For the gambling degenerates, here are my Week 15 NFL picks. The team logos indicate who I think will win the game, not necessarily cover the spread. At the end of the picks, I’ll note a few teams that I like based on the spread.
Falcons at Buccaneers (-5.5): The Bucs have lost four of their last five, including a bad home loss to the Saints last Sunday. They are staggering to the finish line. Fortunately for them, they get to play a dead Falcons team that has lost seven of their last eight, including a loss to the Jets Week 13 and 28-point drubbing by the Seahawks Week 14.
Raiders at Eagles (-11.5): The Raiders are averaging 15.1 points per game, which is the seventh-worst scoring output in the last decade. Here’s a look at all the teams since 2016 that have averaged 15.1 or fewer points per game:
TeamPPG Primary quarterback(s) 2023 Patriots (4-13) 13.9 Mac Jones / Bailey Zappe 2023 Panthers (2-15) 13.9 Bryce Young (rookie) 2016 Rams (4-12) 14.0 Csae Keenum / Jared Goff (rookie) 2018 Cardinals (3-13) 14.1 Josh Rosen (rookie) 2017 Browns (0-16) 14.6 DeShone Kizer 2021 Jaguars (3-14) 14.9 Trevor Lawrence (rookie) 2025 Raiders (2-11) 15.1 Geno Smith
Not scoring a lot of points correlates heavily to losing a lot of games. #Analysis. The above teams have a combined record of 18-94 (0.161).
Here’s where the Raiders’ offense ranks this season:
2025 Raiders O Stat NFL rank Points per game 15.1 32 Yards per game 257.2 31 Yards per play 4.5 30 Rushing yards per game 72.7 32 Passing yards per game 184.5 26 Offensive DVOA – 31 First downs per game 14.2 31 3rd down % 35.4% 26 INTs per game 1.1 29
In summary, the Raiders’ offense is very, very bad. The Eagles’ offense has also been quite bad during the team’s three-game losing streak, and yet, for as bad as they have been, they’re still nowhere near as bad as what this Raiders’ offense has been all season.
The big difference in this game are the defenses. The Eagles’ defense has mostly been great this season. The Raiders’ has been mostly bad. But like, regular bad. Not as bad as their offense.
Simply put, the Raiders are probably the worst team in the NFL. On Thursday morning we published the Eagles’ “rock bottom” in each of the last 10 seasons. If the Eagles find a way to lose this game, it will probably be worse than any of the other games in that article (and there are some doozies in there).
Cardinals at Texans (-9.5): The Texans have quietly won five straight games, and look like legitimate Super Bowl contenders in the AFC. They’re a good candidate for your survivor pool, if you haven’t used them yet, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Jets at Jaguars (-13.5): This is the other game on the schedule this week that could be a good survivor pool pick, because (a) there’s a good chance you haven’t used the Jags yet, and (b) you know, they’re playing the Jets.
Browns at Bears (-7.5): This is kind of a weird game for the Bears. Their other three remaining games on the schedule are against the Packers, 49ers, and Lions, which are all important games in terms of clinching a playoff berth, as well as seeding. The Browns game is the least important of the four, by far, and yet it’s also kind of a “must win” game because it’s the easiest game left on their schedule.
Anyway, I like the Bears because they produce a ton of turnovers and they’ll be facing a rookie quarterback.
Bills (-1) at Patri*ts: The Bills in December/January regular season games, since 2022:
• 2022: 5-0
• 2023: 5-0
• 2024: 4-2 (one of the losses was a meaningless Week 18 game with their seed already wrapped up)
• 2025: 1-0
So, excluding that one meaningless loss, they’re 15-1. They always finish the season strongly.
The Patri*ts are tied for the longest winning streak in the NFL, at 10 games, but I think it’s snapped here.
Ravens (-2.5) at Bengals: I’m beginning to wonder if the Ravens are trash. I also kinda think that if Joe Burrow had been healthy all season, the Bengals would be leading the AFC North. Give me the Bengals.
Chargers at Chiefs (-5.5): Leading up to the Eagles’ loss to the Chargers on Monday night, I felt fairly confident that the Eagles defense was going to be able to put a whole lot of pressure on Justin Herbert, with the Chargers missing their two best offensive tackles. And sure enough, they did! They had 7 sacks, plus a couple of plays in which Herbert threw the ball down at the turf while he was being thrown to the ground. Unfortunately for the Eagles defense, Jalen Hurts threw four INTs, which I did not see coming.
The Chargers might now be without their top three offensive tackles, with Trey Pipkins going down Monday night, and Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt already both done for the season. I like the Chiefs’ chances of hitting Herbert all night, just like the Eagles did, and I’ll trust that Patrick Mahomes will do a better job of not throwing passes to the opposing defense.
Commanders at Giants (-2.5): The Commanders have the longest losing streak in the NFL, at 8 games. The Giants are tied for the second-longest losing streak, with 7. So, you know, something has to give here.
