This week in the NFL doesn’t begin until Saturday. There are three Saturday games and none of the Thursday games that the players hate so much. We’ve got our traditional standalone Monday Night Football game, but here in Week 16, it’s all about the weekend.
These last two weeks of the regular season can be monumentally challenging. Teams in the playoff hunt or with the must-win label will have something of a premium put on their lines. We also have tanking teams that are trying to get themselves a better draft position. We also have teams that have outright quit. Then again, we have teams that we thought have quit show up and win cross-country (hi, Jaguars!).
Here is the Week 16 NFL Opening Line Report:
451/452 LA Rams at San Francisco (-6.5, 46) – What does this line look like if the Rams actually show up in Dallas on Sunday? The Rams were gaining steam and gaining popularity. They were a flipped favorite two weeks in a row. And then they got absolutely pummeled by Dallas. Now the playoffs are no more. San Francisco suffered a humbling setback losing to the Falcons. They are motivated and pissed off going into this week’s game. From a pure power ratings standpoint, this is probably an overlay for most people, but this line had to open high and it has at 6.5.
453/454 Buffalo at New England (-6.5, 38.5) – Saturday’s three games are simply fascinating. The Bills are the most disrespected 10-4 team in NFL history. The Patriots are going to win the AFC East again thanks to a cupcake schedule early in the year. Many discredit both teams for their respective strength of schedules so far. This looks like a lot of points for Buffalo against an anemic Patriots offense. The first meeting was close. A lot of recent meetings have been. But New England under a touchdown is always attractive to the public and most sharp bettors are fading the Bills or have stayed away. Which way does this line move? There are 6s and 7s, with 6 at the sharper of the offshores, which gives you an idea of what to expect.
455/456 Houston (-2, 53) at Tampa Bay – The favorite role flipped very quickly in this one. Jameis Winston shook off a thumb injury to hang a huge number on an awful Lions defense, but the Texans are a big step up for the Bucs relative to some of their recent opponents. Houston is the short-week road favorite now with a high total of 53. It turns out that -2 was the stopping point for now. A move to 2.5 makes some sense, but we’re not going to see +3 here barring some sort of crazy injury announcement.
457/458 Detroit at Denver (-6.5, 38) – There are even some -7s out there on the Broncos for this one. Denver did nothing offensively against Kansas City in a winter wonderland this past week. Detroit looked downright awful against Tampa Bay and has looked awful for a while now. Still, doesn’t this feel like a really uncomfortable number to lay with Denver? Early indications are that we’re going to see some Detroit money, but it seems like a tough sell. Both sides are. We saw Matt Patricia take practice outside, much to the chagrin of his team, last season when a cold-weather game was on the horizon. Do we see that this week? Are the Lions interested in that sort of thing this late in another lost season? I’m not sure we see a lot of activity one way or another on this game.
459/460 Oakland at LA Chargers (-5.5, 47) – Is there any way in hell that the Raiders show up this week? Back-to-back home losses in the Black Hole. Fans getting arrested. Booing the team off the field. It was a debacle in the loss to the Jaguars. On the other hand, there is no way I’d be interesting in laying a big number with Phil Rivers given how he has looked this season. There are some leper colony games this week, as in untouchable. This appears to be one of them. Early action has the Chargers going up towards 6, but that just seems more like a Raiders fade than anything else.
461/462 Jacksonville at Atlanta (-7, 45.5) – Is this another leper colony game? It sure feels like it. Jacksonville rallied to beat Oakland and play the role of spoiler last week. Maybe the last game, the fanfare, and the chance to stick it to somebody was enough motivation. Atlanta has scored upset wins over New Orleans and San Francisco since the bye week. Now Jacksonville is in town and the Falcons suddenly have expectations as a touchdown favorite. The 7.5s that were out there at open are gone at this point in time. It’d be surprising to see 6.5 this early in the week, though.
