Buying a Cardinals bounce-back, fading Mac Jones and the best NFL bets of Week 14

We’ve got a new Rhode Island Scumbag this year. I know I announced this back in September, but you may have been skeptical. It took until December to get our proof.

The original Scumbag, our NFL betting expert, began his seasons hot before fading into oblivion late in the season. Our new Scumbag, however, has turned a six unit loss after Week 1 into 12 units of profit with five weeks left in the regular season.

Rhody Scumbag 2.0 has been red hot as the weather grows cold. He’s hit nine of his 10 locks the past three weeks, resulting in a +11 unit swing that has him handily in the lead of our one-on-one competition. I, on the other hand, got a head start in Week 13 with two Thanksgiving wins only to see my cash disappear when neither Derek Carr nor Sam Darnold could handle their business at home.

I’m running out of time to close the gap and keep the Scumbag winless in our fourth year of this heads up competition. That doesn’t mean I’m about to tilt — just that I’m gonna fire an extra bet into a week where I might be overthinking things. That’s usually where things fall apart, so if I had to make an educated guess, I’d say fade my picks and tail my Ocean State compatriot.

Scumbag picks follow. His analysis is in quotes below. My non-Scumbag picks are below.

What a week for the Rhode Island Scumbag. It felt good to finally find a significant profit and make the public some money this week.

By no means was it easy. Both the Arizona Cardinals and New England Patriots games were tight covers, while the Seattle Seahawks dug themselves out of a hole. Even so, we finished the long weekend a perfect 4-0 with a neat six-unit cash. At our annual meet up on Friday, Scumbag 1.0 did express his disappointment in Christian and I for not focusing on an all Thanksgiving Day slate as well as our typical picks, but that quickly faded away Sunday night as he chose to fire in a wager on Buffalo so we could root for the immaculate Scumbag picks week together.

This week, I look to keep the momentum going by picking on some divisional matchups I think can keep our hot streak going while we head into the last major bye-week of the season.