December 1^st marks the start of the most important month of the season for many NFL teams. The final month of the year either brings hope for January or brings a cold winter with an early start to the offseason. Heroes and goats are made during these crucial games on the schedule. We enter Week 13 with plenty of teams in the mix for division crowns or wild card spots. Which teams will rise up to clinch one of the coveted playoff spots and who will fade away under the pressure of the moment?

Today’s “No Huddle” will be looking at the best games of the week, previewing Thursday Night Football, and I’ll be finishing up as always with my picks against the spread. The theme for this week is taking care of business. There are several matchups that will help shape the playoff picture, so the team’s that get things done this week can set themselves up for a possible playoff run.

I talked about Detroit-New Orleans, Tampa Bay-San Diego, and Buffalo-Oakland for “Reality of Fantasy” but all three have some sort of playoff implications involved. Those aren’t the most important games of the week, which is why I saved those games for this column.

Possibly the most important game for shaping the playoff picture is the matchup between Miami and Baltimore. Miami needs this game to hold its position in the AFC wild card race while Baltimore is in a dead-heat with Pittsburgh for the AFC North crown. These conference matchups become all the more vital for tiebreakers at the end of the year. Picking up an AFC win would be huge for the Dolphins, but I argue that Baltimore will need this game more. Since Miami already defeated Pittsburgh, a Ravens victory over the Dolphins could be a key component to Baltimore taking the AFC North with a win over a common opponent.

In terms of the actual game, this has the potential to be a hard-fought slugfest. Miami’s red-hot run these past six games has been powered by the resurgent running game led by Jay Ajayi. This will be quite the test for the Fins going toe-to-toe with the best run defense in the NFL. Baltimore is tough to run against at home this season, only allowing 55 yards per game on the ground. The Dolphins are not nearly as effective running the ball on the road, averaging 80 yards per game compared to a gaudy 146 yards per game at home.

This will leave Ryan Tannehill to elevate the Miami passing game, which only ranks 28^th in the NFL. He might be short a receiver in this game with DeVante Parker leaving last week’s game with a back injury. Parker was the Dolphins first-round pick in 2015 and had been starting to emerge as a deep-threat in this offense. Also nursing a back injury is Jarvis Landry, who leads the Dolphins in receptions this season and would be a key component in beating this stout Baltimore defense.

Baltimore’s offense will need to step up in what feels like a must-win game for the Ravens. Consistency is the key for the Ravens when the have the football. This offense tends to rely on big plays to score and struggle to put together long drives. A healthy Steve Smith Sr. will certainly help this offense, like he did last week against Dallas. Smith had eight catches for 99 yards and a touchdown. He is the closest thing to a reliable weapon in this offense. Quarterback Joe Flacco will need to be sharp on Sunday and take care of the football.

Another important game for the playoff race is an inter-conference matchup between the Steelers and the Giants. Pittsburgh has struggled against the NFC East this season losing two of three games so far this season. That is a key point here for the Giants who will need this game to keep Dallas in sight in the division while putting some distance between themselves and Washington.

The marquee matchup here is the wide receiver matchup between Antonio Brown and Odell Beckham Jr. Both of these players have the ability to change a game in one play and should provide plenty of fireworks on the field. They also might provide some interesting antics on the sidelines as well.

Pittsburgh has struggled to find a rhythm this year, but recent performances point to the Steelers finally looking like the offensive force we all expected to see this season. Thanksgiving was a feast for this offense, especially the Killer B’s (Big Ben, Bell, and Brown). With those three healthy, Pittsburgh is finding the form of a contender in the AFC.

The Giants come into this game on a six-game winning streak but this will be a true test for a team that has feasted on inferior competition. I’m looking to see if the Giants can finally tap into the full potential of this offense. The home/road splits of the passing game are scary though. At home the Giants average 300 passing yards per game while they only average 200 yards per game on the road.

On the defensive side of the ball, I’m keeping an eye on Giants safety Landon Collins and you should too. He’s the biggest defensive playmaker on either team in this game. The second-year safety out of Alabama is in the midst of a huge breakout season, and was just named the NFC Defensive Player of the Month for November. Collins is playing himself into Defensive Player of the Year consideration with 87 tackles, three sacks, and five interceptions.

The game of the day is an early afternoon matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Atlanta Falcons. They say that styles make fights, and these two teams couldn’t be any different stylistically. On one side you have a prolific offense with a mediocre defense and a scrappy offense with a dominant defense on the other side.

We all know that the Falcons can put up points seemingly at will with a wide array of weapons all over the field but the Chiefs may have finally discovered a dynamic playmaker of its own. If you missed the Kansas City-Denver game last week then you missed one hell of a breakout performance by Tyreek Hill. He had his fingerprints all over the Chiefs’ victory over the Broncos. Hill was easily the most important player on the field for Kansas City that night, scoring a rushing, receiving, and return touchdown during the game. Spencer Ware and Travis Kelce might be the bread and butter of this offense, but the emergence of Hill gives Kansas City a dimension that this offense has been missing during the Andy Reid era.

