-7) at Chicago (5-7)
Sunday, Dec. 13, 1 p.m. ET (FOX)
The NFC’s worst home team (1-5) is hosting the NFC’s worst road team (0-6) in a game featuring two quarterbacks that no one can figure out. And those two quarterbacks are Jay Cutler and Kirk Cousins, who just got outplayed by Blaine Gabbert and Matt Cassel.
The Bears hit rock-bottom on Sunday when they lost to the 49ers in overtime. If Gabbert can lead a team to a win at Soldier Field, then Cousins definitely can and he might throw for 900 yards while doing it.
On the other hand, that’s probably not going to happen because that would require Cousins to be productive in a road game, which hasn’t happened all season. There’s a reason the Redskins are 0-6 on the road this year.
I’ve always kind of thought of Cousins as a poor man’s Jay Cutler, but I don’t think that Jay Cutler would like that comparison because if you asked him, I’d think Cutler would say that he’s the poor man’s Jay Cutler. Cutler would probably say he’s the Rich Man’s Jay Cutler and all the Jay Cutler’s. I kind of like that kind of confidence. I’ll take the Bears.
The Pick: Bears 23-20 over Redskins.
Steely McBeam hopes he and his two friends are still smiling after Week 14. (Instagram/ltrowe)
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Pittsburgh (7-5) at Cincinnati (10-2)
Sunday, Dec. 13, 1 p.m. ET (CBS)
The Bengals are basically getting their dream scenario this week: Andy Dalton in a 1 p.m. game at home with the division title on the line. Since the beginning of 2013, the Bengals are 14-1-1 in home games that kickoff at 1 p.m., which sounds like a weird stat until you realize that it’s not because Daytime Dalton is borderline unstoppable.
So the obvious pick here is the Bengals.
Not so fast though. Cincinnati’s only loss in that 16-game span came last season when the Steelers blew the Bengals out of Paul Brown Stadium with a 42-21 win. It wouldn’t be crazy to see the Steelers put up 42 points on Sunday because they’ve basically been doing that to everyone recently. Over their past four games, the Steelers have averaged 35.75 points per game, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a fireworks show from Pittsburgh’s offense.
Of course, if any team can throw cold water on those fireworks, it’s Cincinnati. The Bengals have only given up 11.2 points per game over the past six weeks, a span that includes a 16-10 Week 8 win over the Steelers.
The Bengals are famous for choking in big games, but that’s only in the playoffs, and this isn’t the playoffs.
The pick: Bengals 30-27 over Steelers.
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New England (10-2) at Houston (6-6)
Sunday, Dec. 13, 8:30 p.m. ET (NBC)
Let me start this off by saying that if the Patriots were 100 percent healthy and the Texans were 100 percent healthy, I’d take New England to win this game. However, that’s not the case.
I’m not a doctor, but I feel like the Patriots are only about 38 percent healthy and that number seems to be going down every second, which means, if you’ve been reading this for more than 38 seconds, the Patriots health might be down to zero.
Last month, I thought for sure that they most painful thing I’d see all year was Ronda Rousey getting knocked out, but then I watched the last three Patriots games and now Rousey’s not even in the top-5 because I seem to see at least one new incredibly painful Patriots injury every week.
Ironically, the guy’s who getting beat up the most is actually someone who hasn’t missed any playing time: Tom Brady. Over the past three weeks, Brady’s basically turned into a human punching bag. In games against the Bills, Broncos and Texans, the Patriots quarterback has been hit a total of 36 times (12 times per game), which is a ridiculous number when you consider that he was only hit 4.6 times per game before Week 11.
Those hits are definitely taking a toll on Brady: In each of the past three weeks, Brady’s completed less than 55 percent of his passes. The last time Brady went through a cold-streak like that was in 2002, which also happens to be the last time the Patriots had a three-game losing streak.
Earlier in the season, Brady was able to avoid taking hits because he was getting his passes off so quickly, which is easy to do when you’re throwing to Julian Edelman, Ron Gronkowski, Dion Lewis and Danny Amendola.
Now, Brady only has one of those guys (Amendola) and the loss of Edelman seems to be the one that especially hurt.
