Week 17 demands an offering to the Football Gods. What once used to be the regular season finale and dividing line between success and failure is now merely the league’s penultimate Sunday.
The NFL’s expanded schedule means we’ll get the first-ever Week 18, heaping an extra 16 games of gridiron action on the world right around the same time college football has begun its preparation for spring practices. That gives teams an extra week to state their playoff cases — and with only six spots clinched after Christmas, there’s still plenty of arguing to be done.
That leaves us with a classic conundrum when it comes to picking games with heavy postseason implications; how much value do you put on a team’s need to win a game in order to keep their playoff dreams alive? What’s more of a motivator — the chance to earn a Wild Card bid for a team that hasn’t locked in its spot or the chance to earn a first round bye for a team that has? How will teams adjust to playing for a coach who seemed destined to be axed on Black Monday?
It’s a lot to consider even before accounting for injuries, home-field advantage, potential weather, and whichever team has been most blindsided by Covid-19 cases this week. Fortunately, we’ve got what looks like a pretty chalky week ahead of us. There isn’t a single game where the spread is less than three points. Ten of Week 17’s showdowns have a spread of six points or more. Four teams are favored by at least a dozen points.
Let’s take a look at what we’ve got, including the famous Rhody Scumbag Lock of the Week (now 7-12 on the season!). Want the full lineup? Those can be found here.
Here are my breakout picks. All odds via Tipico.
