As usual, Week 17 – a.k.a. Bookie’s Revenge – took everyone to the cleaners, including Ernesto the Prediction Iguana. Always the toughest week of the season to handicap because you don’t know which teams will rest what players, our intrepid King of Animal Prognostication went 1-3, 0-2 in teasers, depressing the otherwise solid regular season stats to 59-22-1 overall, 22-19 in teasers.
Now it’s time for the playoff charge. As always, we do 2-team teasers here, so we can move the line six points either way. We use the lines from Vegas Insider, HOME TEAM IN CAPS.
NOT THE CHEFS THIS WEEK
CHIEFS (-1.5) vs. Titans
CHIEFS-Titans UNDER 50.5
Remember the old commercial filmed in the KC end zone where the player asks the guy painting the logos, “That’s great, but who are the Chefs?” That’s what the Chiefs season was looking like before they righted the ship against the Same Old Chargers in Week 15. The Chiefs got lucky – they edged weakly into the playoffs and drew a team more confused than themselves. The Titans are doing touchdown celebrations where they just look around and ask the old David Byrne question of, “Well, how did I get here?”
THE MOST INTERESTING TEAMS IN THE PLAYOFFS?
RAMS (+1) vs. Falcons
JAGUARS (-1.5) vs. Bills
What a joy it’s been watching the Rams this season; they’re partying like it’s 1999 again. I’d say the same thing about the Jags, but they’ve kind of acted like undisciplined jerks during games, taking selfish, stupid, me-first penalties. One day it may bite them, but not against the Bills, who are too uneven to come into J’ville and outscore them.