463/464 New Orleans at Tennessee – We’ll see how the Saints get through Monday Night Football. Look-ahead lines had the Saints -1 and a total of 51 on the road in Nashville.
465/466 NY Giants at Washington (-2.5, 42) – The Redskins are favored. They were favored in Week 11 against the Jets and Week 6 against the Dolphins on the road. They failed to cover in both games. You really do have to wonder about the Giants here, as the Eli Manning Swan Song game was quite emotional this past weekend. Will the Giants show up in this one? Will they go back to Daniel Jones? Can you actually take the Redskins as a favorite laying points? They’ve been decent to back as a dog. We’ll see about as a favorite.
467/468 Pittsburgh (-3, 38.5) at NY Jets – Hmmm. This line seems suspiciously low, especially since Sam Darnold seems to be out on Adam Gase based on what we saw last Thursday Night. On the other hand, the Steelers suffered a noteworthy setback last night against the Bills and Duck Hodges did not look the part in primetime. Will the Steelers stick with Hodges? Is it Mason Rudolph’s turn again? The Steelers are trying to hold off the Titans for the last AFC playoff spot and you would think we’d be asked to pay a premium, but there is something about this line that does look short. I guess we’ll see as the week goes along.
469/470 Cincinnati at Miami (-1, 46.5) – Another uncomfortable favorite here with the Dolphins. Miami is favored for the first time this season. It is justified against a dumpster fire Bengals team, but the Bengals do have a two-game cushion on the first overall pick now. Maybe they show up for pride here. The Dolphins had been showing up for a while, but they seem to have regressed again. Will the Bengals treat this like a business trip? Or will they just go to Miami, have fun, and escape the cold of Ohio? Thus far, we haven’t seen much movement on the side, but the over does look like the sharp side on the total.
471/472 Carolina at Indianapolis – We’ll see how the Colts do on Monday Night Football. They have no playoff prospects. But, Carolina has also quit on the season. They did manage a backdoor push for most people last week against Seattle, so there’s that. Indianapolis was -6.5 on the look-ahead lines.
473/474 Baltimore (-10, 49) at Cleveland – The Browns looked like a team that wanted no part of last week’s game against Arizona. Maybe it was a look-ahead scenario to this Baltimore game, since the Browns weren’t making the playoffs anyway. The Ravens just keep looking more and more impressive each week and now have extra rest in advance of this revenge game. If they can hang one on Cleveland, they will. And they may very well get that chance.
475/476 Dallas (-2.5, 47.5) at Philadelphia – This looks to be the NFC East Championship Game by all accounts. Neither one of these teams deserve a playoff spot, but one will get it. Dallas’s impressive win over the Rams may have cranked this number up a touch, especially because the Eagles really struggled to put away Washington. Dallas went up from -2 to -2.5 and there are a few 3s out there already. They do have the better personnel and Philadelphia is so banged up right now. It’s hard to overlook that when handicapping the game. It looks like +3 may be required to get something back on the Eagles and the market is trending that way.
477/478 Arizona at Seattle (-9.5, 50.5) – The Cardinals scored a feel-good win over the Browns to snap what was a long and sometimes ugly skid. Now they get the chance to play spoiler. I’ll be real curious to see what happens with this line. Seattle really doesn’t need style points, just wins. Seattle can’t rush the passer, which hurt the Browns last week against Arizona. The 10s that were out there are mostly gone. This could be a spot in which we see something of a sharp vs. public split, with the sharp side being Arizona.
479/480 Kansas City (-5, 45) at Chicago – The Chiefs look really, really good. The defense has been vastly improved since the bye and Patrick Mahomes is doing his thing and doing it well. This looks like a high line on the road at Soldier Field, but my guess is that it may not be high enough. Chicago gave a decent effort against Green Bay and nearly pulled off a miracle cover, but Mitch Trubisky looks bad again. Let’s see if this one goes up to 6. My guess is that it will. Then we’ll see if it comes back down or not.
481/482 Green Bay at Minnesota (-4, 46.5) – