NFL Best Bets for Week 16

The NFL schedule is taking over the calendar at this point, college football, college basketball, and the NBA be damned. The league has organized their typical Thursday night contest, placed two games on Saturday, and is following up Sunday’s action with three tilts on Christmas Day from coast to coast.

Several matchups stand out, including a pair of possible Super Bowl previews, important playoff-seeding games in the AFC & NFC North, and the battle of Florida between Jacksonville and Tampa Bay.

Dallas travels to Miami late Sunday afternoon to face Miami as one-point road underdogs. Both 10-4 teams rank second in their conferences entering Week 16. On Monday night, the two Super Bowl favorites and conference #1 seeds, San Francisco and Baltimore, will square off in the Bay Area. The 49ers are favored by five at home over the streaking Ravens, who’ve won four straight and eight of nine.

An 0-2-1 result in Week 15 stung pretty bad. Staring a .500 in the eyes after four months of football is not where we want to be, but after that ghastly performance, our mark for 2023 is 16-16-2. Both unders were big losers, with totals under 40 points being washed away by the Vikings and Bengals on Saturday followed by the Chiefs and Patriots repeating that feat on Sunday.

The only non-loss on the card was courtesy of a messy matchup between the Bears and Browns. We pushed on Cleveland -3 and will move on to Week 16. Now that that’s over, it’s time to throw on an ugly sweater and roll out the best bets for this week. Happy Holidays to all, and thanks for reading this year!

Best Bet: Steelers +2.5 (Pointsbet)

Both teams are missing key players for their second meeting this season. Cincinnati will be without leading receiver Ja’Marr Chase, who missed practice all week with a right shoulder injury he sustained against the Vikings last week.

Pittsburgh will miss both their starting safeties, as Minkah Fitzpatrick sits out to recover from a knee injury while Damontae Kazee has been suspended for the rest of the regular season. The Steelers won as road favorites in Cincinnati in late November but have dropped three straight since.

The Bengals have not lost since that game, scoring an average of 31.7 points per game with Jake Browning at the helm. We’re taking Pittsburgh because all indications point to Cincy having momentum and more advantages than the Steelers, and picking the Cats seems too easy.

Best Bet: Falcons -2.5 (DraftKings)

Atlanta’s offensive output is vastly different when they’re in the friendly confines of Mercedes-Benz Stadium versus on the road. The Falcons average nearly 1.4 yards per play more at home and are more efficient through the air (7.7 yards per attempt to 6.3) and on the ground (4.2 ypc to 3.7).

The Falcons are 4-3 SU at home despite only covering the spread two of seven times, and it’d be difficult for them to win without covering this number. As for Indy, they’ve been dangerous on the road, winning and covering the spread 67% of the time.

They could be without Zack Moss while Jonathan Taylor practiced fully on Thursday, but Taylor’s return won’t scare us off this play. Give us the Falcons -1 on home turf.