Inside The Star
The NFL’s Week 17 slate of games feels like it has lasted forever, as the Thursday Christmas Day matchups led to the Saturday slate, before now turning the page to its plethora of Sunday games.
Don’t even get me thinking about the Monday night game tomorrow.
Alas, these preceding games have given us playoff clarity, as only four teams (Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Carolina, and Tampa Bay) remain fighting for playoff spots.
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That doesn’t mean we won’t see great action outside the playoff-hungry squads, however. There are still critical matchups for the postseason seeding and games that hold other big implications, like the NFL Draft positioning.
Heck, there will even be completely meaningless games that kickoff today, and end up being electric down the stretch.
Here, I’ll project the three matchups in Week 17 that I believe will fit into that electric-ending category. Let’s dive into what should be the closest matchups of the day.
All the chatter around this game stems from a big prize for the loser: the first overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Technically, that spot can’t be clinched by either team by losing this game alone, but their individual odds of holding it either skyrocket or plummet with a win/loss. That makes this perhaps the biggest game for draft order this season.
These two teams know this, and they’ve responded by placing quite a few key players on the bench for “injuries” heading into the game.
I don’t see either team’s tanking strategy putting them far enough behind the other for this game to get out of hand. The spread indicates a razor-thin margin, and I firmly believe that is what we will get. Expect this to come down to the wire.
Now, to a more meaningful game on the Sunday slate, we have the NFC East champions in the Philadelphia Eagles, traveling north to face the Buffalo Bills.
Josh Allen & Co. are desperately trying to come from behind to take the division title in the AFC East away from the New England Patriots. The math to do that is pretty simple: Buffalo wins out, while the Pats lose one of their two remaining games.
The only problem? New England faces the Jets and Commanders these final two weeks; still, Buffalo will be playing to keep their odds alive going into Week 18.
For Philly, they’ve clinched their division again, but they can get as high as the two seed with a pair of wins and a few losses in the conference before the regular season concludes.
In short, both teams have something at stake; it is Buffalo weather in December, and the rosters match up well. I don’t expect this to be anything more than a field goal game...
