NFL Week 18 Predictions: I Know It’s Over, And It Never Really Began Edition

It looks like we have made it to the end of another regular season in the NFL. In about 23 hours we’ll see if Aaron Rodgers and the Packers have set themselves up for possibly another playoff loss to the 49ers, or maybe it’s the Seahawks or Lions.

Chances are, if your team hasn’t clinched a spot yet, you’re not winning the Super Bowl this year. I still strongly believe this is a Chiefs-Bills-Bengals AFC and a 49ers-Eagles-Brady’s luck NFC. Maybe the Cowboys if the ball bounces their way, but I doubt it.

Saturday’s two games, which I’ll recap tomorrow night, did not inspire much offense as all four quarterbacks hit the under in passing yards and defense led the charge in both games.

We could be in store for some ugliness tomorrow as many teams just try to put the final bow on this season, and every player couldn’t help but feel impacted by Damar Hamlin’s cardiac incident on Monday night. Thankfully the news continues to be good for Hamlin, and I wouldn’t want to be the Patriots becuase I think Buffalo is going to kick their ass right out of the playoffs. In fact, I feel only more confident in my preseason pick of the Bills winning the Super Bowl. This team can celebrate a new lease on life after getting the best news possible on Hamlin after such a grim scene Monday night.

But we are also in that week where teams are just throwing Nathan Peterman (Bears), Davis Webb (Giants), and Joe Flacco (Jets) on the field to wrap this up. Is Kyle Trask going to play for the Bucs? I can’t see Brady, on hubris alone, willingly accepting a losing record at 8-9.

We just saw Josh Dobbs fumble the season away for the Titans. We’ll see what happens on the final Sunday of a weird regular season.

Some of this week’s articles:

• Player Props
• Upset: Buccaneers over Falcons (read to find out why Desmond Ridder is boring)
• Week 18 Gamebreakers: Jalen Hurts and the search for a signature win
• Browns vs. Steelers (Diontae Johnson and scoreless history)
• Week 18 parlay
• Best-case wild card matchups

I plan on having a bunch more during the playoffs.

NFL Week 18 Predictions

A rough Saturday for predicting the closeness of both games, but the favorite won both.

I have to go back to the drawing board next year. The ATS picks have just been lousy this year, and I think a big part of it has been trying to match up my preseason projections, which were really wrong on several teams (Rams, Broncos, Colts, Bucs, Cardinals, etc.), with what I was seeing on the field during the season. Way too many teams surged and slumped and I seemed to always be on the other side of it.

• Could Denver and Indy really be this bad with Wilson and Ryan? Apparently, YES.
• Are the Jags actually going to turn this around and the Titans going to collapse like that? YES.
• The Lions at 1-6 and the Packers at 4-8 are dead, right? Apparently not.
• Rodgers and Brady are going to figure this thing out, right? Eh, running out of time and only in the playoffs (maybe) because the NFC sucks.
• The Vikings can’t keep winning every close game, can they? Fucking hell, it sure looks like it

I knew after having my best season of predictions that the regression was going to hit hard in 2022, but this has been rougher than I expected. We’ll see what the final results are tomorrow night.