A Bengals blowout, fading Anthony Richardson in thin air and the best NFL bets of Week 15

Well, this is embarrassing.

On the heels of a 9-1 heater, our resident NFL betting expert, the Rhode Island Scumbag, saw our biggest week of traffic for this column in 2024. With the pressure on, our picks… promptly crumbled into dust.

There was plenty of risk since he and I were on opposite sides of two games. That could have been remedied with winning picks elsewhere. That didn’t happen. Will Levis spent most of last Sunday figuratively vomiting down his own jersey and the Chicago Bears showed they’re truly special by being the rare team to get absolutely zero bounce after firing an underachieving head coach. By those powers combined, we went 2-5 with a net loss of four units.

Oof.

Fortunately, we’re still profitable on the season. Week 15 provides a clean slate and a full 16-game schedule of opportunity. Time to get back on the horse. Let’s make some bets; Scumbag analysis is below and in blockquotes. My bets follow.

The Scumbag came crashing down to earth last week [Ed. note: obviously not hard enough if he’s out here referring to himself in the third person like Rickey Henderson], done in by a combination of the Will Levis’s end zone allergy and Zack Charbonnet completely embarrassing the Arizona Cardinals. Thankfully, Pittsburgh came through to limit the losses for the week.

Fortunately for me, Christian had an equally frustrating week, leaving us in the same position we were in last week in terms of our heads-up competition. With a full slate of games available, here are four that can build that bankroll. I originally had two games at two units apiece, but decided the unnecessary risk wasn’t worth the squeeze considering my current lead as we approach the final four weeks of the regular season.