NFL Lookahead Lines:
Betting NFL games more than a week in advance during the final few weeks can quickly turn into a cautionary tale. You need to consider injuries to important positions, teams playing for their playoff lives, coaches trying to keep their jobs, and which organizations want to play the role of spoiler vs. others that don’t want to screw up their draft order.
I’ll get to some examples after you look at the current Week 17 numbers posted at DraftKings.
Week 17 Christmas Day (Wednesday) Games
- Chiefs (-2.5, 42.5) at Steelers
- Ravens (-2.5, 47.5) at Texans
Week 17 Thursday Night Football
- Seahawks (-1.5, 40.5) at Bears
Week 17 Saturday NFL games
- Chargers (-5.5, 41.5) at Patriots
- Broncos at Bengals (-3, 47.5)
- Cardinals at Rams (-3, 49.5)
Week 17 Sunday NFL games
- Jets at Bills (-9.5, 49)
- Panthers at Buccaneers (-9, 48)
- Packers at Vikings (-2, 48.5)
- Colts (-6.5, 39.5) at Giants
- Raiders at Saints (-3, 40.5)
- Titans at Jaguars (-1, 39.5)
- Dolphins (-3, 41.5) at Browns
- Cowboys at Eagles (-11.5, 44.5)
Week 17 Sunday Night Football
- Falcons at Commanders (-5, 47)
Week 17 Monday Night Football
- Lions (-3, 51.5) at 49ers
The NFL decided that playing sixteen games over the course of five different days in Week 17 is a good idea, but I digress.
Let’s try and identify some of the specific late-season traits I wrote about at the beginning. All four teams are clearly motivated and have something to play for on Christmas Day. The Thursday night game might not necessarily fall into that category. Seattle is currently the No. 8 seed in the NFC as of this post. They’re home dogs to the Vikings in Week 16 and need to win as many games as possible down the stretch to make the playoffs. Geno Smith is expected to play in that game versus Minnesota. Assuming for a second that he’s healthy in the Chicago game, Seattle is the only way to look here. The Bears have lost eight straight and are in total disarray. They appear to be a team that wants the season to end STAT.
Carolina is currently 3-11 and set to pick fifth overall in the upcoming draft. They must fall into the same category as Chicago, right? Not so fast. It wasn’t pretty for the Panthers against Dallas, but they easily could’ve won the three games before that – vs. the Chiefs, Buccaneers, and Eagles! Due to Bryce Young’s much improved play after his early season benching, the Panthers are the kind of team I want to back down the stretch. They need to see as much as possible out of Young, and the team has been super competitive going back to their November 3rd win vs. the Saints. The first game between Carolina and Tampa Bay was a total coin flip. At a minimum, I expect the back door to be open late in the rematch.
As I mentioned it did not go well last week for Carolina when the Cowboys came to town and beat them 30-14. Mike McCarthy got the dreaded vote of confidence from owner Jerry Jones this week, but Big Mike has been around for a long time and wants to close the season on a high note. The team has won three out of four games and easily could’ve defeated the Bengals on that weird Monday Night game. Also, the offense has accounted for 30, 20, 27 and 34 points going back to the Washington game on November 24th. QB Cooper Rush has played well during this stretch, and Rico Dowdle has turned into a serious threat running the ball (eclipsing the 100-yard mark in three straight games). The Eagles are awesome, but the Cowboys would like nothing more than to throw a wrench into Philly’s bid for the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
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