For some insane reason the Commanders put a still-injured Jayden Daniels on the field against the Vikings Week 14, and he promptly got hurt again, for the fourth time this season. The Commanders were lucky that he didn’t suffer some other more serious injury. Now that they are mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, the Commanders would be absolutely idiotic not to shut Daniels down for the season. So we’ll probably see Marcus Mariota start another game, which really might actually give them a better chance of winning games down the stretch since he has definitively looked better than Daniels this season.
The Giants have played a whole lot of meaningless December games over the last decade or so. They usually lose them.
Still, if I had to pick a team that seems to have more fight in them to close the season, I’d probably say it’s the Giants. Like, at least they have a young, hungry quarterback with something to prove, whereas the Commanders are a old-ass team that already has its bags packed for Cabo.
Colts at Seahawks (-14): I don’t know if the Colts will be starting sixth-round rookie Riley Leonard or 44-year-old grandfather Philip Rivers, but I do know that this vicious Seahawks defense is relentless when it smells blood.
Packers (-2) at Broncos: My perception of these two teams is that a lot of people think they’re both kind of fraud’y. And I wouldn’t disagree. I think the Broncos are bigger frauds. They beat the Giants and Commanders each by 1 point, the Jets by 2, and the Raiders twice by one score. They are WAY overdue for a one-score loss.
Panthers (-3) at Saints: You never know what you’re going to get from the Panthers every week. I feel like betting folks will be riding them after their huge win over the Rams Week 13. They’re also rested and coming off their bye.
But give me the Saints, who have not quit and continue to battle hard every week. They’re every bit as talented as the Panthers, in my opinion.
Lions at Rams (-6): Bills-Patri*ts is the game of the week in the AFC. This is the game of the week in the NFC, with major playoff implications. The Lions are just trying to get in, while the Rams are trying to hold onto the 1 seed.
The Rams and Seahawks have pretty clearly pulled away from the rest of the pack in the NFC, the Lions included. They’re better on both sides of the ball. I do think that one way the Lions can win this game is on special teams.
Titans at 49ers (-12.5): The Niners’ impossibly easy schedule continues.
Vikings at Cowboys (-5.5): J.J. McCarthy had his best game as a pro Week 14, although he wasn’t asked to do much in a shutout of the atrocious Commanders. I expect the Cowboys to be able to score points and make McCarthy match their output, which won’t go well for the Vikings.
Dolphins at Steelers (-3.5): The Dolphins have won four straight and have actually looked like a playoff-caliber team the month or so. I don’t love taking them in a cold weather game, but I think that they’re just better than the Steelers.
Survivor pick ☠️
I got knocked out of my survivor pool last week. Or at least I thought I did when the Bucs lost. However, I caught a HUGE break, because all 14 people who were still alive in my survivor pool all picked teams that lost, such as the Bucs (like me), Browns, and Chiefs.
So, all 14 survived! 🙌
I guess I’ll just keep going here too, because why not?
In Week 15, for me it’s between the Jaguars and Texans. The Texans play the Raiders at home next week, so I’ll use the Jags now.
- Week 1: Eagles ✅
- Week 2: Ravens ✅
- Week 3: Bills ✅
- Week 4: Broncos ✅
- Week 5: Lions ✅
- Week 6: Packers ✅
- Week 7: Chiefs ✅
- Week 8: Colts ✅
- Week 9: Rams ✅
- Week 10: Seahawks ✅
- Week 11: Patri*ts ✅
- Week 12: 49ers ✅
- Week 13: Chargers ✅
- Week 14: Buccaneers ☠️, but 🙌
- Week 15: Jaguars
• Picks against the spread: Bills (-1), Bengals (+2.5), Packers (-2), Saints (+3), Cowboys (-5.5), Dolphins (+3.5).
• Eagles picks: 8-5
• 2025 season, straight up: 135-72-1 (0.651)
• 2025 season, ATS: 33-46-1 (0.419) 🤮
• 2024 season, straight up: 205-80 (0.719)
• 2024 season, ATS: 62-44-3 (0.583)
• 2023 season, straight up: 178-109 (0.620)
• 2023 season, ATS: 50-48-6 (0.510)
• 2022 season, straight up: 176-107-2 (0.621)
• 2022 season, ATS: 50-50 (0.500)
• 2021 season, straight up: 179-105-1 (0.630)
• 2021 season, ATS: 46-40-1 (0.534)
• 2020 season, straight up: 169-81-1 (0.675)
• 2020 season, ATS: 45-37-3 (0.547)
• 2019 season, straight up: 160-107-1 (0.601)
• 2019 season, ATS: 42-35-3 (0.544)
• 2018 season, straight up: 173-94-2 (0.647)
• 2018 season, ATS: 41-36-2 (0.532)
• 2017 season, straight up: 181-86 (0.678)
• 2017 season, ATS: 36-32-2 (0.529)
• 2016 season, straight up: 171-94-2 (0.644)
• 2016 season, ATS: 41-34 (0.547)
• 2015 season, straight up: 163-93 (0.637)
• 2015 season, ATS: 46-30-2 (0.605)
• Last 11 seasons, ATS: 482-422-23 (0.533)
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