Tom Brady’s average time to throw: 2.13 with Julian Edelman healthy (Fastest in NFL) 2.65 without (8th slowest)
— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) December 7, 2015
The loss of Gronk obviously hurts too, but he’ll be back before Edelman.
Forget the receivers for a second though let’s mind games because there’s going to be plenty of those played on Sunday. Besides Gisele and Bill Belichick, there might not be anyone out there who knows Brady better than Texans coach Bill O’Brien.
O’Brien served as a Patriots offensive assistant from 2007-2011, a stint that included two years as QB coach (2009-10) and one year as offensive coordinator (2011). I’m not sure if that’s going to help O’Brien beat the Patriots, but it can’t hurt.
You know what? I just talked myself into picking the Texans without mentioning J.J. Watt‘s name. The Patriots might need to build a brickwall in their backfield to keep Watt away from Brady.
The Pick: Texans 19-16 over Patriots.
These girls are smiling because Tom Brady is somehow still healthy. (Instagram/ayla_g)
Reason I won’t be picking against the Panthers this week
I made a vow last week that I wouldn’t pick against the Panthers for the rest of the regular season and I intend to stand by that vow, which will actually be easy this week because there’s no chance I’d even think about picking the Falcons.
New Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan has Matt Ryan looking more like Ryan Leaf. Basically, Ryan has perfected the art of throwing interceptions, which isn’t technically an art. However, ruining quarterbacks is an art and it’s one that Shanahan seems to have perfected.
Name me one @NFL QB who has succeeded in Kyle Shanahan’s offense-hasn’t happened. At some point you look at coaching https://t.co/Qh3xrxnnxa
— Jay Feely (@jayfeely) December 8, 2015
The Pick: Panthers 31-24.
Week 14 picks: All the rest
49ers 24-17 over Browns
Buccaneers 34-27 over Saints
Seahawks 34-17 over Ravens
Broncos 26-23 over Raiders
Last Week
Best Pick: Last week I picked the Jets to beat the Giants 23-20 and then the Jets went out and beat the Giants 23-20. I know what you’re thinking, “How’d I know what the exact final score of the game was going to be?”
I’m not going to lie, an insane amount of research went into picking that game. Since the two New York teams were playing, I wanted to know everything I could about New York so I watched Gangs of New York, Escape from New York, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and the Olsen twins classic, New York Minute, before I was comfortable making my pick.
That last movie was the most important because I’ve always thought of the Giants as the Mary-Kate Olsen of New York, and she’s always been my second favorite Olsen twin, so I obviously had to go with the Jets.
Watched ‘New York Minute’ yesterday and now have an insane crush on Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen #NewYorkMinute pic.twitter.com/uykRzD5Hac
— Lucy (@lucyackroydx) December 3, 2013
That tweet doesn’t even make any sense, you can’t have a crush on both of them. It’s either Ashley or no one.
Worst Pick: Last week, I spent five paragraphs talking about how Matt Ryan’s funk was finally going to end against the Buccaneers and that there was no way he would blow the game if he got a chance to win it.
The joke’s on me though because guess what happened.
You know what? Don’t guess.
It’s so obvious what happened because it happens every week: Ryan threw an interception at the worst possible time.
Matt Ryan always throw a interception, it never fails
— miracle (@sothatsmiracle) December 6, 2015
We all knew that Matt Ryan interception was gonna happen.
— Tim Bliss (@bigtbliss) December 6, 2015
Somehow, things were actually worse if you were a Falcons fan at the game.
Matt Ryan’s interception looked a lot worse in person. Trust me.
— J. (@TallGuy_J) December 6, 2015
Ryan’s pick came with 1:32 left in a 23-19 game and sealed the Falcons’ loss.
I no longer have any faith in Ryan as an NFL quarterback. I’m never picking the Falcons again. As a matter of fact, I’m never flying through Atlanta’s airport again. Also, I’m going to unfriend everyone I know on Facebook named Matt or Ryan. I’m over it.
Picks Record
Straight-up in Week 13: 11-5
SU Overall: 112-80
Against the spread in Week 13: 11-5
ATS Overall: 92-100
Exact score predictions: 2
You can find John Breech on Twitter or on Facebook and if he’s not doing one of those two things, he’s trying to track down a VHS copy of every Olsen Twins movie ever made.
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