Atlanta’s offense against Kansas City’s defense is worth the price of admission. It’s a shame we won’t get to see Marcus Peters matchup with Julio Jones all game though, that would have been awesome to see. Kansas City doesn’t have its corners switch sides, so Peters will be on the defensive left side all day long. That will likely mean Jones will be all over the formations for Atlanta to avoid Peters on key downs.

Keep an eye out for a big day from Tevin Coleman, reports from practice this week seems to indicate that he finally has his “step back.” Atlanta is preparing for him to have an increased role in his second game since returning from a hamstring injury.

This has the makings to be a very intense game between two of the top teams in the NFL. Shockingly this game has flown under the radar on the national scale.

Before I get to my picks for the week, let’s take a quick look at tonight’s game between Dallas and Minnesota. The big storyline with this game will be the absence of Vikings coach Mike Zimmer, who had an emergency eye surgery last night, leaving special teams coach Mike Priefer with head coaching duties tonight.

This is massive for this game because Zimmer runs the defense for the Vikings. This is probably the most talented defense the Cowboys will see all season and a really good test for an offense that has been running rough-shod over the NFL, literally. Without the mastermind behind this defense running the show though, I’m very worried about any chance the Vikings have to upset the Cowboys tonight. Minnesota will need its best game of the season to shut down the league’s most efficient offense.

From Dallas’s perspective, it’s a race to 21 points tonight because Minnesota’s offense struggles mightily to put points on the board. A clean game from Dak Prescott is the key tonight, because Minnesota lives off of turning turnovers into points. Before the Zimmer news broke, I was ready to ride or die with a Minnesota upset pick but I’m going to play it safe and take Dallas (-3) tonight.

Now let’s get to the rest of my picks for this week. I barely made it out of the week alive last week, miraculously finishing 8-8. I’ll chalk that up to picking the games on Tuesday though. I’m still 14 games above .500 for the year though so let’s get back on the right track in Week 13. Here are my picks for this week (Winners in Bold).

Last Week: 8-8       2016 Season: 95-81-1

1:00 PM

Philadelphia (+1.5) vs. Cincinnati

Kansas City (+4.5) vs. Atlanta

Detroit (+6) vs. New Orleans

Los Angeles vs. New England (-13)

Jacksonville vs. Denver (-3.5)

Houston vs. Green Bay (-6.5)

Miami (+3.5) vs. Baltimore

San Francisco vs. Chicago (-1)

 

4:05/4:25 PM

Buffalo vs. Oakland (-3)

NY Giants (+6.5) vs. Pittsburgh

Washington (+2) vs. Arizona

Tampa Bay (+4) vs. San Diego

 

Sunday Night Football

Carolina vs. Seattle (-7)

 

That’s it for me today, enjoy all of the games tonight. I’ll be back tomorrow to preview and pick the conference championship games this weekend. Follow me on Twitter @thereal_jmooney and go like the Shooting the Moon page on Facebook.

The all-important final regular season week of fantasy football just got a lot more interesting. Of course I pushed back “Reality of Fantasy” to today because I wanted to track a few injures and as soon as I sit down to write a few big injuries hit the news wire. One name was already on my radar while another came as a bit of a surprise.

Two of the top tight ends in fantasy football will be on the shelf this week and beyond. Rob Gronkowski, who injured his back on Sunday, will undergo surgery on Friday to repair a herniated disk and will be out indefinitely. The Patriots wasted no time placing him on the injured reserve/designated to return list.

This move essentially ends Gronk’s fantasy season and leaves his playoff status in jeopardy. Typically this is an eight-week recovery but a back injury is nothing to mess around with so expect New England to be cautious with Gronk while he rehabs. Martellus Bennett obviously will vault up the tight end rankings with this news. Also keep an eye on receiver Malcolm Mitchell, who could have sneaky value in the as a red zone target going forward.

The surprise news of the day came out of Washington regarding Jordan Reed. If you recall, he briefly left the game on Thanksgiving with a shoulder injury but returned and scored a touchdown late in the contest. Well, it turns out the injury is worse than expected. Adam Schefter tweeted out that Reed is “unlikely to play” on Sunday against Arizona. This is a huge loss for Washington, but this means that Jamison Crowder and Pierre Garcon will see an increase in workload in Reed’s absence.

Now that we got the bad news out of the way, let’s go over a couple of positive injury updates from around the league. Colts QB Andrew Luck looks to be on track to play on Sunday after being a full participant in practice on Wednesday. He still needs to clear the concussion protocol but clearly a good sign to see him going with no restrictions in practice.

Bills receiver Sammy Watkins returned to practice today after sitting out Wednesday’s practice due to foot soreness. His surgically repaired foot has been nagging him all year, but seeing him getting back after what looks like a rest day is a positive sign ahead of a great matchup against the Oakland secondary.

