The NFL season has started but how do you know which games to watch and which to skip? Ask our favorite police duo with their good cop, bad cop precaps of all the matchups in the National Football League this weekend. To see which games will be televised in your area, check out 506sports.com’s essential NFL maps.
Week 13
Sunday, November 30, at 1:00 p.m. ET
Cleveland Browns 10, at Buffalo Bills 26
The Bills are riding high after two straight victories. They’re 7-5 and within spitting distance of the playoffs. The only problem is, they play the Broncos, Packers, and Patriots in three of their final four games. That’s a tough schedule!
Line: I feel for Bills fans — so much hope and so little chance of making the playoffs.
San Diego Chargers 34, at Baltimore Ravens 33
Wowee! The Chargers were down by ten points with about six minutes left and managed to catch up and win. All-together, they scored 21 points in the fourth quarter.
Line: A one point game. It literally does not get any closer than that.
Carolina Panthers 13, at Minnesota Vikings 31
The Panthers continue their under-the-radar disastrous season with a big loss to the Vikings. This time, it was two blocked punts that cost the Panthers. Most teams go whole seasons without allowing two of their punts to be blocked — the Panthers did it in one game.
Line: I didn’t think the Panthers were going to have such a poor season.
Cincinnati Bengals 14, at Tampa Bay Buccaneers 13
There’s a cliche in the NFL (and in sports in general) that good teams find a way to win and bad teams find a way to lose. What that means, is that little mistakes have big costs and bad teams like the Buccaneers seem to make a lot of costly bad mistakes. Today it was a long pass play that was called back because the Buccaneers had 12 men on the field.
Line: Getting the right number of people on the field seems foundational. The Buccaneers should work on that.
Tennessee Titans 21, at Houston Texans 45
The Texans started the year with Ryan Fitzpatrick as their starting quarterback. They tired of his play midway through the year and moved to lesser known Ryan Mallett. Last week Mallett tore his pectoral muscle, so Fitzpatrick got his job back. This week Fitzpatrick threw for a team-record six touchdowns to lead his team to a victory.
Line: Ryan Fitzpatrick? Six Touchdowns? Ryan Fitzpatrick?!
Washington Redskins 27, at Indianapolis Colts 49
Coverage of the Washington Redskins’ collapse this year has focused on their three quarterbacks and who should be starting for the team. It’s much ado about nothing if the defense gives up 49 points!
Line: Washington should forget about its quarterback drama for a few days and focus on the defense.
New York Giants 24, at Jacksonville Jaguars 25
Giants fans are hurting after this loss to the woeful Jacksonville Jaguars. It’s probably time to admit that the Giants, who had a 21 point lead in this game and still lost, are equally woeful right now.
Line: That has got to hurt.
New Orleans Saints 35, at Pittsburgh Steelers 32
It’s been a while, it seems like more than a season, since we could say that Drew Brees played like the Drew Brees of old. The Drew Brees of old was a fairly unbeatable touchdown producing machine.
Line: Drew Brees played like the Drew Brees of old!
Oakland Raiders 0, at St. Louis Rams 52
Coming into this game, you might be forgiven for thinking there wasn’t that big of a difference between the 1-10 Raiders and the 4-7 Rams. You won’t be saying that anymore after this beat-down.
Line: The Rams want all of us to know that they’re a LOT better than the Raiders.
SUNDAY, November 30, AT 4:05 and 4:25 P.M. ET
Arizona Cardinals 18, at Atlanta Falcons 29
The story of the Falcons season has been overcoming injuries. They may have reached a point of saturation on that front. After losing three starters in the first half, they lost the game to the Falcons, who kept themselves in first place of their division with this victory.
Line: There’s only so many injuries a team can handle.
New England Patriots 21, at Green Bay Packers 26
One team had to lose this game (already not true, since there can be ties in the NFL, but you know what I mean) but it doesn’t really teach us anything we didn’t already know. These two teams are very, very good and even very, very good teams can lose football games.
Line: You think this might be a Super Bowl Preview?
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, AT 8:30 P.M. ET
Denver Broncos 29, at Kansas City Chiefs 16
The Chiefs tried their best, and actually, if it weren’t for a few big and somewhat random plays on special teams, the game would have been much closer. As it is, the Broncos running game pushed, trampled, and bulldozed the team to a victory.
Line: It becomes not really fair if Peyton Manning also has a good running game.