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OWS!!!
In searching for inspiration of what to write about this week, I looked back on last season’s Week 12 Angles email. That’s when I found it: not only my inspiration, but something very interesting.
Entering Week 12 last season, the AFC playoff “picture” looked like this: 1) Chiefs, 2) Bills, 3) Steelers, 4) Texans, 5) Chargers, 6) Ravens, and 7) Broncos. Upon completion of the 2024 regular season, the AFC playoff seeding looked like this: 1) Chiefs, 2) Bills, 3) Ravens, 4) Texans, 5) Chargers, 6) Steelers, and 7) Broncos.
They played seven more games between Weeks 12–18 last season, and the same seven teams slated to make the playoffs the Sunday before Thanksgiving actually made the playoffs when it was all wrapped up. The lone exception, of course, was the Ravens and Steelers swapping positions. And you said the NFL isn’t predictable?
On the NFC side at this point last season, five of the seven teams in the picture before Week 12 made the playoffs at the end of the year, as well. If you haven’t guessed (or looked back in your inbox), we talked about the long-term predictability of the season and used the playoff pictures as the proxy in this space in 2024. What’s remarkable to me in looking back is that 12 of the 14 teams continued, over the course of the next seven weeks, to maintain their positions, and the AFC was basically stagnant across the same time period.
That brings us to 2025. Here’s the obvious question: should we expect more turnover from what the standings look like today, or should we expect that we’ll see a similar dynamic to 2024? Well, it depends on A) what the preseason consensus looked like and B) what we think of the current teams leading divisions and conferences.
A quick glance (fun to look at playoff pictures, why not?) gives us the AFC of 1) Broncos, 2) Patriots, 3) Colts, 4) Steelers, 5) Bills, 6) Chargers, and 7) Jaguars. Just outside are the Texans, Chiefs, and Ravens. The NFC right now lays out as 1) Eagles, 2) Rams, 3) Bears, 4) Buccaneers, 5) Seahawks, 6) Packers, and 7) Niners, with the Lions and Panthers knocking on the door.
I’m not going to tell you what you should think about how these standings may change between Week 12 and 18, but I am going to give you confidence that you can predict these things. Where teams finish in the standings becomes way more predictable now than it was back in the preseason, but on the whole, the playoff teams should have been fairly predictable. Each conference has a few “belles of the ball” that have surprised this season (like the Cardinals and Falcons through Week 11 in 2024), and it’s likely we see one or two teams fade. It’s also likely we see more than 10, and possibly even 12 or 13, of these teams finish similarly to where they stand right now.
Season-long — or, in this case, seven-week — stretches of games over the course of what feels like Thanksgiving through Christmas are far more predictable than the game-by-game outcomes each Sunday. However, we’re at the point in the season where the long-term predictions should pull through the short-term ones. For instance, the Ravens and Lions both seem probable to make the playoffs, despite where they currently stand. The sportsbook odds also heavily favor these outcomes. As they prepare for their next few games, keep that in mind (despite what seem like “gimme” wins for these two teams this week). Teams like Patriots, Colts, Jaguars, and Bears may not have been in everyone’s preseason predictions, but since they are here, I think it’s going to be fascinating to overanalyze their next few matchups for the reason that we should expect at least one of them to fall out of current positions.
As you’re searching for tributary outcomes and big-time upsets in the wild this week, keep these thoughts in mind. A lot will change between Weeks 12 and 18, but not many outcomes will be a true surprise. Those surprises, instead, will continue to show themselves inside each week, and that’s the fun of DFS.
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Week 12 :: Fewer Angles Available Than We Think
With an 11-game slate upcoming — but Browns and Raiders being one of them — we find ourselves in a manageable roster-building situation: four teams on bye, and the Bills, Texans, Bucs, Rams, Panthers, and 49ers in primetime. At a high level, with many teams now looking listless (Titans, Jets, Vikings, sadly; Falcons with Cousins; and Giants), this slate feels more simple to me, at least. But that’s what they (the NFL) want us to think!
