Things are razor close coming down the stretch.  Raj and Rick are in the lead with myself and Jason a mere one game behind them.  Last week Rick and I had the two lone "non-unanimous" picks and we each nailed them.  This week, Raj is the only one sticking his neck out, picking the Saints over the G-Men.  Will his gamble pay off or will Rick be left in sole possession of first place?

And since I can't count and only sent the team six games to pick, I've added a "bonus" category at the end for us to make our selections on this week. Be sure to check it out.

Game	Derek	Jason	Raj	Rick	Stephen
TEN @ IND
DET @ GB
SD @ PIT
BAL @ WAS
DAL @ CIN
NO @ NYG
SANCHEZ vs. TEBOW vs. McELROY	Matt Barkley	Vinnie Testeverde	Joe Namath	Direct Snap to the Running Back	Fireman Ed
Last Week	5-2	4-3	4-3	5-2	4-3
Record	54-30	54-30	55-29	55-29	45-39

Surprising wins and losses abounded in Week 13 and the Top 12 reflects that with some decent activity up and down the board.   For now, though, the Patriots continue to reign supreme.  Monday Night's game will determine how long they stay at the top.

#1 - New England Patriots

Sunday's game wasn't the prettiest, but the Patriots beat a team they notoriously struggle with on the road to capture yet another AFC East title.  With the division wrapped-up, the Patriots will have back-to-back playoff-caliber tests against Houston and San Fran.

Last Week: 1      Change: 0     Record: 8-3       Next Game: vs. Texans

#2 - Atlanta Falcons

Nobody won too pretty in Week 13, which is why the Pats got to hold onto the top spot  Atlanta continued its streak of not-overly-convincing wins by downing the Saints, but taking 10 out of 11 is nothing to sneeze at.

Last Week: 3   Change: +1      Record: 10-1     Next Game: @ Panthers

#3 - Denver Broncos

The only reason Denver doesn't scare me as a potential Patriots playoff foe is that they're racking up their wins by picking on bottom feeders.  Losses to New England, Houston, and Atlanta, the other teams in the Top 4, make me question how well they'll do in January.

Last Week: 4    Change: +1       Record: 9-3       Next Game: @ Raiders

#4 - Houston Texans

After that last Denver comment, you might be wondering why Houston is ranked #4.  Well, the same holds true for them when it comes to picking on the non-elite.  The Texans will likely need to beat New England or sweep Indy to hold onto the top spot.  Time to see what they're really made of.

Last Week: 5      Change: +1     Record: 10-1     Next Game: @ Patriots

The Patriots opened as 3.5-point favorites as they prepare to host the Houston Texans on Monday Night Football in Week 14.

An 11-1 team being labeled a significant underdog this late in the season is about as common as Antonio Cromartie using any form of birth control, so this spread deserves a careful eye. How can a 9-3 New England team with well-documented problems on defense be favored by more than a field goal against an 11-1 Texans team that has looked dominant most of the season on both sides of the ball?

The biggest part of the spread may be due to some chinks showing up in the Houston armor the past few weeks on pass defense. Prior to shutting down a very shut-downable Jake Locker last week, the Texans had given up nearly 800 yards and 6 scores through the air in the previous two weeks against Detroit and Jacksonville. The Houston base defense was extremely tough in the first half of the season, so teams have started playing more 3+ WR sets to force the Texans into sub packages. It’s a copycat league, so the prevailing wisdom would have the Patriots spreading the Texans out and keeping some of their better defenders on the sidelines.

Another issue is strength of schedule. Only two of Houston’s 12 opponents have a winning record (a six-point win over the Broncos and a severe beating of the Ravens the week after Baltimore lost a pair of playmakers on defense), while the Patriots have played four teams with records north of .500. Also, stud RB Arian Foster may be showing some signs of slowing down, averaging .4 fewer yards per carry so far in the second half of the season. If the Patriots can hold him under 4 yards per carry, it’s hard to figure out a way the Texans can pull out a win.

It’s worth noting that the line has already come down a bit with plenty of folks betting on the Patriots. Get those bets in early. While the spread looks a little wonky, I’m happy to lay the points and pick the Patriots to cover.

Other Lines I Like

When the broadcast of today's game started, CBS showed some mind-boggling stats abou the Patriots history with Miami.   For starters, the Patriots have lost only three roads games in December since 2003, which is pretty crazy in and of itself.  However, more intriguing is the fact that all three of those losses came in Miami.  Also worth noting is that the Patriots have dropped only 15 divisional games since 2001, of which seven were to the Dolphins.  Patriots/Jets always seems to be the marquee divisional matchup, and for legit reasons (Boston vs. New York, Rex Ryan, Mangini, recent playoff history), but if anyone has been a true challenge year in and year out during the Brady/Belichick era, it's the Miami Dolphins. 

