{"id":382355,"date":"2025-11-18T14:48:30","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T19:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/?p=382355"},"modified":"2025-11-18T14:48:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T19:48:31","slug":"bills-vs-texans-week-12-thursday-night-football-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/bills-vs-texans-week-12-thursday-night-football-picks\/","title":{"rendered":"Bills vs. Texans Week 12 Thursday Night Football picks: Take the under, fade Cook in tough matchup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Buffalo Bills look to keep pace in the AFC East when they play the middling Houston Texans on Thursday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The pregame narrative:<\/strong> The Bills are second in their division and are looking to stay within striking distance of the New England Patriots. The Texans&#8217; defence should keep them in this game while the offence is expected to struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Check out my Bills vs. Texans picks for Nov. 20, featuring a prop bet on Buffalo running back James Cook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"acq_only\"><strong>-> <a href=\"https:\/\/online.northstarbets.com\/promoRedirect?key=ej0xMzUyNTA0MiZsPTEzNTI1MDAwJnA9ODMzNw%3D%3D\">Join NorthStar Bets to start betting on the NFL<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bills vs. Texans picks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Best Bet: Under 43.5 points (-110)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I cannot trust the Texans&#8217; offence right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>C.J. Stroud is likely to miss this game, and Davis Mills has been less than impressive as a replacement. In the three games he&#8217;s appeared in, Houston has scored 16 or fewer points twice.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Even with Stroud, the offence was subpar. Overall, the Texans scored 22.0 points per game (12th most).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>On the other side of the ball, the defence has been incredible. It ranks as the best scoring defence (16.3 points against\/game) and total defence (277.1 yards against\/game).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"acq_only\"><strong>-> <a href=\"https:\/\/online.northstarbets.com\/promoRedirect?key=ej0xMzUyNTA0MiZsPTEzNTI1MDAwJnA9ODMzNw%3D%3D\">Don&#8217;t miss out \u2014 Bet on Thursday Night Football<\/a>!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Buffalo&#8217;s offence is always capable of fireworks, but it&#8217;s struggled against better defensive teams (e.g. Atlanta Falcons, New England Patriots).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That gives me confidence that this will be a low-scoring contest between two tough defensive squads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even if the Bills break through, it&#8217;s unlikely Houston will be able to keep pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Key stat:<\/strong> Unders are 6-3-1 for the Texans this season. That&#8217;s the fourth-best unders record in the NFL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"acq_only\"><strong>-> <a href=\"https:\/\/online.northstarbets.com\/promoRedirect?key=ej0xMzUyNTA0MiZsPTEzNTI1MDAwJnA9ODMzNw%3D%3D\">Place your NFL wagers now at NorthStar Bets<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">TNF prop prediction<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cook under 75.5 rushing yards (-106):<\/strong> Fading Cook this season hasn&#8217;t worked out well, but this is a good chance to take his under in a tough matchup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Texans allow the third fewest rushing yards per game (87.1) on 3.9 yards per carry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Starting running backs are 0-10 on this wager against Houston this season.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Cook has finished well below this total in back-to-back games despite receiving a healthy workload of 29 total carries.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"acq_only\"><strong>-> <a href=\"https:\/\/online.northstarbets.com\/promoRedirect?key=ej0xMzUyNTA0MiZsPTEzNTI1MDAwJnA9ODMzNw%3D%3D\">Fade James Cook vs. the Texans on TNF<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If Buffalo is unsuccessful with the run in the early goings, the game plan would switch to more of an air raid approach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That would limit Cook&#8217;s touches, making this a tough mark to get past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For those reasons, I&#8217;ll fade the running back on Thursday Night Football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Bills vs. Texans picks made at 1:40 p.m. ET 11\/18\/2025.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"acq_only\"><strong>-> <a href=\"https:\/\/online.northstarbets.com\/promoRedirect?key=ej0xMzUyNTA0MiZsPTEzNTI1MDAwJnA9ODMzNw%3D%3D\">Sign up to NorthStar Bets today<\/a>!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Buffalo Bills look to keep pace in the AFC East when they play the middling Houston Texans on Thursday night. The pregame narrative: The Bills are second in their division and are looking to stay within striking distance of the New England Patriots. The Texans&#8217; defence should keep them in this game while the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":382343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sidebar_plugin_meta_block_field":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[452,61],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-382355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-com","category-nfl","tag-nfl-betting"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bills vs. Texans picks TNF: 2025 NFL Week 12 | The Boost<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Check out our 2025 Week 12 Bills vs. Texans picks. NFL betting odds and predictions for Thursday Night Football in Houston on Nov. 20.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/bills-vs-texans-week-12-thursday-night-football-picks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bills vs. Texans picks TNF: 2025 NFL Week 12 | The Boost\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Check out our 2025 Week 12 Bills vs. Texans picks. NFL betting odds and predictions for Thursday Night Football in Houston on Nov. 20.