Welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Pick Six newsletter!
In the most surprising news of the day, Doug Pederson still has a job. There was a lot of speculation over the weekend that the Jaguars might let him go if they lost on Sunday, and not only did they lose, but they lost by 46 points, which was the worst loss in franchise history. If the Jags were going to fire him, it seems like they would have done it already.
Although the Jaguars didn’t fire anyone, the Jets did. Six weeks after dumping Robert Saleh, the Jets made another move on Tuesday by firing general manager Joe Douglas. If you want the full story on that move, you can check it out here.
In the least surprising news of the day: The Cowboys got blown out at home again. This basically happens ever week: If the Cowboys are playing at home, bet big against them, because they’re going to lose.
In today’s newsletter, we’ll be handing out grades from Houston’s win over Dallas, plus we’ll be talking a lot about the Detroit Lions, who have taken over the top spot in Prisco’s Power Rankings.
As always, here’s your daily reminder to tell all your friends and neighbors to sign up for the newsletter. To get them signed up, all you have to do is click here.
1. Texans smash Cowboys: Grades and notes from Houston’s Monday night win
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The scoreboard says this was a blowout, but this was actually a one-score game in the third quarter before the Texans ran away with it on their way to a 34-10 victory.
Here are our grades from the game:
TEXANS GRADE: B+
With the Texans (7-4) facing a Cowboys rushing defense that’s one of the worst in the NFL, they did what any smart team would do: They ran the ball down Dallas’ throat. Joe Mixon led the charge by rushing for 109 yards and three touchdowns, including two in the first quarter. Mixon also tacked on 44 receiving yards to finish with 153 on the night. Mixon was one of the few bright spots for a Texans offense that struggled to move the ball in the second and third quarters. Defensively, the numbers weren’t pretty — Cooper Rush threw for 354 yards — but the Texans made plenty of big plays to make up for that, including a fumble return for a TD by Derek Barnett in the fourth quarter that iced the game. The Texans pass rush also beat up Rush with five sacks, including two by Danielle Hunter. The Texans let a bad Cowboys team hang around longer than they should have, but in the end, they pulled out the win and that’s all that matters.
Texans note
- Mixon is the man. The Texans running back rushed for 109 yards and three touchdowns and he’s now just the third player in the Super Bowl era (since 1966) to rush for at least 100 yards and one TD in five straight road games. Mixon is also just the sixth player in NFL history with at least 100 rushing yards and one TD in six of his first eight games in a season. Mixon’s three rushing touchdowns also tied a Texans franchise record.
COWBOYS GRADE: D
The Cowboys (2-8) played roughly two quarters of good football, but the bottom line is that this team is a mess. Mike McCarthy’s decision making was a mess: He called for a fake punt on fourth-and-9 from his own 33 and it was a spectacular failure. Cooper Rush was a mess: He did throw for 354 yards, but he also threw an interception and lost a fumble that was then fumbled by another Cowboys player and then returned for a TD by the Texans. The Cowboys special teams was a mess with even the normally reliable Brandon Aubrey missing a 40-yard field goal. The rushing attack was a total mess with the Cowboys finishing with just 54 yards on the ground. This Cowboys team just isn’t very good and even if they play well, they’re not going to beat very many teams down the stretch.
Cowboys notes
- Cowboys getting crushed at home. The Cowboys have now lost six straight home games where they trailed by at least 20 points at some point in the game, which is an NFL record. The streak started last season with a 48-32 wild-card loss to the Packers where Dallas trailed by 32 at one point. During the streak, the Cowboys largest deficit was 38 points, which came in a 47-9 loss to the Lions in Week 6.
- Cowboys can’t win. The Cowboys have now lost five straight games, which makes this their longest losing streak since 2015. They’ve also lost six straight at home, which is tied for the third-longest home losing streak in franchise history (the record is 14). The Cowboys are bad and it feels like things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
In one of the most bizarre moments of the day, a chunk of the Cowboys’ retractable roof came off while the team was trying to open the roof before the game. Nothing sums up the Cowboys season so far like their roof falling apart. You can read more about that situation here.
Finally, you can check out our full takeaways from the game here.