I'm short on time, so I won't dive into in-depth specifics, but I thought this game told us a lot about who this football team is and how far they've come since the start of the season.  The Patriots were missing some major pieces like Rob Gronkowski, Logan Mankins, and Chandler Jones.  They were without Jermaine Cunningham, and Dan Connolly was injured at the start of the game.  Still, on the road, in a notoriously tough environment for them, with two huge games on the horizon that could have easily turned this into trap game, the Patriots did what they needed to do to seal up the victory.  And not only did they seal it up, but they did so despite facing a fair bit of adversity. 

This game wasn't like the past two weeks against the Colts and Jets where they went into steamroller mode and never looked back.  The Patriots had multiple opportunities where they could have folded and gave this game away.  This is exactly the type of game that they lost against Arizona, Baltimore, and Seatte.  The running game was stalling out, and Brady was getting pressured and hit.  They failed to win the turnover battle.  Nine weeks ago, this would have been the type of game where the secondary got carved up for huge plays and ultimately did the team in.  Today, the defense held their own, and may have actually won the game for this team.  Other than one long drive at the end of the 2nd quarter, the Pats defense held Miami to three field goals, one of which was off a turnover.  They got  a decent amount of pressure on Tannehill and continued to hit hard and jar the ball loose, even though they didn't get good bounces off those fumbles. 

And the offense, despite having a sub-par day, showed huge signs of progress as well.  As the second half began, the Patriots were teetering on the edge of becoming one-dimensional again.  The first half running game was horrendous and had forced the Patriots into a "throw, throw, throw" mentality.  Anyone who's watched this team long enough knows that if you can get the Patriots to abandon the run AND start hitting Brady, that's when you have New England right where you want them.  The ten-point lead the Pats were nursing throughout most of the second half only felt remotely safe because of how well the defense had been playing.  Still, you knew the Phins were only one big play away from making it a one-score game putting the Patriots into choke-mode. 

That's why the final big drive by the offense, when the Dolphins cut the lead to seven, was so huge.  Again, this is where New England found themselves going three-and-out during the first stretch of the season.  When things got tight late in the game, the Patriots' offense started to sputter. 

Not, this time however.  Brady and McDaniels re-established the running game, and methodically drove the team down the field for a 16-play, 77-yard drive that took up nearly half the quarter and forced Miami to burn their timeouts.  After Gostkowski hit the chip-shot to put the lead back up to ten, the Patriots had all but won the "hats and tee-shirts". 

Has the New England defense turned the corner or is this still a unit that should worry Pats fans?

Jason:  You can still count me as concerned. The defense has been staked to early leads in the past two weeks and benefitted from several gift-wrapped turnovers, so we haven't seen what they can do in a close game when the pressure is really on and the other team isn't making awful mistakes. At best, the defense is still a huge question mark, but I suppose that is an improvement over what I would have called them a few weeks ago.

Stephen:  The defense is no longer a nightmare, but it's still far from a strength. Overall the Patriots have limited the big plays that killed them early in the season, but the pass rush has still been suspect. Besides Chandler Jones and Rob Ninkovich, it's been almost nonexistent. With Jermaine Cunningham out for the next four games (suspension), it could become an even bigger issue. Luckily the play of Brandon Spikes and Jerod Mayo has been fantastic, and Devin McCourty and Vince Wilfork have stepped up recently, too. By the end of the year the defense could be good enough, but there are still some kinks to be worked out.

Derek:  The Pats defense hasn't become the '85 Bears overnight, but I no longer think the unit is a huge liability.  Early on in the season, it seemed like no matter what the offense did, the defense was going to find a way to let the opposition match it.  The Patriots got shredded on numerous big plays and, ultimately, Brady just wasn't able to turn the faucet on strong enough to make up for what was pouring out of the huge drain.  However, I've seen some big strides from the defense since McCourty moved to safety and Talib came to town.  This defense is now good enough to slow opposing teams down enough to have the offense jet right past them.  With their three losses coming by a combined four points, the defense didn't have to get that much better to put the Patriots back on a winning track.  At this point, the defense has improved enough to where the Patriots are legitimate title contenders and can hang with any  team.

We sat down with Michael Serrania from Phins Phocus to hear his takes on the upcoming Miami/New England game. Here are Michael's thoughts on the game and the Dolphins.

1. A lot of talk before the draft was that Miami was drafting Ryan Tannehill too high with the 8th pick? How would you evaluate the pick after the first 11 games this season? Has he made a difference over Matt Moore?