These could be the more difficult slates we face, where it all shapes up as predictable, but in reality there are unseen outcomes brewing. Any of these teams could produce DFS-worthy scores, so don’t write them off completely, but as we always talk about, the game environments at least don’t jump off the screen, and anything more than a typically priced QB + 1 + a bring-back feels like you’re doing too much for eight teams (Raiders, Jets, Browns, Giants, Falcons, Saints, Titans, Vikings). I say typically priced because the lone exception may be Tyrod Taylor and the Jets, with the news of his starting coming out after salaries were released.
What we do have to target are at least four games that rise to the top of the week:
Eagles (25.5) at Cowboys (22) is indoors and features immense talent on both offensive sides of the football. That’s the good. The not-so-good is that both defenses are playing much better recently, with Philadelphia’s unit looking like the best in the NFL. The Eagles’ offense may have a few episodes left in the soap-opera drama, and matching up with Dallas post–trade deadline reinforcements doesn’t scream points. But this is still Jalen Hurts. It’s Dak Prescott. Divisional matchups carry wide ranges of outcomes. We can talk ourselves in and out of this game environment like many did last week in the Bucs // Bills matchup, but the macros here are enticing.
Patriots (28.25) at Bengals (21.25) immediately brings me back to the ugly Week 1 matchup in 2024 where New England upset Cincy on the road in a shocker. Another visit to Cincinnati just 14 months later looks a whole lot different — especially considering the state of the Patriots (leaders in the AFC East, Mike Vrabel and Drake Maye clicking) and this Bengals team not deploying Joe Burrow nor Ja’Marr Chase here for unrelated reasons. New England will score points, but will they be condensed on a few players? Cincinnati, with Joe Flacco, will throw the ball, but will they find any success without Chase?
Colts (23.25) at Chiefs (26.25) is the best IRL game of the week on this slate, with Kansas City being favored — a slight surprise given how these two teams have played over the first 11 weeks. Patrick Mahomes feels like he’s just lulling us to sleep with these performances in 2025; is this the game he throws for 350+ yards after he’s fallen down the MVP ladder? Jonathan Taylor may be in the midst of an all-time season, and it doesn’t seem to me like matchups should matter if that’s the case. This is a game worth overanalyzing this week, as it will likely impact this “sliding doors” section of the season over the next seven weeks. Indianapolis off a bye; the Chiefs off a divisional loss. What gives?
Jaguars (25.5) at Cardinals (22.5) with the ho-hum, three-point spread this week. Two teams that have played better recently but still have plenty of doubters. A convincing win for Jacksonville would silence many of those critics, and without Brian Thomas Jr. and now Travis Hunter for the season, they’ve told us exactly who they will try to be. Over the past three games, Jacksonville has rushed the ball at a league-leading 58% rate. We’ll see if BTJ plays, but Arizona and Jacoby Brissett just set the NFL record for completions in a game and will want to throw the ball a lot here again, given the state of their running backs room. Jacksonville wants to run the ball and grind the clock.
Lions (30), Ravens (28.5), and Seahawks (26.5) are the other notable offenses on this slate, as all are favored by more than 10 points in their matchups. How these teams choose to attack becomes the question. Detroit and Seattle had rough losses in Week 11, and Baltimore almost suffered the same fate in Cleveland. We don’t know what will happen, but we have fun elements to dive into this week!
No matter how you build or what you dive into, know you can predict these games. Think “long-term” — or, in this case, just seven weeks. These teams have shown us who they are. The standings likely won’t change too much outside of a handful of adjustments. For those adjustments to take place, we need to pick out the micro events (specific games) that will drive them — games like Colts // Chiefs and Jags // Cards this week.
The beauty of DFS is, of course, we just never know. Go out and crush Week 12!
Your next “comma” win is right around the corner.
~Larejo
