Week 13 Teaser: 15-4-1 +29 Units

One featured play for this week.

Seattle +2.5 / New England -0.5

The Seahawks should never get points at home. Ever. Under any circumstance. They are easily the league's best team at this point and their home field advantage is worth a minimum of 4.5 points. On a Monday night, it's worth at least six. So when you tell me I can get the Hawks plus 2.5 points, I am all over it. Doesn't matter who they're playin Seattle has won 13 straight at home. As detailed two weeks ago when I took the Hawks over the Vikings, they are finally healthy. Percy Harvin gives them a legitimate deep threat and a weapon in special teams they were lacking. Their starting O line is playing just their third game together with the return of Unger, Okung, and Giacomini. Russell Wilson is playing out of his mind. He has somehow created the league's sixth best offense (4th best rush/5th best pass) with no wide receivers, a dinged up Marshawn, and three offensive linemen in front of him who shouldn't be in the league. What do you think he's going to do with a healthy unit surrounding him? The 41 points they hung on Minnesota last week should give you an idea. On the other side of the ball, the media is making a big deal over the loss of Browner and Thurmond. I'm telling you now...it won't matter. Drew Brees beats you with four guys in the passing game. Graham, Colston, Sproles and Pierre Thomas. Those four guys have accounted for 212 receptions this year (71% of team receptions). The next closest guy is Kenny Stills with 22 catches. What does that tell you? A second or third corner is not what beats the Saints. You need a #1 corner who can lock up Colston (Richard Sherman), safeties that can hang with Graham (Earl Thomas - who is playing at an MVP level - and Kam Chancellor), linebackers with enough speed to hang with backs coming out on swings/dump-offs (Bobby Wagner), and a D line that can generate consistent pressure (Irvin Cleamons, Bryant). Put some stats to it. Seattle is the third best team in the league at defending tight ends. 2nd best at defending running backs out of the backfield. And surprisingly, 24th against #1 WRs. That said, I don't expect Sherman to struggle here. Colston beats guys with size...not speed. Sherman is one of the few corners that can match Colston's size so he'll be fine. They match up perfectly with the Saints. Seattle's one weakness on defense is its inability to stop the power run game. St Louis, Tampa, and Minnesota all took advantage of that. But if there is one place the Saints struggle on offense, it's the run game. They rank 28th in rush offense and will likely be without their best offensive lineman this week due to injury (Jhari Evans). No run game and unfavorable matchups across the field will make this a long, difficult night for Brees. Flipping sides, Rob Ryan has done an admirable job fixing the defense in New Orleans. His attacking scheme has fit perfectly with the under-sized personnel he inherited. But that unit is significantly better when they're (1) at home and (2) playing with a lead. That's the case because Ryan's whole game plan is built around confusing and attacking quarterbacks. The noise of the Dome limits their ability to communicate. Playing with a lead allows him the freedom to blitz from anywhere and have his D linemen pin their ears back. That philosophy doesn't play quite as well though when you're on the road and facing a team with a power run game. Put it into numbers. The Saints are the league's fourth worst team against the run. Shocking numbers when you consider how often they are playing with a lead (causing opponents to pass more and skew their rush defense stats). This is a team that flat out cannot stop the run. Marshawn will take advantage of them in a big way here. So will Wilson on designed QB runs. Beyond that, look at this team's record on the road. A narrow two point win over Tampa in week 2 (when the Bucs were horrible), a one score win over Chicago, a loss at New England, a loss at the Jets, and a narrow win over a horrible Atlanta team. Not an impressive slate by any means. But what's more surprising is the points they've put up in those games...16, 26, 27, 20, 17. Just an average of 21 points per game against fairly average defenses. You have to face it. This is not the same team when they hit the road. Don't make the mistake of lumping the Saints home performance with their road performance. They should be considered two separate teams from a betting standpoint from here on out. Home/Road. And that second team...the road team...is the one we're getting this week. Against the league's best team. And the league's best defense. In the league's loudest and toughest stadium to play in. On Monday night. With the Seahawks off a bye. With both Sproles and Evans listed as questionable. With the Seahawks fully healthy. And I'm getting two and a half points? Take a moment and say that last part with me slowly. Two. And. A. Half. Points. Absolute no-brainer. Take the points and run. Seattle wins by 10.

See comments for NE write-up...

Much was made early in the season about the Patriots' demise. This is not the same team. Brady isn't the same guy. The defense can't survive without Wilfork. And I'll admit, there was some truth to those theories. But look at the nubers. The Patriots have lost three games this year. By a total of 14 points. Three games. Fourteen points. A controversial four point loss to a top four team (Carolina) that they could have easily won. A 3 point OT loss to the Jets when Brady missed a wide open Gronk in the endzone with ten seconds left to win it. And a 7 point loss early in the season against the Bengals when Brady had zero skill players around him and threw for just 197 yards and a pick. This could easily be a 10-1 or 11-0 team right now. And it's a team that is just now starting to figure it out. Gronk, Amendola, and Edelman give Brady the weapons he needs. Talib has legitimized their secondary. And Bilichik is finally starting to churn out the strategy he's so well regarded for (taking the win as opposed to the ball at the start of OT). This is a team on the upswing and entering the part of the season it always plays best. What might be more important though is that they're playing for a first round bye. As it stands now, the Pats are third in the AFC. A game behind both Denver and KC. But with those two teams facing off this weekend, a win against Houston will put the Pats in position to not only lock up the second seed...but potentially make a run at home-field. That is a huge factor for this game. Houston would normally be a concern for me after the last two games against Carolina and Denver. But the Pats have to have this game. They can't afford a letdown if they want homefield. Brady knows it and so does Bilichik. And neither of them will let their team have a drop-off in that situation. On the other side, Houston is flat-out horrific this year. JJ Watt is still a one-man wrecking crew but outside of him, this team is lost. Kase Keenum had a nice two games against the Colts and Cards but defensive coordinators have since figured him out. He was replaced by Matt Schaub's corpse against the Raiders after compiling a 3.6 QB rating two weeks ago. He then followed that up with a 14.4 rating against the Jags last week throwing for just 169 yards and compiling just two field goals against the league's worst defense. Watch the tape and it's even worse. He's throwing everything off his back foot. He's not looking beyond 10 yards downfield. And he's playing like a guy who has lost all confidence. Not trusting his reads. Not trusting his O line. Afraid to pull the trigger. It doesn't help that Arian Foster is out. In the last two games, the Texans have managed a combined 160 yards rushing. Tate has no pop. The O line isn't getting any kind of push. It is off-tackle run after off-tackle run that nets two yards and nothing more. And without a viable rush game, defenses can key on Keenum and Andre Johnson. So...you have (1) a third string rookie QB who has lost all confidence, (2) zero run game, (3) a head coach/play caller that has been relegated to the booth (which causes it's own set of problems...guys in the booth can't talk directly to their QB so Kubiak has to relay plays through a third party), and (4) a team with nothing to play for. Sound like something Bilichik might be able to take advantage of? I'm going to go with yes. Getting a top four team against a bottom three team (in effectively a Pick'em game) is exactly what has made this model so successful. Strong teams beat bad teams in late November with a first round bye on the line. The fact that you can get the Pats at -0.5 is silly. Get all over this line. Pats win by 14.

And a bonus play...if you're looking for some Turkey Day action, look no further than Dallas -1 / Pitt +10.