First of all, one must take a look at all of the picks that were taken before Ryan Tannehill and the possibility of moving up.  Since the Miami Dolphins took a proactive and transparent approach to their coaching search, there is a good chance that Tannehill was not their first choice given the many different offensive philosphies of the coaches they interviewed.  When the Dolphins narrowed down their choices to Mike McCoy and Joe Philbin, many people assumed the Dolphins would make a concerted effort in changing the offense from more of a spread to something like West Coast.  McCoy was a QB at Utah, but since he had so much success in changing the Offense from WC to Spread-Option, Zone Read, McCoy seemed like the better candidate.  Then Philbin emerged out of the search essentially winning over the front office and ownership in Miami.  However, it can be assumed that maybe there was a bit of a disagreement in who would be the coach.  At least that's the picture the media started to paint.

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December is upon as in the NFL season as the Patriots get set to try to clinch another AFC East title this Sunday against the Miami Dolphins. New England is coming off of a solid Thanksgiving win over the New York Jets. By the way, being at the game, I had no idea that Mark Sanchez ran into Brando Moore’s backside until I got home. This game on Sunday is what Tedy Bruschi used to refer to as the “hat and T-shirt game”. However, historically, the Patriots have not played well late in the year against the Miami Dolphins..

I was a fan of the Dolphins coming into the year and by fan I mean that they weren’t going to finish in last place. This idea originated from when I saw this team on Hard Knocks and the way new head coach Joe Philbin brought the team together with not much talent. Now, Miami is 5-6, but Ryan Tannehill has showed a lot of poise at times this year. Last week, he came out against a tough defense in Seattle and drove his team down the field for a game winning field goal. Miami still has a strong defense and a decent running attack. They will look to throw some new schemes at a Patriots’ defense that is starting to improve each and every week.

With that being said, here are my three keys to this weekend’s game in Miami:

1. Which Receiver is the Bess: If Ryan Tannehill is going to have success against the Patriots’ defense, he is going to have to make quick decisions with the football. The Pats have shown more of a pass rush the last two weeks even without stud rookie defensive end Chandler Jones. The player I am watching on Miami’s offense if they are going to score points is Davone Bess. Bess has been Miami’s slot receiver for years, but has had to become a primary option because of the lack of talent in their receiving corps. Last week against the Seahawks, Bess had seven catches for 129 yards and a touchdown. The last time the Pats and Dolphins played in Miami, he had seven catches for 92 yards. Brian Hartline has had his weeks, but he has been inconsistent. If Miami is going to win, Davone Bess needs to make some third down receptions and move the chains, especially when he has averaged ten targets per game the last two weeks.

2. Don’t Wake The Pass Rush: For the last three weeks, the Patriots’ offensive line has done a good job protecting Tom Brady from sacks. The Dolphins have had their games against Tom Brady over the years when they have sacked him repeatedly. In the past, that player was Jason Taylor. For the past couple of seasons, that guy is Cameron Wake. Wake is in the running for Defensive Player of the year with 10 sacks in 11 games. Last year, Wake had two sacks in two games vs. New England, but he can make an impact in the run defense as well. For the Patriots, they will look on their defensive line to find another member of the defensive line to step up with Chandler Jones still out and Jermaine Cunningham starting a four game suspension. Look for Trevor Scott or rookie Justin Francis to step up and try to stop the run and free up players like Rob Ninkovich and Don’t’a Hightower to get after Tannehill.

3. Keep The Bush From Burning Up: Miami is looking for a balanced attack in the running game similar to what the Patriots have found this year with Stevan Ridley and Shane Vereen. The Dolphins have a nice combo on the ground with Reggie Bush and Daniel Thomas. Last week, Thomas had nine carries for 60 yards and a touchdown. He gets some of the carries on the goal line along with fullback Jovorski Lane. As for Bush, he said preseason that he would be the NFL rushing leader at season’s end. This year, he has been inconsistent at best. In Miami’s five wins, he has averaged 77 yards on the ground. In their four losses, he has just 46 yards per game! If Belichick can stop Bush the way he contained CJ Spiller, then this one should be no problem.

PREDICTION

Despite the discrepancy in the records, these AFC East games are always tough to predict. The Dolphins are capable of pulling a surprise at home as we saw last week against the Seattle Seahawks. Miami is in a must-win situation at 5-6 with the Bengals and Steelers in front of them plus the Colts have the head-to-head tiebreaker against them. Tannehill will have his flashes in this game, but I think the Patriots’ offense is too machine-like right now even without Rob Gronkowski at tight end or Logan Mankins on the offensive line. I would be worried about a trap game here as the Pats will have a huge game with the Texans next Monday night, They suffered a letdown game earlier this year against the Cardinals and Belichick will not let that happen this time around.

