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Week 12 NFL Picks: Over/Under Projections, Odds Advice and Line Spreads
- Updated: November 22, 2016
The holiday season surrounding Week 12 makes for an interesting time for NFL bettors.
A normal week only boasts one Thursday game. For those fortunate enough to play the lines well, this creates a scenario where Las Vegas has little time to react and adapt the lines before kickoff, at least compared to Sunday games.
Week 12 boasts three Thursday games, a coup for bettors who want to get out ahead early on the week’s slate or get back losses from a rough Week 11. Some might view three early-week games as a hurdle, but a little assistance in breaking down the lines will have bettors coming out ahead on a holiday while scarfing down some hopefully not-dry turkey.
Let’s take a look.
NFL Week 12 Odds
Odds courtesy of Odds Shark.
Minnesota at Detroit (-2.5)
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This looks like one of the easier lines of the week.
On paper, the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions share identical 6-4 records and a first-place slot in the NFC North.
What this face-value analysis hides, though, is two teams heading in completely different directions. Detroit has won five of its last six games to make a playoff push, while Minnesota has spiraled out of control more than any other team in the league, losing four of its last five.
Did anyone mention the Lions won a Week 9 encounter between these teams? There, the Lions scored a 22-16 overtime victory after Matthew Stafford threw a pair of scores to one interception and his defense held the Vikings to 78 rushing yards on a 3.1 per-carry average.
Minnesota reacted to the loss in an almost odd manner.
“For the first time in three weeks this team fought like I expected them to fight,” Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said, according to the Associated Press (via ESPN.com). “If we continue to do these kinds of things, we’ll win football games.”
Zimmer found a positive in the loss, which says it all about the Vikings right now. The team then went on to drop its next game before a Week 11 win against a 4-5-1 Arizona Cardinals team.
While Minnesota grabs moral victories even …
