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We had our worst week of the season in Week 17, going 1-5 on our Sunday Best Bets. Let's see if we can turn it around this week with 5 picks from our experts.
Below you'll find our picks for the best bets to make Sunday Week 18 of the NFL season. Remember, you can always compare NFL lines and odds by sportsbooks here.
Sunday Best Bets Season Record: 65-58-3 (52.5%) | +5.47 units
Best Sunday Bets – NFL Week 18 Picks
Philadelphia Eagles -14 vs New York Giants – Sunday, 4:25 pm
Rob O’Connor is a veteran sports handicapper. He broke into the industry in 2002 and has continued to provide high quality sports handicapping advice ever since.
The Philadelphia Eagles enter Sunday in a must-win situation to guarantee home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.
The good news is it would seem likely that QB Jalen Hurts will return from injury to help guide the Eagles after back-to-back losses under backup QB Gardner Minshew.
The Giants meanwhile are locked into the 6th spot in the NFC and have nothing to play for. It appears the Giants will rest key starters in this meaningless game for them. That means backup QB Tyrod Taylor will be leading the way for the Giants and we should not expect to see star RB Saquon Barkley as they manage his workload before the playoffs.
The Eagles were not happy with their performance last week as a team and should rebound nicely with a lot at stake.
These two teams met less than a month ago up in the Meadowlands and the Eagles won comfortably 48-22.
Statistically, the Eagles are the much better team, ranking 2nd in offensive yards per game and 1st defensively in yards allowed per game.
The Giants meanwhile rank 25th in yards allowed per game, so it would seem unlikely they will be stopping the Eagles too many times. And with backups playing, they don’t have the firepower to keep up. Even at the large number, lay the points with the Eagles Sunday.
Jacksonville Jaguars -6 vs Tennessee Titans – Saturday, 8:15 pm
Kyler Wolff is a sports writer with a passion for football & statistical analysis. He uses his knowledge of the game and ability to break down stats to make the best picks.
Arguably the biggest game of the weekend, the Titans come into Jacksonville in a matchup to decide who wins the AFC South, and they couldn’t be coming into this game farther apart in terms of the level of play heading into it.
The Jaguars are on a big four-game win streak in which they’ve averaged 31.5 points per game and allowed only 15.5 points per game for a ridiculous +16 point differential per game.
This has been made possible by a young defense finally coming together and a young quarterback finally living up to the hype. With a 70% completion rate and 9 total touchdowns over the last four games, Lawrence is locked in, and he’s leading a dominant Jaguars team to what looks like a very likely playoff berth.
As for the Titans, it has been rough, they are on a six-game losing streak after a 7-3 start to the season, and everything that can go wrong for them has.
Just look at their O-Line. Taylor Lewan, Ben Jones, and Nate Davis all got hurt and are on the IR, but then their backups started falling like flies as well, with Dillon Radunz, Jamarco Jones, and Nicholas Petit-Frere also getting hurt. The Titans are now down to their third-string guys on their offensive line, and that has, of course, heavily impacted their play.
Poor Ryan Tannehill had no shot with their duct-taped-together line, and he succumbed to injury fairly quickly, and now Joshua Dobbs will lead the team in the most important game of the year.
The Titans have been a mess, and Derrick Henry can only do so much, especially with an O-line as hurt as theirs is. It’s possible that this game ends up being ugly to watch, as I expect the Jaguars to absolutely run away with it, and completely embarrass their divisional opponents in the process.
Green Bay Packers –4.5 vs Detroit Lions – Sunday, 8:20 pm
Rob O’Connor is a veteran sports handicapper. He broke into the industry in 2002 and has continued to provide high quality sports handicapping advice ever since.
This is a line you are going to want to jump on right away. It is a win-and-in situation for the Packers on Sunday night regardless of what happens in the other games Sunday.
However, for the Detroit Lions, they will have nothing to play for come Sunday night if the Seahawks beat the Rams at home earlier Sunday afternoon.
If it becomes a meaningless game for Detroit the line will likely move up closer to Green Bay -7.
While the ATS trends favor the Lions, the situation most certainly favors the Packers.
The Lions are just 3-4 on the road this season and only one of those wins (Giants) came against a team with a .500 or better record.
While the Packers offense may not be as dynamic as it has been in the past, the Lions defense is the worst in the league in yards allowed. QB Aaron Rodgers is ready for this moment and should be able to put up some points against this Lions defense.