PATRIOTS 38 DOLPHINS 24

QB Tom Brady

The Dolphins have been awful against the pass this year, and white-hot Brady has torched this team for 8 TDs and just one pick in his last three trips to Miami. Look for him to put up around 300+ yards and 2-3 scores this time around.

WRs Wes Welker, Brandon Lloyd, Julian Edelman

The Dolphins’ respectable run defense means that the Pats will probably be forced to the air early and often. Welker should be the biggest beneficiary, so you can pencil him in for 100 yards. Lloyd should also be a solid bet for 60+ and a score. Edelman hasn’t quite cleared all of the hurdles needed to return after his concussion and is likely to be a game-time decision. If he can go, he should be a decent play in the flex spot.

RBs Stevan Ridley, Shane Vereen, Danny Woodhead

Miami’s run defense is stout, but New England’s no-huddle attack could still create a few running lanes. This could be one of the team’s poorest rushing matchups, but I still think Ridley should exceed 70 yards and a score. Since the Pats could favor quick passes and draw plays out of the shotgun, Vereen and Woodhead are both perfectly usable in the flex slot and could combine for close to 100 total yards and a score.

TE Aaron Hernandez

With Gronk still recovering from injury, Hernandez should see plenty of playing time. I’d expect nothing less than 60 yards, and a possible score. I don't think any other NE tight end is worth starting this week.

New England Defense/Special Teams

This unit has accounted for five touchdowns the past two weeks, and it wouldn’t be a shock to see them add a few more big plays against a Dolphins team that is starting a rookie quarterback. I think 2-3 sacks and at least 1-2 turnovers and 13-17 points allowed is a reasonable projection.

As we head down the stretch, which AFC team poses the biggest threat to the Patriots' return to the Super Bowl?

Stephen:  At one time I'd say the Houston Texans posed the biggest threat, but with their recent play, I don't see them as much of a threat. Like last year, the biggest threat to the Patriots' Super Bowl run is the Baltimore Ravens. New England already dropped a close game to Baltimore earlier this season, and these two teams are very familiar with each other. It's hard to count against Ed Reed, Terrell Suggs, Haloti Ngata and Co., although the going is easier without Lardarius Webb or possibly Ray Lewis in the lineup.

Jason:  I don't think the Texans pose an enormous threat. They've been exposed in the passing game the past few weeks. If they can't stop Matt Stafford, they won't stop Brady. And I can't say the Ravens because I hate them with a passion that burns deep in my soul. So the team that really scares me is Denver. The Broncos defense is legit, and Manning can direct a scoring drive at the drop of a hat. The formula for beating the Pats is score points and get after the quarterback. The Broncos can do both.

Derek: I think it's pretty interesting that we're going to end up with three different answers to this question.  I don't think the Ravens are the biggest threat because of their injuries to Lewis and Webb.  Joe Flacco simply isn't going to be able to keep pace with Tom Brady without his defense at full-strength.  Week 3 was a close game, but the replacement refs won't be around to blow 18 calls to bail out Baltimore this time around.   Baltimore has looked awful the past few weeks and has only managed to get to 9-2 because teams like KC, Pittsburgh, and San Diego managed to out-awful them.   The Broncos are certainly worth opponents and Peyton Manning isn't to be taken lightly.  However, when they've played good teams, it hasn't gone so well for them and they seem to be making a living on beating up on sub-par competition. 

I was tempted for a second to get cute and say the Miami Dolphins, as they have two games against New England and could seriously ruin the Patriots playoff positioning with some wins, but ultimately, my answer has to be the Texans.  They're slumping at the moment, but they have far more weapons than Baltimore or Denver.  Matt Schaub, Arian Foster, Andre Johnson, J.J. Watt...  This is the team could easily derail the Pats if they bring their "A" game and New England only brings an A-minus. 

This contest continues to be close as we head down the stretch.  Raj managed to take the lead last week, but the top four spots are still separated by a total of two games.  Things are guaranteed to stay close as well as all but two picks were unanimous.  I'm backing one rookie of the year candidate, Andrew Luck in Detroit, and Rick's got RGIII's back against the Giants.  Other than that, the field is locked.

Game	Derek	Jason	Raj	Rick	Stephen
IND @ DET
TB @ DEN
HOU @ TEN
PIT @ BAL
CIN @ SD
NO @ ATL
NYG @ WAS
Last Week	4-3	3-4	5-2	5-2	3-4
Record	49-28	50-27	51-26	50-27	41-36