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It’s not just Week 13 in the NFL this week. It’s Thanksgiving Week! A holiday where we celebrate friends, family, and football with the Chicago Bears vs. Detroit Lions, New York Giants vs. Dallas Cowboys (a perfect game to ignore while eating turkey, and the Miami Dolphins vs. the Green Bay Packers to cap the festivities. And because we live in America in the 21st century, let’s celebrate Black Friday, too, with the Las Vegas Raiders vs. Kansas City Chiefs. So, with that and more on tap, let’s get into the ClutchPoints NFL Week 13 picks, predictions, and odds column.
With six teams off on a bye, Week 12 felt a bit uneventful. Sure, the Carolina Panthers gave the Kansas City Chiefs a scare and the Harbaugh Bowl was fun, but it seemed like not a lot happened in this bridge to Thanksgiving week.
The one thing that did happen is that a few borderline contenders got exposed in big losses. While the Washington Commanders, Arizona Cardinals, and Houston Texans will probably all still make the playoffs, any of those fan bases who think their team might make noise in the postseason is sadly mistaken. These teams are simply the best of the soft middle of the NFL this season.
Thanksgiving is a time for everyone to gather around the table, so no teams are excluded from this feast of football. With just one bye week left, we welcome back the Buffalo Bills, Atlanta Falcons, Cincinnati Bengals, Jacksonville Jaguars, New Orleans Saints, and New York Jets to a full 16-game slate.
On this robust NFL Week 13 schedule, we get the most variety of the entire season with three Thanksgiving Day tilts, a Black Friday Special, seven 1 p.m. ET games, three games in the late Sunday window, a Sunday nighter, and a Monday night affair.
So, in Week 12, we once again walked away with a winning record straight up, going 8-5. However, breaking news! Las Vegas oddsmakers are incredibly good at what they do. So, after a 6-7 week against the spread, our records move to 105-74 straight up and 84-94-1 versus the number.
With that, let’s get right into the NFL Week 13 picks, predictions, and odds.
Previous Weeks: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12
Courtesy of DraftKings, here are the NFL odds.
Chicago Bears at Detroit Lions (-9.5)
This is a division game on national TV and the Bears have been playing at least well enough to keep games close lately. So, there are plenty of reasons to think the Thanksgiving Day opener should be a competitive game.
The problem is, the Lions are an absolute buzzsaw right now. They are mowing down opponents, winning by 10 or more in six of their last eight games. So, while you can make a case for the Bears, it seems like the far more likely scenario is that the Lions continue to roll and make light work of their NFC North rival before hitting the turkey table.
Pick: Lions 42-14
New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys (-4)
Two of the NFL’s premier franchises do battle in the second Thanksgiving game, and the quarterback matchup is… Copper Rush (maybe) vs. Drew Lock. The good news for New York fans is that with Tommy “Cutlets” DeVito likely out, the Giants actually may have their best QB on the field for this game.
The Giants looked like a team that has given up after the franchise cut the team’s starting (although not very good) QB, signaling an end to their season. In fairness, though, the Cowboys looked like that, too, just two weeks ago. As a division game in a standalone spot, everyone should give their all here. And, full transparency, while the NFL Week 13 picks, predictions, and odds column initially took the Cowboys to win but not cover, after the Lock news, we switched to the G Men.
Pick: Giants 17-16
Miami Dolphins at Green Bay Packers (-3.5)
In these uncertain times, Thanksgiving brings a few things that you can rely on and take comfort in. From the turkey and stuffing to the Lions and Cowboys on TV to the uncomfortable political discussions between your uncle and your cousin, we can count on these things at every Thanksgiving table around the country.
The other thing we can rely on is the Dolphins absolutely wilting in cold weather. The Turkey Day forecast for that region of Wisconsin on Thursday is a high of 32 during the day with the chance of freezing rain and a low of 19 at night (when this game is) with the chance of snow. On South Beach Thursday, it will be 82 and slightly cloudy. That means the forecast for Dolphins-Packers is Green Bay by a lot.
Pick: Packers 31-16
Las Vegas Raiders at Kansas City Chiefs (-12.5)
This seems like a no-brainer with the way the Chiefs have been playing, but betting on a Raiders team with no quarterback that stinks to begin with is a tough pill to swallow. It seems like every week the Chiefs win but don’t cover, so in a division matchup in a weird spot (Black Friday), calling a KC W and a LV cover makes the most sense.