For the Lions, it is not the best matchup for their offense. They are the 6th best passing offense in the league, but the Packers pass defense is 4th best in the league, so it will not be easy moving the ball through the air.
The Packers at home in a must-win game against a dome team in cold weather is the play.
Los Angeles Chargers +3 @ Denver Broncos – Sunday, 4:25 pm
Kyler Wolff is a sports writer with a passion for football & statistical analysis. He uses his knowledge of the game and ability to break down stats to make the best picks.
Last week the Denver Broncos nearly beat the Chiefs after firing their Head Coach, Nathaniel Hackett. Now they host the Chargers as they look to play spoiler in the Chargers' quest for the immensely valuable fifth seed in the AFC.
With the Chiefs, Bills, and Bengals in a messy race to decide the first three seeds, the Chargers need to win this game in order to have a chance to secure the fifth seed and avoid playing one of those powerhouses, instead going to either Tennessee or Jacksonville for the first round of the playoffs, an exponentially easier matchup than either of the top three teams. With this being the stakes, it’s not surprising that the Chargers have announced that they will be playing all of their starters.*
With all of their starters in the game and the stakes being high for them*, the Chargers should be on their game, which recently has been very good. They are on a four-game win streak with the help of a very solid defense which has only allowed 11 points per game over that stretch.
This has only boosted a team that already boasts a great offense that has been clicking ever since the return of the healthy one-two punch of Keenan Allen and Mike Williams, not to mention Austin Ekeler who has 1,567 all-purpose yards on 296 touches including 103 receptions.
The Chargers are looking like a very strong team right now, and I don’t think there are many teams that should be considered favorites against them, especially not the Broncos.
At 4-12, the Broncos have been a uniquely bad team, scoring only 16 points per game, they have the distinction of having the worst-scoring offense in the league. Russell Wilson has been one of the biggest disappointments of, not just the year, but maybe in NFL history, playing abysmal football and putting up numbers so atrocious that they aren’t even worth mentioning here. They played better than expected last week, but I don’t expect that to continue, the Chargers should cover easily.
*This could change depending on the time and outcome of the Ravens vs. Bengals game which is at 1 pm ET Sunday. If the Ravens win, the Chargers would not be able to clinch the fifth seed, but that’s a big if. I still recommend this pick and think the Ravens could easily lose and the Chargers will still play their starters.
Cowboys –7 and OVER 40.5 @ Washington Commanders – Sunday, 4:25 pm
Kyler Wolff is a sports writer with a passion for football & statistical analysis. He uses his knowledge of the game and ability to break down stats to make the best picks.
Last week, I don’t think many people thought that the Commanders would come into this week already eliminated from the playoffs, but they are, and the fact that they are changes things significantly for this game.
Instead of this being a must win game with the season on the line, this is now just a pickup game late in the season that will give them an opportunity to play younger players and give them some real NFL snaps.
Sam Howell, for instance, is expected to play most of the snaps at QB for the Commanders and their wide receiver core will be led by guys like Dax Milne and Dyami Brown. This drastically reduces the Commanders odds in this one and changes the whole composition of the game.
Similarly to the Commanders situation, the Cowboys are also in a position they didn’t think they would be in a few weeks ago. After their heartbreaking 40-34 loss to the Jaguars in Week 15, I don’t think anyone would have predicted that the Cowboys would still be in the hunt for the division title, let alone the 1st seed in the NFC.
But after beating the Eagles 40-34 the very next week and then the Titans the following, coupled with the surprising loss by the Eagles to the Saints last week, we are looking at a potential first seed and first-round bye for the Boys if they win this one and the Giants beat the Eagles.
With that being the reality of the game, I just don’t see how the Commanders have any chance. Even if Washington’s starters were playing Dallas’ backups, I still think the Cowboys would have the slight edge given how good they have been in the last two months. They've also been good with Cooper Rush as QB1, but with their starters up against the Commanders young guys, there is no question this should be a blowout.
Since that is such an easy answer, let’s actually give you guys a special end of the season bonus pick for this game.
This game should go over 40.5 points. The reason I say this is because of Sam Howell, he’s a young, inexperienced QB, poised to make a ton of mistakes and try to push the ball down the field like he did at North Carolina.
This should make for a lot of turnovers and maybe some big offensive plays for Washington that could spur some shootout-type response runs that could push the score into the stratosphere.
I would say at the end of the day I’m going with a final score of 37-14 Cowboys with the potential of multiple defensive scores.
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