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/bills-vs-texans-week-12-thursday-night-football-picks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Boost\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-11-18T19:48:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-11-18T19:48:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/nsb-news.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com\/imgs\/2025\/11\/CP175228341-scaled.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Spencer Closs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spencer_Closs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Spencer Closs\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/bills-vs-texans-week-12-thursday-night-football-picks\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/bills-vs-texans-week-12-thursday-night-football-picks\/\",\"name\":\"Bills vs. Texans picks TNF: 2025 NFL Week 12 | The Boost\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-11-18T19:48:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-11-18T19:48:31+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/#\/schema\/person\/909e94f01b9c1f2a17b03359ad2d887d\"},\"description\":\"Check out our 2025 Week 12 Bills vs. Texans picks. NFL betting odds and predictions for Thursday Night Football in Houston on Nov. 20.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/bills-vs-texans-week-12-thursday-night-football-picks\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/\",\"name\":\"The Boost\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/#\/schema\/person\/909e94f01b9c1f2a17b03359ad2d887d\",\"name\":\"Spencer Closs\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-CA\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nsb-news.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com\/imgs\/2024\/07\/IMG_0105.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/nsb-news.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com\/imgs\/2024\/07\/IMG_0105.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Spencer Closs\"},\"description\":\"Spencer is a true sports junkie. A graduate of the Sports Journalism program at Centennial College, he first joined NorthStar Gaming as an intern in 2023. He is now a contributing writer. He loves finding the edge to bet on in all sports but has a deep passion for the NBA and UFC. Previous stops include Sportsnet.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Spencer_Closs\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/author\/scloss\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bills vs. Texans picks TNF: 2025 NFL Week 12 | The Boost","description":"Check out our 2025 Week 12 Bills vs. Texans picks. NFL betting odds and predictions for Thursday Night Football in Houston on Nov. 20.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/bills-vs-texans-week-12-thursday-night-football-picks\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bills vs. Texans picks TNF: 2025 NFL Week 12 | The Boost","og_description":"Check out our 2025 Week 12 Bills vs. Texans picks. NFL betting odds and predictions for Thursday Night Football in Houston on Nov. 20.","og_url":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/bills-vs-texans-week-12-thursday-night-football-picks\/","og_site_name":"The Boost","article_published_time":"2025-11-18T19:48:30+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-11-18T19:48:31+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":1707,"url":"https:\/\/nsb-news.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com\/imgs\/2025\/11\/CP175228341-scaled.webp","type":"image\/webp"}],"author":"Spencer Closs","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Spencer_Closs","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Spencer Closs","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/bills-vs-texans-week-12-thursday-night-football-picks\/","url":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/bills-vs-texans-week-12-thursday-night-football-picks\/","name":"Bills vs. Texans picks TNF: 2025 NFL Week 12 | The Boost","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/#website"},"datePublished":"2025-11-18T19:48:30+00:00","dateModified":"2025-11-18T19:48:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/#\/schema\/person\/909e94f01b9c1f2a17b03359ad2d887d"},"description":"Check out our 2025 Week 12 Bills vs. Texans picks. NFL betting odds and predictions for Thursday Night Football in Houston on Nov. 20.","inLanguage":"en-CA","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/bills-vs-texans-week-12-thursday-night-football-picks\/"]}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/#website","url":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/","name":"The Boost","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-CA"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/#\/schema\/person\/909e94f01b9c1f2a17b03359ad2d887d","name":"Spencer Closs","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-CA","@id":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/nsb-news.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com\/imgs\/2024\/07\/IMG_0105.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/nsb-news.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com\/imgs\/2024\/07\/IMG_0105.jpg","caption":"Spencer Closs"},"description":"Spencer is a true sports junkie. A graduate of the Sports Journalism program at Centennial College, he first joined NorthStar Gaming as an intern in 2023. He is now a contributing writer. He loves finding the edge to bet on in all sports but has a deep passion for the NBA and UFC. Previous stops include Sportsnet.","sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/Spencer_Closs"],"url":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/author\/scloss\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382355"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":382361,"href":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382355\/revisions\/382361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.northstargaming.ca\/admin\/nsgcms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}