Advertisement

NFL Week 12 Picks: Titans' physicality to tame Bengals

The Tennessee Titans and its Derrick Henry led run game will have the edge over the Cincinnati Bengals as the AFC rivals fight it out for playoff positioning.

Video Transcript

VOCH LOMBARDI: Sup, y'all? It's Voch Lombardi. Watch every second of the NFL season when and where you want it, only on [? DAZN. ?]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Games I'm watching-- games I'm watching for week 12 in NFL action, and all of these games are some type of playoff implicator. That's just the dope part about this year or this time of year. Like, once we get to November, that's when we get to see, OK, what teams are gonna be top 10 in the draft, and what teams are going to be working towards playoff contention?

Most of these games have some type of playoff stuff going on, right? So we'll start off with Bengals versus Titans, right? The Bengals are starting to get-- they're getting into this little groove, man. They started off the season. They looked pretty terrible. And now they're working their way back into being the team that we thought they were gonna be, a successful Bengals team.

Now, of course, losing the Super Bowl is just-- I don't know the science behind it, but there's just this weird wizardry that happens that every time a team loses the Super Bowl, they come back the next year, and they're just a bad team. But the Bengals are working themselves out of that funk.

And Ja'Marr Chase will be practicing this week. I don't know if he's gonna play this week. He may definitely play next week. But he is 100% practicing this week.

And the Tennessee Titans, ever since-- just like the Bengals, ever since being kind of bad early on in the year, they've just kind of been on this streak of just winning games and playing tough football. You know, they lose to the Kansas City Chiefs a couple of weeks ago last week there. But they looked pretty good versus the Kansas City Chiefs in that losing effort.

So now we're just continuing to build this emergence of who's gonna be those NFC teams under the Kansas City Chiefs. It's gonna be interesting to see these guys fight it out for it. If I had to pick between the Bengals and the Titans, I think you're gonna try-- if you're the Bengals, you're gonna try to put the Titans in that same hole, right?

You're gonna try to-- well, let's try to score points quickly and then make them get away from running the ball with Derrick Henry. Or if you're the Titans, you're gonna slow the game down, run the ball with Derrick Henry, be physical, make them tackle you, and then Joe Burrow not really get a lot of attempts there. If I had to pick, man, I think I just believe in physicality this time of year. And the Titans are a very physical team. So I'm gonna go with the Titans.

After that, we're gonna look at the Falcons versus the Washington Football Team. And what's gonna happen with these guys? The Falcons are a team that's in playoff contention also. Why? Because the NFC South is so terrible.

I think, even with their record, they're, like, a game or two behind the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. So nothing is secure in Southland. And, you know, you're a win/loss away from being the division leader, which is a home playoff game. So we'll see what happens with them.

And we talked about the Washington Commanders-- [INAUDIBLE] [? call ?] [? them ?] Commanders-- about the Washington team, right? They are a winning football team right now. The NFC East has all teams over .500 right now, and I can possibly see a situation where every team in the NFC East can possibly make the playoffs.

So do I believe in Taylor Heinicke magic? No. But I do think that they're gonna probably do enough to beat up on the Falcons. The Falcons like to run the football. And if there's any D-line I trust in this National Football League, it is the Washington Football-- Commanders. I wonder when Chase Young is coming back, though. We'll talk about that a little bit later.