In a similar spot last season — Christmas Day, second meeting of the year — the Raiders actually pulled off the upset. While the Chiefs do seem primed for another loss, it just doesn’t seem like the Silver and Black have the juice to do it again. They can keep it close, though.
Pick: Chiefs 19-15
Los Angeles Chargers (-2) at Atlanta Falcons
The Chargers may have lost the Harbaugh Bowl but they are still a much-improved team from last season. Herbert is playing well and if his defense could have got a fourth-down stop or Quentin Johnston could have made a catch that game could have gone differently.
Kirk Cousins and the Falcons have the potential to beat any given team on any given Sunday. It just seems like they choose not to most Sundays for some reason. The Chargers have been massive underachievers for years, but with Jim Harbaugh at the controls, they can finally move that mantle to the Falcons.
Pick: Chargers 24-17
Indianapolis Colts (-3) at New England Patriots
Neither of these teams is very good right now, and all it will take for this game to become a blowout either way is an early break for one side or the other. What this will likely come down to is how Anthony Richardson plays. The Colts have the talent to win now, it’s just a matter of whether the QB can facilitate that happening.
Drake Maye is looking like the real deal for the Patriots. The problem here is that he doesn’t have the talent around him that Richardson does. Even so, Maye alone has been playing well enough to win games, and for this one, the NFL Week 13 picks, predictions, and odds column predicts he might just pull it out.
Pick: Patriots 13-10
Houston Texans (-5) at Jacksonville Jaguars
At this point in the NFL season, it’s time to channel your inner Dennis Green and say, “They are who we thought they were!” While we are all waiting for the Texans to look like they did last season and some are even waiting for Trevor Lawrence to turn things around, the truth is these are two mediocre (at best) teams this season.
On paper, it seems like the Texans should win easily in this game, but a division game on the road is tough sledding for any team. But the Jags have played good teams tough for the most part, save for the 52-6 Lions loss before their bye week. Here, the NFL Week 13 picks, predictions, and odds column thinks that the Texans will still get the W but not by the number.
Pick: Texans 26-23
Seattle Seahawks (-2) at New York Jets
The Jets coming off a bye are… still the Jets. They still feature a 40-year-old signal-caller and they still have dysfunction written all over them. Yes, this is home and they are welcoming the team from the opposite corner of the country, but these are two teams heading in opposite directions.
Mike Macdonald is starting to get his team playing good football on defense and Geno Smith is still getting it done, even if it’s not always pretty. Plus, how can you bet against the unappreciated QB in the Geno Smith Revenge Game?
Pick: Seahawks 19-12
Pittsburgh Steelers at Cincinnati Bengals (-3)
Maybe this is the week. Maybe this is the week that the Bengals help Joe Burrow out, they win a big game, and finally start making their patented late-season playoff push. But maybe, the Bengals just aren’t that good this year and the oddsmakers just keep trying )and succeeding) to suck us into the platonic ideal of the Burrow and the Bengals.
Does that mean the NFL Week 13 picks, predictions, and odds column fully believes in the Steelers? Not at all, especially after laying an egg against the lowly Browns. And there is a great chance here that they follow it up with another lackluster AFC North showing. That said, what we do believe in is Mike Tomlin getting points, so let’s go with Pittsburgh here.
Pick: Steelers 21-20
Tennessee Titans at Washington Commanders (-5.5)
The Commanders let us down last week (although not as much as the next team on this list). In losing to the Cowboys, we saw that Jayden Daniels seems to be hitting his rookie wall and Kliff Kingsbury is doing his patented second-half swan dive.
As for the Titans, they are coming off a big division win, but playing an NFC foe on the road is a lot different than playing in Houston. While there may not be a big reason to, we still believe in the Commanders here at the NFL Week 13 picks, predictions, and odds column, probably more than we should. We’d like a field goal spread better, but we’ll give the points.
Pick: Commanders 21-14
Arizona Cardinals at Minnesota Vikings (-3.5)
The Cardinals let the NFL Week 13 picks, predictions, and odds column down more than any other team last week, pulling a no-show against their division-rival Seahawks. So, while we want to say they are dead to us, we know that the NFL is a week-to-week league, so this team still has a little more juice than Vegas gives them credit for. Plus, this is what inconsistent teams do. They look terrible one week and incredible the next, so we are betting on the glow-up this weekend.
