This article is part of our NFL Picks series.
Hope everyone had a happy (and profitable) Thanksgiving. Week 12 is already well underway at Circa Million with four games in the books. Contest lines came out on Wednesday instead of the usual Thursday release, thus there is an extra day for the Sunday lines to go "stale". Further, anyone picking a Thursday or Friday game needed to submit the whole card on Wednesday. It all suggests a quirky week.
The top picks are as follows:
Bills +3.5 at 
Eagles, 1630 picks, 832 net: There is line value around the key number with the betting line now Bills +3. Also the Bills are the better team….according to DVOA, ESPN FPI, numberfire , TeamRankings and Massey-Peabody to name a few. It kind of sort of kind of passes the eye test. The Bills dominate, then turn the ball over. The Eagles underwhelm then the Chiefs drop 57 straight Mahomes dimes. I suspect analytics can not capture the full impact of the Eagles ability to play call knowing they always have the crazy automatic Brotherly Shove in their pocket. Still, we went with the Bills. I buy the notion that the teams are close to even, and we will go with the points. Plus they looked much better after scapegoating offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey, who clearly had forgotten to tell his players not to put the ball on the turf.
Steelers -1 at 
Bengals, 1364 picks, 863 net: The Steelers have gone as high as -2.5 since the lines came out. Why can the Steelers never score more than 20 points? Blame Canada! Well, not any more. Matt Canada is gone as offensive coordinator. Obviously the bigger news for this game is Jake Browning takes over the Bengals QB reins with Joe Burrow done for the season. Tough to know what to get from either side here. The Bills and Raiders both played well after big coaching changes and the crowd likes the Steelers to make it 3 for 3. We do too.
Rams pick 'em at 
Cardinals, 1318 picks, 751 net: Yet more line value with Rams now as high as -2.5. We had this on our card, then switched to the Chiefs -8.5 as that line bumped up to -10. Really I find the line move as the only attraction here, but that often is all you need. Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua will both likely suit up at WR for the Rams. The Cards have shown about as well as a 2-9 ever shows, and Kyler Murray has barely missed a beat.. Still, they tend to play hard and reasonably well and lose anyway.
Texans +2 vs 
Jaguars, 1185 picks, 65 net: The screengrab above has the Texans game and Jets game switched. Really just two-sided action here as the Jaguars are the sixth most popular pick. Who had the Texans sitting in playoff position headed into Week 12? Win here and they tie for the NFC South lead and own the tiebreaker. A game against the Titans last week cured the Jags offensive malaise, not in time for me to avoid benching my Trevor Lawrence-Calvin Ridley fantasy stack. 
Ravens -3.5 at 
Chargers, 1128 picks, 216 net: The crowd distrusts the Chargers so much that they will ride the Ravens despite the betting line dropping to -3. We have all seen the Chargers movie before. Long on talent, short on ever making the key play. The always injury-plagued Ravens head across country minus star tight end Mark Andrews. The John Harbaugh-Brandon Staley coaching mismatch feels off the charts. We will throw our crab cakes and Natty Boh's in with the Ravens.
We sit at 28-26-1 overall and 6-4 in the third quarter and have the Bills, Steelers, Ravens, Chiefs -8.5 at Raiders and Saints pick 'em at Falcons on our Week 12 card.
Week 11 Review
Circa Million players broke the 50 percent mark for the fourth straight week, but ever so barely. The pool hit at a cumulative 50.72 percent mark in Week 11.
90 players failed to submit a card, a growing trend even though there are quarterly prizes as well as the season long money.
Riding with just the consensus side also "worked" for the fourth straight week, hitting at 54.69 percent when you add up all the picks on the majority side, bumping that metric to 52.96 percent on the season.
Hey, 52.96 percent works for actual betting! Except that these are vs the stale lines. The Texans covered -4.5 in the pool in Week 11 but probably not for actual bettors as it sat near -6 later in the week.
Perhaps tailing the leaders' picks would work? Well yes, if you knew who exactly to tail from Week 1. The top 13 contenders after Week 10 all had records of at least 37-16-2 (69.8%). So how did they fare in Week 11?
That combined 35-30 is 53.8 percent barely beat the pool as a whole and trailed just riding with the overall consensus choices.
How about if we look at the hottest current pickers? There are four that have started the third quarter with a sparkling 10-0 record. Kudos to all, that is tough to do. But could any of us seen this coming? Highly doubtful. Here are their records through the first nine weeks.
Long story short; do not get "fooled by randomness" either in your own picks and bets or by someone else. Steve Fezzik ranks second in the overall and has won the Westgate contest that preceded Circa as the premiere competition in this format and is well known in the community. So no, he is not at all a random leader here. Perhaps that is true of others too as it is tough to tell who is behind any of these picks. But even the best at this are subject to just the weekly fluctuation that is the NFL. Fezzik had the Chiefs in Week 11, arguably the correct side, and would sit in first had they won. He's on the Pats -3, Steelers, Rams, Bills and Bears +3.5 this week.