2. Prisco’s Week 12 Power Rankings: Lions take over top spot
It took 12 weeks, but we finally have a new No. 1 team in Prisco’s Power Rankings. With the Chiefs suffering their first loss of the year in Week 11, Prisco thought it was finally time to drop them from the top spot
With that in mind, let’s check out Prisco’s top five:
- Lions (Up one spot from last week)
- Bills (Up one spot from last week)
- Chiefs (Down two spots from last week)
- Steelers (Up one spot from last week)
- Eagles (Up one spot from last week)
I’m not going to spoil the rest of the Power Rankings here, but I am going to give you a few nuggets. Here’s what has changed since Prisco’s last Power Rankings:
- The biggest jump this week went to the Indianapolis Colts. Not only did Anthony Richardson get his job back in Week 11, but he led the Colts to a wild win over the Jets. Prisco was impressed enough that he bumped Indy up five spots from 22nd to 17th.
- The biggest jump in the NFC went to the Saints. New Orleans is 2-0 since firing Dennis Allen, which includes pulling off a 35-14 win over the Browns in Week 11. With the win, Prisco moved them up four spots this week 28th to 24th.
- The biggest tumble this week went to the San Francisco 49ers. They choked away another fourth-quarter lead and Prisco is clearly starting to lose his patience with them. Following their 20-17 loss to the Seahawks, Prisco dropped them four spots from 11th to 15th.
- Finally, let’s get the bottom of the Power Rankings. The Raiders were ranked dead last heading into Week 11 and although they lost, they did manage to move up one spot this week, which means we have a new team at the bottom of the Power Rankings. That new team is the Jaguars, so congratulations Jacksonville, although this probably isn’t the kind of thing that anyone wants to be congratulated for.
If you want to know where your favorite team ended up in Prisco’s Week 12 Power Rankings, be sure to click here. If you want to argue with Prisco over his rankings, you can do that on Twitter by clicking here. I argue with him all the time about everything.
3. Super Bowl odds: Lions are overall favorite to win it all for first time in franchise history
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The Detroit Lions have never been to the Super Bowl before, but oddsmakers actually like their chances of getting there this year. Following their blowout win over the Jaguars combined with the Chiefs’ first loss, the Lions are now the odds-on favorite to win Super Bowl LIX. This marks the first time in franchise history the Lions have been favored to win the Super Bowl at any point in the season.
Let’s take a look at the current odds (via BetMGM)
1. Lions (+325)
2. Chiefs (+450)
3. Bills (+700)
4. Ravens (+800)
5. Eagles (+900)
6. Steelers (+1600)
7. 49ers (+2000)
8. Packers (+2200)
9. Vikings (+2200)
10. Chargers (+2500)
Best bet: Lions. The Lions have never even BEEN to a Super Bowl, but I feel like that’s going to change this year. I’m not saying you should book a hotel in New Orleans yet if you’re a a Lions fan, but I might start looking. The Lions have the most talented roster in the NFC and if they get home-field advantage in the playoffs, it’s going to be tough to beat them. The Lions were my preseason pick to get to the Super Bowl and although that seems like an obvious pick now, it wasn’t a very popular pick. Here at CBS Sports, we only had four out of 13 experts pick the Lions to get to the big game.
Dark horse bet: Rams (+8000). For me, a dark horse has to be a team outside the top 10 and the Rams fit that bill perfectly. They have a Super Bowl-winning quarterback and a Super Bowl-winning head coach and they’re getting healthy at the right time. If I had to make a dark horse pick in the AFC, it would probably be the Texans (+2800).
You can check out our full list of Super Bowl odds here.
4. Ranking AFC wild-card contenders
We already unveiled Prisco’s Power Rankings, but we’re not done ranking things today because we’re also going to rank wild-card contenders. Tyler Sullivan went through and ranked all the wild-card contenders in the AFC. Since only three teams will earn a wild-card berth, we’ll take a look at the top three teams in his rankings, aka the teams Sullivan expects to get in.
1. Chargers (7-3). “Jim Harbaugh has done an outstanding job turning this franchise around in relatively short order and has Justin Herbert playing at an elite level. Not only that, but the defense is among the best in the league.”
2. Ravens (7-4). “When you have two legitimate MVP candidates on your offense, you’re doing something right. The combination of Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry has made Baltimore’s offense one of the more explosive units in the league. … The only reason why Baltimore isn’t claiming the top spot amongst these potential wild-card teams is because of its pass defense. The Ravens are giving up a league-worst 284.5 passing yards per game.”
