It’s the final week of the regular season! Plenty of teams are in must-win scenarios, desperate to seal their place in the playoffs and to keep their Super Bowl hopes alive. Expect widespread drama, but these are the three games you can’t miss.
Last week my picks went 2-1 straight up and against the spread, bringing me to 30-18 straight up on the season and 24-22 against the spread (with two pushes). Here are the previews and picks for week 17.
Miami Dolphins (10-5) at Buffalo Bills (12-3), 1 p.m. ET on CBS
The Bills have won five in a row, all by double digits. They’re not skating by. In fact, they won their last two games, both of which were on the road, by 29 points apiece.
Ryan Fitzpatrick gave Miami a FitzMagic miracle in an incredible come-from-behind win against the Raiders last week. It’s this simple for the Dolphins: You control your destiny. Win and you’re in. A loss means they need other teams such as the Browns, Colts, or Ravens to lose to ensure themselves a playoff berth. Rookie Tua Tagovailoa, who was benched in favor of Fitzpatrick, will get the start but could be on a bit of a shorter leash than normal considering how much is riding on this game.
For Buffalo, Josh Allen, who broke the franchise record for passing touchdowns in a season last week, has been outstanding this season. He’s throwing for nearly 317 yards per game and completing over 69% of his passes. He has 4,320 passing yards on the season along with 34 touchdown passes and nine interceptions. As if that wasn’t enough, he has eight rushing touchdowns as well and is third on the team in rushing yards. Allen took a big step forward in his development, and that’s why he has the Bills one win (or a Steelers loss) away from the second seed in the AFC.
A big reason for that is Stefon Diggs. Buffalo’s prized free agent acquisition has had a breakout year in his first season with the Bills. While he leads the NFL in receiving yards, targets, and catches, he’s second in receiving yards per game, tied for fifth with 20 catches of at least 20 yards, and tied for No. 10 in touchdown catches.
For Miami, the two factors that I’m looking at will be Myles Gaskin and the defense. Gaskin has at least 140 yards from scrimmage in each of his last two games. In last week’s win against Las Vegas, he ran for 87 yards on 14 carries and caught five passes for 82 yards and two touchdowns. An effective Gaskin will help Miami’s offense in addition to keeping Allen and Co. off the field.
The Dolphins have the NFL’s top-ranked scoring defense and embody the philosophy of bend-but-don’t-break. They’re No. 20 in total yards allowed and tied for No. 22 in yards per play allowed but only allow opponents to score on 29.7% of their drives. That’s third in the league. Only two teams blitz more often than the Dolphins, but they’re No. 19 against the pass and No. 17 against the run. They are also tied for second in interceptions with 16. That will be very important as they face off against Buffalo’s second-ranked passing attack and sixth-ranked scoring offense.
A key area to watch out for is third-down conversions. No team moves the chains on third-downs at a higher rate than Buffalo does. They’re converting on 50.3% of their attempts. On the other side of the ball, no team is better at preventing third-down conversions than Miami. They’re allowing teams to convert just 30.7% of the time.
The line: Buffalo Bills (-1.0)
The pick: Buffalo has a ton of momentum and is playing at an incredibly high level right now. I’m taking the Bills to win and cover.
Dallas Cowboys (6-9) at New York Giants (5-10), 1 p.m. ET on FOX
Both of these teams need help to win the NFC East because Washington is in the driver’s seat in the division. Both need Washington to lose to the Eagles on Sunday Night Football to have a chance. If that does happen, the winner of this game will win the division (and just to cover all the bases, if Washington ties, they still win the division. If they lose and the Cowboys and Giants tie, then the Cowboys win the division).
The Cowboys have shown signs of life and have won three in a row coming into the finale. They’ve scored 30, 41, and 37 points in those three games. Andy Dalton has settled in at quarterback, and the run game is starting to find more of a footing.
While he’s averaging fewer than 200 passing yards per game and is completing under 66% of his throws, he has thrown 14 touchdown passes this season along with seven interceptions. The Cowboys don’t need him to be Dak Prescott. What they need is for him to make good decisions with the football, allow his offensive line to create holes for the running backs, and find his receivers in space. Over his last three games, he has thrown seven touchdowns and just one pick. That’s the quarterback Dallas needs in order to give it a shot at the division.
Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb, and Michael Gallup all have big-play ability and all have five touchdown catches on the year for the Cowboys. It’ll be difficult to stop all three. Ezekiel Elliott is one of the best running backs in football when he’s healthy but he hasn’t been healthy this season. He’s averaging a very pedestrian 4.1 yards per carry this year and is 63 yards shy of reaching 1,000 for the season. Tony Pollard has emerged to give the team a spark as a backup. He’s averaging more yards per carry than Elliott and has more runs of at least 20 yards.
Daniel Jones is having a very uneven season under center for the Giants. He has thrown for 2,714 yards this season while completing 62.2% of his passes. That’s disappointing on its own, but he has also thrown just nine touchdowns with an equally worrisome nine interceptions.
Wayne Gallman has run for 617 yards and six touchdowns for the Giants this season. He’s averaging just 44.1 yards per game and is the only Giant to run for more than two touchdowns this season. Darius Slayton and Evan Engram are definitely the top two options for Jones down the field but have combined for just four receiving touchdowns.
The Giants defense has carried them through most of the season. The Giants are currently No. 10 in scoring defense while the Cowboys are 30th. When it comes to scoring offense, the Cowboys are No. 16 while the Giants are 31st out of 32 teams.
On average, both teams are giving up more points than they score. You might come to expect this from two teams with bad records. The Cowboys are scoring 25.1 points per game while giving up 30 per game while the Giants are scoring just 17.1 points per game but giving up 22.5 points per contest. While I think this game could be competitive, it could also be a total snooze-fest between two bad teams.
The line: Dallas Cowboys (-3.0)
The pick: Dallas appears to have found something on offense. They’ll need to keep scoring in order to offset their bad defense, so I’m taking the Cowboys to win and cover.
Green Bay Packers (12-3) at Chicago Bears (8-7), 4:25 p.m. ET on FOX
With a win, the Packers would lock up the top seed in the NFC. The Bears need a win against the Packers or need the Cardinals to lose to the Rams.
For the Packers, Aaron Rodgers, who could very well be the front-runner for MVP, has thrown for 4,059 yards this season while completing 70.3% of his passes. He has thrown for a whopping 44 touchdown passes with a mere five interceptions.
Aaron Jones and Davante Adams are the two key cogs in a Packers offense that leads the NFL in points per game. Jones is fourth in the NFL with 1,062 rushing yards and is tied for No. 12 with eight rushing touchdowns. Only two players, Kyler Murray and Lamar Jackson, have a higher yards per carry average (5.6) than he does, and he’s also third on the team in catches. Adams leads the league in both receiving yards per game (102.2) and touchdown catches (17). He’s also fourth in receiving yards with 1,328 and third in catches with 109.
When it comes to quarterbacks, Mitch Trubisky on the Bears doesn’t hold a candle to Rodgers, but he has two similar offensive weapons in David Montgomery and Allen Robinson II.
Montgomery is fifth in the NFL in rushing yards this season with 1,001, just 61 yards behind Jones. He trails Jones by just one when it comes to both rushing touchdowns and runs of 20 yards or more this season. It’s pretty crazy how similar their numbers are across the board.
Jones was targeted 58 times, caught 43 passes for 312 yards, and scored two touchdowns. Montgomery was targeted 59 times, caught 45 passes for 375 yards, and scored two touchdowns.
Robinson II is ninth in the NFL in receiving yards, fourth in targets, tied for fifth in catches, and fourth in catches of 20 yards or more. Despite his fantastic numbers, he only has six touchdown catches this year. That puts him in a tie for No. 25 across the league with players such as Buffalo’s Gabriel Davis, Seattle’s David Moore, Denver’s Tim Patrick, Detroit’s T.J. Hockenson, Philly’s Greg Ward, Miami’s Mike Gesicki, and New Orleans’ Jared Cook.
Chicago’s offense has been explosive lately with Trubisky as the Bears have scored at least 30 points in each of their last four games. After scoring 30 in a loss to the Lions, they dropped 36 on Houston, 33 on Minnesota, and 41 on Jacksonville. Unsurprisingly, the Bears won those last three games.
The Bears are ninth in scoring defense and will need to get stops to give themselves a chance against the Packers. Chicago has the NFL’s second-best red zone defense and sixth-best third-down defense. The Packers just happen to have the NFL’s best red zone offense and second-best third-down offense.
The line: Green Bay Packers (-5.0)
The pick: Green Bay is the better team and has proved that throughout this season. I’ll take the Packers to win and cover even though they’re playing on the road against a Bears team coming in with a lot of momentum and their season on the line.
Noah Niederhoffer (@NNiederhoffer) is a producer at SiriusXM and a graduate of the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism. Originally from Atlanta, he now lives in Washington, D.C.
