2024 NFL picks and score predictions for Week 13 games

Indianapolis Colts (5-7) @ New England Patriots (3-8)

Sunday, December 1, 1:00 PM ET

Alright, hear me out with this game...

Everyone’s going to look at this game on the surface and thing, “Oh nice, the Colts are in the playoff hunt and coming off of a loss, they’ve got a bit of a ‘gimme’ against the hapless 3-8 Patriots.”

Not so fast…

The Patriots might be 3-8, but I do think we’re going to continually see Drake Maye make life difficult on everyone the Patriots play. They were getting smoked against the Dolphins and somehow clawed back and at least made things interesting for a bit, giving them something to build on for this coming week.

When you are going up against a quarterback like Anthony Richardson, who has been every bit as unpredictable as a rookie quarterback, I think any outcome is on the table. I’m going to spoil my pick here because I actually like the Patriots a little bit in an upset this week. If this game were being played at Indianapolis, it might be different, but the Patriots are going to get up for this game and that fan base is going to continually rally around Drake Maye.

They’ve got a shot this week to crush the hopes of the Colts, who are still in the playoff race there in the AFC but with absolutely no margin for error. The NFL playoff predictor model has the Colts’ chances of making the postseason at 20 percent right now and I think we see the Patriots absolutely bury them.

Prediction: Patriots win 19-17