NFL Week 17 Odds: Best Spot Bets Include Lions Facing Potential Letdown

The final weeks of the regular season are always a tricky stretch of schedule for NFL bettors to navigate.

Usually by this point in the season, the playoff picture is pretty much painted with a few clubs trying to add their colors to the canvas. However, Week 17 odds have arrived and only a handful of teams have punched their playoff tickets.

That postseason pressure adds another wrinkle to consider when capping the NFL odds, along with the standard situational edges and angles — AKA spot bets.

Here are my top spots to consider — letdown, look-ahead, and schedule — when making your NFL picks in Week 17.

Letdown spot: Lions (+6) vs Cowboys

The Detroit Lions are in a rare letdown spot in Week 17, having captured their first division crown since 1993.

Detroit knocked off the rival Vikings 30-24 last Sunday and the Motown faithful celebrated 30 years of pent-up fandom HARD. And that makes Saturday’s trip to Dallas a tricky one.

The Lions are locked into a playoff home game, so their final two contests of the regular season don’t hold too much weight. Head coach Dan Campbell tried his best to quash any rumblings that he may rest his starters, telling the media that they’ll rest when the season is over.

"That's the biggest opponent right now for us, is really the satisfaction, complacency. That is what we're gonna fight from here on out," Campbell told reporters.

If the looming letdown doesn’t trip up Detroit, the schedule may. This road stop in Arlington is the Lions’ second straight road game and fourth away tilt in five weeks.

This challenging spot also comes on a short week, with this being a standalone showcase on Saturday. That means the Lions will be playing their fourth game — three of them coming on the road — in just 20 days.

Oddsmakers opened the Lions as low as 5-point underdogs but the market has been heavy on the Dallas Cowboys, pumping up this spread as high as Dallas -6.5 at some sportsbooks.

Look-ahead spot: 49ers vs Commanders (+13.5)

Teams can look ahead to opponents or key matchups. Teams can also look ahead to time off, like before a bye week. And, at this point in the schedule, some teams look ahead to the end of the season, finishing off four months of suffering.

The 4-11 Washington Commanders are one of those teams. Whatever gas Washington had in the tank was left on the field in East Rutherford last Sunday.

The Commanders fell behind 20-0 to the Jets and benched quarterback Sam Howell for the second straight game, only to claw their way back for a 28-27 lead late in the fourth quarter. However, New York would make a 54-yard field goal to win 30-28 in the dying seconds, extending Washington’s losing skid to six games.

The Commanders come back home with nothing to play for and the franchise has some tough decisions ahead, including the future of its head coach and general manager position. Washington currently holds the No. 3 overall pick in the upcoming NFL Draft, which would put a top QB like Drake Maye into play.

Oh, and the Commies play a pissed-off San Francisco 49ers squad in Week 17, who are laying close to two touchdowns in the nation’s capital on Sunday. San Francisco has the NFC West title in hand and will be pushing for the No. 1 seed in the conference over the next two weeks.

Two weeks ago, former Washington defensive end Montez Sweat, who is now playing for Chicago, told the media that the Commanders’ locker room is “just waiting on the season to end.” Well, if they weren’t before that Week 16 heartbreak, they sure are now.

Schedule spot: Raiders (+3) vs Colts

Where would you rather spend New Year’s Eve: Las Vegas or Indianapolis?

Not to knock the Indy club scene (if there is one), but the Las Vegas Raiders will be longing for the Sin City sights in Week 17. Not so much for ringing in 2024, but just being able to sleep in their bed.

Las Vegas is playing the second of back-to-back road games in Indianapolis on December 31 and doing so on a short week after upsetting the Chiefs on Xmas Day. Not only does this present a tough schedule spot — four games in 21 days — but it sets up a sizable letdown spot as well.

The Silver and Black snapped a six-game losing streak to their AFC West rivals in Week 16 after a string of one-sided squashes from Kansas City the past four years. That shocker has Vegas still alive in the AFC postseason race but chances are still pretty slim the Raiders make the cut, especially if they succumb to this nasty schedule spot in Week 17.

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