#NFL Week 12: League Hit by Major Disruption

Week 12 of the NFL Season is here, and it looks like we've been lucky to get this far without any major in disruption as the infection rates explode in the states and within NFL teams, with a lot of them reporting players being moved to the reserve list this week.

The league re-arranged the Steelers vs Ravens game from Thanksgiving evening to Sunday afternoon, but after more positives on both side of that, including Lamar Jackson it's been moved back to Tuesday night now, I'm still not sure it will go ahead then, we need a day or two of no new cases, either way the Ravens are screwed, they'll be playing RG3 and just Gus Edwards at RB as the other two are ruled out.

That ended up not being the main issue though as the Broncos host the Saints without their QBs. Jeff Driskel was a confirmed positive and Drew Lock and Blake Bortles were around him un-masked so have been ruled out. They've brought in Kendal Hinton who played QB for Wake Forest in college with Royce Freeman as the emergency QB. The bookies aren't exactly confident giving them a 9.5 point team total as 15 point underdogs on a 37 game total. Farcical. – You can get Saints D/ST and Saints win at 15/2 on 10Bet if you fancy it.

My viewing pleasure took a hit last week with Joe Burrow ruled out for the season so it's been a strange week trying to prepare for this one, it could be good for my bets though as they've been pretty poor on here over the last month.

Spread

There's not a lot of spreads I like this week to be honest, and even the ones I do like I've got reservations over. I think the Vikings cover, the Browns should do, the Raiders facing the Falcons without Julio. They're my leans in the early slates, but I've got arguments against each.

If I were making a pick here I'd be going for the Cardinals -1.5 @ the Patriots. The Cards are the better team, my worry coming in, and still is that Kyler Murray isn't fully fit but he's not on the injury report so I have to assume he's at least 90% good to go. Whether that's enough for him to run the ball is the issue. He had his fewest rush attempts of the season last week after taking the knock.

The Patriots are poor, they don't have much on offense, and I'd expect them to use Harris to pound the ball rather than trying to do much else, although it is a Damiere Byrd revenge game and he found the endzone last week. They have a bottom 5 defense and seem particularly susceptible to mobile QBs and Kyler is as mobile as they come.

I think the Cards cover, but my worry is Kylers health and travelling across the country for an early game.

Total

The Chargers and Bills is one of the higher totals on the slate today, but I can't see how it stays under the 52 points. Two of the stronger young QBs in the league fight it out, both of them capable of 70 air-yards if the situation arises, and both teams like to throw more than run which should lead to a ton of points. The two receptions leaders take the field here too, Keenan Allen had 16 last week to take him to 81 on the season and Stefon Diggs sits second in that list.

The total has been beaten in 7 of the Chargers games and 6 of the Bills games this year. The weather was my only fear and it seems like it's fine in Buffalo tonight.

OVER 52 points in Chargers vs. Bills

Player prop

It might be a good thing, but I've not got as many that jump out to me this week. I listed 4 on my site and it's one of those I'll be using here as well. Michael Pittman Jnr. for the Colts seems to have settled nicely into being the main receiver in their offense. These two teams (Titans and Colts) faced each other 2 weeks ago on Thursday night where Pittman announced himself to the league with his first 100+ yard game, he followed that up with 66 and a TD against the Packers last week, so I'm happy to take the over on his 51.5 yard line at Skybet.

Michael Pittman o51.5 receiving yards – 1.83 (Skybet)

TD Scorer

Fairly simple one here, Jordan Reed plays, he scores. – Well, not that simple, but the 49ers like to target the tight end in the redzone and while Reed isn't exactly an iron man when it comes to injuries, he does tend to do well when he plays especially as the main receiving threat for the team with so many injuries on that side of the ball for them.

They do face a very tough Rams defense and they have their backup QB starting, but Kyle Shanahan has a good record against McVay's rams and they'll have cooked something up in their bye week to get points on the board, they welcome back their running backs Mostert and Wilson so should be able to move the ball more efficiently this week.

So I'm fairly surprised to see him listed at 5/1 on William Hill to find the endzone in this one.

Jordan Reed anytime TD – 5/1 (WillHill)

Summary

• OVER 52 in Chargers v Bills – 10/11 most places
• Michael Pittman o51.5 rec. yards – 5/6 (Skybet) – 52.5 most other places is fine.
• Jordan Reed anytime TD – 5/1 (WillHill)
• Teaser – Browns -1, over 46 in Chargers vs Bills – 1.83 (365)

Good luck with your bets, hopefully things don't go too much more south, but with the way things are at the moment and for the first time all season I'm not too confident it gets finished

Adam (@TouchdownTips) TDTips.com

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