Week 16 NFL picks: I imagine some were green with envy at my picks last week
I had it working last week. I was New England. To find an NFL result, you had two options: Watch the game or call me four days before kickoff.
I had one really dumb loss. I picked the Seattle Seahawks to beat the Los Angeles Rams. The game is in Seattle, the stadium and fans make winning difficult for visitors, and the Seahawks have to win. You could make a case that Seattle didn’t lose; it just ran out of time. Down 40-0, the Seahawks lost 42-7. The Seattle team I picked stopped playing in 2013.
The loss that hurt more was the Oakland Raiders. That is one snake-bit team, and the Raiders don’t require an outside source for venom. They self-destruct. They destructed so many times in so many ways Sunday night in a 20-17 home loss to the Dallas Cowboys. I hadn’t seen the Raiders do that for weeks.
Last week: 13-3
Season: 150-90
Lock: Minnesota (-11½) over Cincinnati. Minnesota won by 27.
Season: 7-8
This week’s picks, with the home team in CAPS:
SATURDAY
BALTIMORE 10 over Indianapolis
Minnesota 6 over GREEN BAY
SUNDAY
CHICAGO 3 over Cleveland
NEW ORLEANS 4 over Atlanta
WASHINGTON 4 over Denver
KANSAS CITY 7 over Tampa Bay
Los Angeles Rams 7 over TENNESSEE
Los Angeles Chargers 6 over NEW YORK JETS
DETROIT 8 over Cincinnati
NEW ENGLAND 8 over Buffalo
Jacksonville 2 over SAN FRANCISCO
ARIZONA 4 over New York Jets
DALLAS 9 over Seattle
MONDAY
Pittsburgh 8 over HOUSTON
Lock of the Week:
PHILADELPHIA (-9) 16 over Oakland
Tom Sorensen is a retired Charlotte Observer columnist. Sign up for his newsletter, and follow him on Twitter: @tomsorensen
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This story was originally published December 20, 2017 at 5:19 PM.