NFL Week 18 Odds: Best Spot Bets Include Sticky Schedule Spot In Seattle

Closing time. Welcome to the final NFL spot bets rundown of the season.

NFL Week 18 is the last full slate of pro football betting action that matters until next September and it just so happens to be among the trickiest. 

Motivation ranges from teams playing for their playoff lives to counting down the days until they can get off the field. You have coaches fighting to save or earn a job and players with one last shot at making those statistical incentives baked into their contracts.

And while Week 18 doesn’t present the standard situational capping spots we look for each week — and many of those added motifs are mixed into the spreads — we still pick out some “spot bets” you need to know before getting down on the final week of the regular season.

Thanks for reading along each week, I hope you were able to find some underlying edges to help you with your handicapping and learn a little something about spotting these situational angles.

Letdown Spot: New York Giants at Philadelphia Eagles (-14, 42.5)

Brian Daboll is among the front runners for NFL Coach of the Year after getting the Giants into the playoffs in his first season on the job.

New York punched its ticket to the playoffs with a 38-10 blowout over Indianapolis at home last weekend — a picture-perfect high that would set the G-Men up for a Week 18 letdown regardless of if their standing could shift or if they played the starters. 

However, as it stands, New York is parked in the No. 6 hole and has nothing to gain or lose when it travels to Philadelphia for the finale. Daboll is being cagey about the role his starters will play but bookies aren't biting, pegging the Eagles as 14-point home chalk.

Philadelphia needs to get right in Week 18, having lost back-to-back outings with QB Jalen Hurts sidelined, and runs the risk of losing the division crown and the top seed in the conference. A victory in Week 18 would secure all of that. 

The Giants, on the other hand, are about as healthy as they’ve been all season after being plagued with injuries on both sides of the ball for most of the schedule. The logical thing would be not to allow this pending letdown spot to turn into a disaster by risking the health of key players before the postseason. 

Sitting the starters is what the "Coach of the Year" would do.

Look-Ahead Spot: Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Atlanta Falcons (-3, 40.5)

As Week 18 odds hit the board Sunday night, bookies knew the Buccaneers had nothing to play for in the final game of the schedule and opened the Falcons as touchdown favorites at home — likely taking on Tampa’s bench in Week 18.

Then, in true ass-backward 2022-23 Bucs fashion, Tom Brady and head coach Todd Bowles told the media they want to play the starters Sunday despite the roster’s eternal struggles with injuries since the spring. That news chipped four points off the opener, but books are still coy when it comes to just how much the Bucs’ first-teamers will play, parking Atlanta as a field-goal fave.

Tampa Bay has recently started to iron out wrinkles in an offensive playbook that has struggled with consistency all season. It was stellar in the first half versus Cincinnati in Week 16 and scored 30 points in the Week 17 win over Carolina, marking just the second 30-point effort from Brady & Co. this season.

With the Bucs looking ahead to the tournament but wanting to fan the flames of that sudden scoring spark, we could see 30 hard minutes from Brady’s bunch before taking a seat in the second half. Tampa Bay is a +1.5 first-half underdog but there's value lurking in the alternative 1H lines (Bucs -2.5 1H is +160). 

If you're leaning Buccos, avoid the mystery of the starters and the looming look-ahead in the second half.

Schedule Spot: Los Angeles Rams at Seattle Seahawks (-6.5, 41.5)

The Seahawks must stay focused on their Week 18 finale even if the schedule makers may have done them dirty by bumping the Detroit-Green Bay game to the Sunday night slot.

It's a double-edged sword for Seattle, as it needs a win over the Rams and a Lions' victory at Lambeau to qualify. But should the Seahawks beat Los Angeles in the 4:25 p.m. ET kickoff, it will officially eliminate Detroit from the postseason hunt before the Lions take the field for the primetime game.

Most teams in Detroit's spot would run the risk of packing it in if the postseason bubble popped, but most teams don't have Dan Campbell as a head coach. It's a sticky schedule situation that doesn't worry Seattle head coach Peter Carroll.

"The last thing I would ever worry about is coach Campbell's team not getting ready to play, regardless of what's at stake and what's going on," Carroll told the media Monday. "He's going to get them fired up and jacked, that's all he's ever done."

The same schedule makers who put that puzzling finale together also didn’t do Los Angeles any favors when the slate came out back in the spring, giving the defending Super Bowl champs a rough road to close the calendar. This trip to Seattle is L.A.’s second straight away game and third in four games. In fact, it will be the Rams’ fourth game in 21 days when they take the turf at Lumen Field.

Compounding that slog of a schedule is Baker Mayfield: L.A.’s late-season replacement at QB, who’s still learning Sean McVay’s complex playbook after being snapped up in Week 14. Mayfield has had mixed results as a Ram and will have a much tougher time calling out plays while getting an earful from the Lumen 12 in a must-win game for the home team. This is a QB with a 73.2 passer rating on the road this year (versus 109.2 at home). 

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