3. Broncos (6-5). “If we were putting these teams into tiers, I’d have the Chargers and Ravens together at the top. After that, I’d have the Broncos in a tier by themselves, and I’d like them to ultimately claim one of the wild-card spots, marking an improbable playoff run that not many expected to begin this season. They have a clear advantage at the head coaching spot over the likes of Miami, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis, as Sean Payton is squeezing every ounce of talent out of his roster.”
First team out: Dolphins (4-6)
You can check out Sullivan’s full rankings here and we also ranked the NFC playoff contenders, which you can see here.
5. Breech’s Week 12 NFL picks: Rams upset Eagles
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It’s only Tuesday, but it’s never too early to start giving out picks for the upcoming week, which is why I’m going to hand out three of them right now for Week 12. Last week, we had several huge showdowns with Chiefs-Bills and Ravens-Steelers, but this week, the NFL schedule-maker got lazy, because we only have one game where two teams with a winning record will be facing each other (Ravens-Chargers).
Anyway, let’s get to this week’s trio of picks:
- Buccaneers (4-6) at Giants (2-8): The Giants were bad with Daniel Jones at quarterback and I don’t think that things will improve much with Tommy Devito running the show. Also, the Buccaneers are only 1.5 games behind the Falcons in the NFC South, so they have a lot to play for. Maybe the Giants get a small spark from DeVito, but I’ll say that runs out by halftime. PICK: Buccaneers 27-16 over Giants
- Lions (9-1) at Colts (5-6): The Lions aren’t just beating teams, they’re embarrassing them. There have only been three games in the NFL this entire season where a team has won by at least 38 points and the Lions have all of them. They might not win by 38, but I think they’re going to coast here. PICK: Lions 34-20
- Eagles (8-2) at Rams (5-5): I don’t know if Matthew Stafford sets an alarm, but once the calender hits Week 12, he seems to turn things up a notch. Since being traded to the Rams in 2021, Stafford has gone 11-2 from Week 12 on and that record jumps up to 15-3 if you include the playoffs. I think what I’m trying to say here is that I won’t be picking against Stafford in this game. PICK: Rams 34-31 over Eagles
If you want to check out the rest of my picks for Week 12, be sure to click here.
6. Extra points: Justin Tucker is no longer the NFL’s most accurate kicker
It was a busy 24 hours in the NFL, and since it’s nearly impossible to keep track of everything that happened, I went ahead and put together a roundup for you.
- Justin Tucker loses title of most accurate kicker in NFL history. The Ravens kicker has been struggling this year and things have gotten so bad that his career percentage has dropped to 89.35%, which is now the second highest in NFL history. That’s right, he’s fallen out of the No. 1 spot. The top spot now belongs to Carolina’s Eddy Piniero, who has hit 89.38% of his kicks. Although Tucker has only hit 72.7% of his kicks in 2024, the Ravens are going to stick by their kicker through his struggles, something that John Harbaugh made clear on Monday.
- Pegula family selling minority stake in the Bills. The Bills are soon going to have several new owners. According to the Sports Business Journal, the team is getting set to sell a 20.6% stake in the franchise. A group of business executives will be teaming up to buy 10.6 percent of the team and then the other 10% will be sold to private-equity firm Arctos Partners. Terrry Pegula will still own a 79% controlling stake in the franchise once the deal goes through.
- Bears send complaint to league office. The Bears believe the Packers committed a penalty on their game-winning blocked field goal on Sunday, and Chicago is so unhappy about the situation that the team has sent a complaint to the league office. You can read more about this interesting situation here.
- Brock Purdy is day-to-day. Here’s an injury that could be worth watching this week: Purdy is dealing with soreness in his right shoulder. If he misses practice this week and doesn’t have a lot of zip on his throws, that would put the 49ers in a tough spot as they get ready for Sunday’s showdown in Green Bay.
- Beyonce signs up to do an NFL halftime show. Netflix will be showing NFL games for the first time ever this year and the company has decided to go all out. The streaming giant has announced that Beyonce will serve as the halftime performer during the Ravens-Texans game in Houston on Christmas Day. Netflix has a doubleheader on Christmas with the Steelers playing the Chiefs in the first game.