We’ll have much more information as week get closer to Sunday for other injuries like Dolphins receiver DeVante Parker, Texans running back Lamar Miller, and Raiders receiver Michael Crabtree. Make sure to stay current with updates from the teams.

Let’s get down to business now that we’ve covered the big injuries of the week. Week 13 is finally here folks. Final playoffs spots are on the line and you don’t want to be left on the outside looking in. Instead of doing my usual best and worst matchups of the week, I’m going to identify the three best games to target that could vault you into the playoffs. Between this edition of “Reality of Fantasy” and today’s “No Huddle” that will be up later, I will have you covered for all of Week 13 so don’t think I’m going light this week.

We’ll start with what could be the highest scoring game in the early block of games. Detroit travels to New Orleans and based on what we’ve seen all year this could be one hell of a shootout. This New Orleans defense could be just what the doctor ordered for a struggling Lions offense. The Saints allowed the lowly Rams offense to put up 28 points last week, and the Lions have a lot more firepower than Los Angeles. Pro Football Focus ranks both Matthew Stafford and Drew Brees in the top-five at quarterback this week which should bode well for everyone involved.

I love the potential for the Saints here this week at home. They are fantasy darlings in the Superdome, especially against a defense that doesn’t scare me in this matchup. Michael Thomas has been the breakout talent of this offense this season racking up seven touchdowns this season. Thomas currently ranks as the 12^th best receiver in PPR heading into this week.

My one concern in this game is Saints receiver Brandin Cooks. He ranked as the 11^th best receiver in PPR going into last week before putting up the dreaded goose egg against the Rams in a game where the Saints scored 49 points. Cooks didn’t even have a target in that game and burned all of his fantasy owners in the process. Now reports are coming out that Cooks is growing frustrated with his role in the offense. He is a top-flight fantasy receiver and this is about the worst news you can hear at this time of the year, aside from an injury of course.

Aside from my concerns about Cooks, this game looks like fantasy gold in a must-win week. Not to be outdone, there are two great games in the late afternoon block of games that need your attention.

The first is a matchup of two great offenses in San Diego between the Chargers and Buccaneers. I flat out love both of these offenses in fantasy, and believe these are two teams that could win you a championship this season. Tampa Bay is heating up heading into the fantasy playoffs while San Diego has been a solid fantasy offense all season. These two teams squaring off this week is like an early Christmas present just in time to clinch a playoff berth.

I don’t think there is a hotter connection in football than the one between Jameis Winston and Mike Evans. Winston has put up 20+ points in four out of his last six games and could be in line for another such performance. Evans is unquestionably a fantasy stud, he’s on pace to lead the NFL in targets while sitting in the top-three in receptions (73), yards (1,020), and touchdowns (10).

It’s no secret that the Chargers strength is its offense, ranking fourth in the NFL in touchdowns per game. Philip Rivers is having another great season leading this offense. The only issue is figuring out which receiver is going to be the lead guy week-to-week. Tyrell Williams and Dontrelle Inman both have put up great games in recent weeks but last week is the first time where they both eclipsed the 20-point mark. This was probably due to the fact that tight end Antonio Gates didn’t have a catch against the Texans.

I wouldn’t be worried about the Buccaneers performance on defense last week against Seattle. Tampa Bay has been a bottom-third defense most of the season so last week was the exception, not the rule. They are allowing a healthy 24 points per game on the season. I say healthy because allowing five points in a game will certainly drop any average by a large margin.

San Diego’s defense has struggled most of the season, and with the way Tampa Bay is playing I expect that trend to continue. In the last three games, the Chargers have allowed an average of 26 points per game and 360 yards per game. Obviously there is a lot to love about this game overall.

The sneaky-good fantasy game this week is a matchup between the Bills and Raiders. Now you might say that Buffalo has a good defense and an okay offense, why is this a sneakily good fantasy game? Well, it’s the Oakland effect. The Raiders have a knack for turning games into shootouts. Only twice this season has an opposing team failed to score 20-plus points against Oakland.

So while we can all agree that the Raiders are a great offense for fantasy, this is one of those games where their defense will elevate the opponents. Remember, the Bills had a good amount of success against the Seahawks a few weeks ago and that was without Sammy Watkins, who returned last week. The Raiders can give up points in bunches which is a great sign for the Bills.

Don’t get too cute with this game though, starting someone like Marquise Goodwin or Seth Roberts would be insane. I’m merely presenting a case for big games from big names in this game. The highly sought after 30-point fantasy game could be found from guys like Amari Cooper, LeSean McCoy, Derek Carr, and even Tyrod Taylor (mostly with his rushing ability).

Good luck to you all this week, I wish you all fantasy success and hopefully a berth in your league’s playoffs. Stay tuned to Shooting the Moon later today for “No Huddle” where I’ll be looking at the best games of Week 13 and making my picks for the week. Follow me on Twitter @thereal_jmooney and go like the Shooting the Moon page on Facebook.