Sunday for the Week 17 National Football League action has a lot of rain in the forecast. At five of the eight outdoor games on today’s schedule rain is in the forecast. Not severe winter weather, but the wet stuff.
When this happens, that happens … or so some would think.
The final couple weeks of a season require making sure the team you are betting on wants to win as much as you’d like them too. That was the case yesterday, where the Green Bay Packers seemed to throw up the surrender flag before the game against the Baltimore Ravens started. It’s not that Green Bay doesn’t want to end the season in a hail of confetti in their team colors next February at the conclusion of Super Bowl LX, it’s just that head coach Matt LaFleur decided before his team took the field yesterday there were bigger fish to fry down the road.
His decision to not play starting quarterback Jordan Love despite him clearing concussion protocol was the first peg in his team getting blown out at home by the in need of a win and hope to follow Ravens.
With the loss, the Chicago Bears clinch the NFC North Division title before they take the field tonight at Levi’s Stadium to meet the San Francisco 49ers. The home team is still in control of securing the top seed in the NFC for the playoffs, which would require a pair of home wins to close out the regular season tonight and next Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks.
The Bears could actually still win the top seed in the NFC but that would require them winning their last two games and getting a lot of help from other results.
If the New England Patriots beat the New York Jets in an early game, then the Buffalo Bills meeting in their afternoon contest against the Philadelphia Eagles means little to either team. If the unthinkable happens, the Jets upset the Patriots, then the Bills have a shot at the AFC East Division title.
There is also the case that when a team really wants a win and the coach is bent on doing whatever is necessary, they come out on the short end. We have two of those games today, the Pittsburgh Steelers can put to rest the AFC North Division race with a win today in Cleveland while the Tampa Bay Buccaneers need a win to assure next week’s end of the regular season contest against the Carolina Panthers still has the NFC South Division up for grabs.
The Jacksonville Jaguars need a win today to keep their sole possession of first place in the AFC South Division. The Houston Texans victory yesterday in Los Angeles has them enter today just one game back of the division leaders.
I like teams, for good reasons, that are out of the playoffs and only have an opportunity to disrupt an opponent's playoff plans. Like the Dolphins, Browns and Indianapolis Colts today against the Buccaneers, Steelers and Jaguars.
No team has been hotter over the past two months than the Jaguars, who are coming off a huge road win against the Denver Broncos and have a home game next week scheduled against the Tennessee Titans. A pair of wins and the Jaguars win their division.
The Colts will start Philip Rivers again today even though they were eliminated from a possible playoff berth by yesterday’s Houston victory. Out of the playoffs and looking to disrupt the plans of a division opponent that slammed them by 17 points three weeks ago.
Perfect.
While the Colts plus the points are our top pick this week, the public sees this game differently. The three most bet games by the public for Week 17 are the Pittsburgh Steelers (-3½) over the Cleveland Browns, Jaguars (-5½) over the Colts and Cincinnati Bengals (-7) over the Arizona Cardinals.
Our money rated plays are now posted on this site, and if a Bullet Play develops in the final hour leading up to the day’s first kickoff, that game will be added to the list of recommendations by 9:45 a.m. Pacific Time.