NFL Week 13: Cue up Taylor Swift

Before I cue up Taylor Swift and look ahead to lucky Week 13, I have to put some respect on one heck of a Thanksgiving for the NFL.

• Approximately 42M viewers tuned in to watch the Dallas Cowboys beat the NY Giants on Thanksgiving Day — the most-watched regular-season NFL game on record.

In fact, the total audience for last Thursday’s tripleheader was 138M, also a new Thanksgiving Day record. Gobble, gobble, indeed.

But my personal favorite part of the week was returning to FanDuel (after taking a week off to reset my strategy) and scoring a winning week for my picks.

• That brings my overall record to 7-8 (and hey, that’s more wins than 19 of the league’s 32 teams right now).

I’m out of Thanksgiving leftovers, but still serving up another full-course meal of picks: one point spread, one total and one prop bet. (More on those terms in The GIST’s sports betting glossary.)

My first pick is less a bet for the Houston Texans and more a bet against Deshaun Watson and the Cleveland Browns.

• Watson’s first game back after serving a measly 11-game suspension fittingly comes against his former Texans team, who I’m expecting to show up big time and cover the +7 spread (win the game, or lose by 7 or fewer points).

I’m rounding out my picks with a bet on the Washington Commanders vs. Giants total (over 40.5) and a bet on Buffalo Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs to score a touchdown (which you’ll see listed on betting sites as anytime touchdown scorer, or ATTS) against the New England Patriots. Let’s eat.