Some weeks you circle multiple games on the NFL schedule. Some weeks you just watch your team. And some weeks the 49ers play the Eagles. This week is that week. For the Sunday afternoon headliner and the other 12 matchups that await us, let’s dip our toes into our data-driven NFL Week 13 predictions.
Each NFL week throughout the 2023 season, the supercomputer has something to say about every game. No matter if it’s a headliner or a game we may be less excited about, it unsentimentally beeps its way through the model’s NFL picks, boldly dropping score predictions for each.
Week 13 begins Thursday with the Seahawks visiting Dallas, and it ends Monday with the Jaguars hosting the Bengals. For those games and everything between, we’ve taken plenty of data – advanced and historical – and pumped it through our predictive model. Keep in mind this model uses our data only and nothing from the sports betting market to produce score projections, so there can be slight discrepancies in scores when considered against the percentages of our live win probability model found elsewhere, which also incorporates Vegas odds. Those percentages will move with the market. These scores won’t. These scores consider team news as of Wednesday night.
NFL Week 13 Picks
We’ll start where the neutral fans want us to: with the rematch of last season’s NFC Championship game at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. Sure, eight games will occur before this one kicks off, but chronology goes out the window when our model’s two most likely teams to win the Super Bowl square off. Our season-long predictions still have the Eagles as the team most likely to enjoy a February confetti shower, as was the case back on Sept. 7 when the season kicked off. What’s changed since then is the 49ers’ chances have about doubled to go from sixth to second.
Last season, the Eagles blew out San Francisco in the conference championship when the Niners had zero healthy quarterbacks. We are expecting this game to be much closer with a 21-20 Philly win.
Speaking of potential conference finalists, every team leading a division in the AFC has a two-game lead, including the Jaguars who will be hosting the Bengals on Monday Night Football after beating the Texans by a field goal last week. And no team playing Sunday or Monday has a higher win probability for their game than Jacksonville at 75.6% as the Jags look to start a season 9-3 for the first time since 2005. We think it’ll happen with a 21-17 victory.
On Sunday night, there will be a rematch of Super Bowl I with the Chiefs taking on the Packers. Jordan Love is coming off a three-touchdown, zero-interception performance but is just the 15th-ranked fantasy quarterback this weekend according to our fantasy projections. We think Love and the Packers will fall short at home with Kansas City winning 24-21 to get to 9-3.
If the playoffs started today, the Steelers would be the No. 5 seed in the AFC as the highest-seeded wild-card team. Despite that, our 2023 season predictions have eight different AFC teams entering the week with a higher likelihood of making the AFC Championship game. But we also believe that Pittsburgh come out on the right side of another tight one with a three-point win over Arizona this weekend.
The Broncos are on a five-game winning streak which is tied with the Eagles for the longest active streak in the NFL. That was unthinkable in October. Meanwhile, Houston’s C.J. Stroud enters the game with four straight 300-yard passing games, the longest streak by a rookie in NFL history. And on Sunday, we give the Texans a slight edge at home, predicting a 23-21 victory.
Here’s one more look at all 13 Week 13 NFL predictions, including Geno Smith and the Seahawks as underdogs against red-hot Dak Prescott and the Cowboys to get things going.
NFL Week 13 Picks and Predicted Scores
Thursday Night Football:
- Dallas Cowboys 28, Seattle Seahawks 24
Sunday:
- Indianapolis Colts 23, Tennessee Titans 20
- Los Angeles Chargers 27, New England Patriots 17
- Detroit Lions 24, New Orleans Saints 21
- Pittsburgh Steelers 23, Arizona Cardinals 20
- New York Jets 17, Atlanta Falcons 14
- Miami Dolphins 24, Washington Commanders 20
- Houston Texans 23, Denver Broncos 21
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20, Carolina Panthers 14
- Philadelphia Eagles 21, San Francisco 49ers 20
- Cleveland Browns 21, Los Angeles Rams 17
Sunday Night Football:
- Kansas City Chiefs 24, Green Bay Packers 21
Monday Night Football:
- Jacksonville Jaguars 21, Cincinnati Bengals 17
Week 13 byes:
- Baltimore Ravens
- Buffalo Bills
- Chicago Bears
- Las Vegas Raiders
- Minnesota Vikings
- New York Giants
If fantasy football is more your thing, check out our weekly fantasy projections and rankings, then use our sit/start comparison tool to help with lineup decisions.
We’ll be back next week for yet another massive game involving the Eagles as they head to Dallas to potentially wrap up the NFC East. That of course first depends on what happens this week, but the supercomputer is already putting numbers on it, just as it has and will all season.