Vikings QB Sam Darnold is still playing way better than anyone expected but he seems more injured than the team is letting on, even though he keeps showing up in the clutch. The hint that he is a bit banged up should be that the Vikings signed Daniel Jones on Wednesday as an insurance policy. Minnesota tried to give the game away last week, and this week they will.
Pick: Cardinals 24-23
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-6) at Carolina Panthers
The Panthers have looked good since Bryce Young got his job back. They beat the Saints, they beat the Giants, and they gave the defending Super Bowl champs all they could handle. While the Buccaneers are coming off a bye, we at the NFL Week 13 picks, predictions, and odds column expects Carolina to again go down fighting.
In the NFC South, you never know what you are going to get, so a Panthers upset or a Bucs blowout is possible. But it does seem like the most likely scenario is for this to be a tough, close game in the end, so let’s go with the Buccaneers by just a field goal.
Pick: Buccaneers 25-22
Los Angeles Rams (-3) at New Orleans Saints
These are the box of chocolate teams in the NFL this season because you never know what you’re going to get. Either of these squads can look like world-beaters or bottom-feeders on a given Sunday. Basically, we have no idea which version of which team shows up, so let’s just take the home dog and the points.
Pick: Saints 25-24
Philadelphia Eagles at Baltimore Ravens (-3)
The Ravens got a big win in the Harbaugh Bowl, but was it an impressive one? This game played out like two brothers playing Madden against each other, with the older bro pulling out all the silly stops — like going for it on fourth down multiple times in their own end — to beat the younger brother.
Nick Sirianni may look like someone’s annoying little brother but he’s not the lost Harbaugh. He’s just the coach of the team playing the second-best football in the NFL right now, only behind the Lions. This should be a Saquon Barkley vs. Derrick Henry slugfest, but ultimately the Eagles are the better team right now and it’s not all that close, to be honest.
Pick: Eagles 28-18
San Francisco 49ers at Buffalo Bills (-7)
The forecast calls for brutal cold, wind, and snow on Sunday night, which could make this a wild game. In years past, despite living in those conditions, the Bills weren’t built to win those games because they couldn’t run the ball effectively. This season, that is finally an aspect of the Bills offense.
On the other side, the banged-up 49ers are flying across the country to play a night game in terrible conditions and may do so without Brock Purdy, or at least with a compromised QB at best. Add all these circumstances up, and these are crappy circumstances all around for San Francisco. It also means that what could have been one of the marquee games of the season might be a Buffalo walk.
Pick: Bills 33-23
Cleveland Browns at Denver Broncos (-5.5)
While the Browns looked surprisingly good upsetting the Steelers in the snow last Thursday and will be well-rested after the mini-bye week, the NFL Week 13 picks, predictions, and odds column just can’t get behind Jameis Winston on a regular basis, especially against a tough Broncos defense.
Rookie Bo Nix is also against a tough D when Myles Garrett and company come to town, but Sean Payton has his team playing well, regardless of the opponent. The Browns are probably somewhere in between the Falcons and the Raiders this season, both of whom Denver dispatched. So, let’s take the Broncos in the thin air once again.
Pick: Broncos 28-12
Establish the Pass Podcast Week 13 Predictions
| Matchup | Blake | Dillon |
| CHI @ DET | Lions | Lions |
| NYG @ DAL | Cowboys | Cowboys |
| MIA @ GB | Packers | Packers |
| LV @ KC | Chiefs | Chiefs |
| HOU @ JAX | Texans | Texans |
| SEA @ NYJ | Seahawks | Seahawks |
| TEN @ WSH | Commanders | Commanders |
| PIT @ CIN | Bengals | Steelers |
| ARI @ MIN | Vikings | Vikings |
| LAC @ ATL | Falcons | Chargers |
| IND @ NE | Colts | Colts |
| TB @ CAR | Bucs | Bucs |
| LAR @ NO | Rams | Saints |
| PHI @ BAL | Eagles | Eagles |
| SF @ BUF | Bills | Bills |
| CLE @ DEN | Broncos | Broncos |
| Record | 118-61 | 113-66 |
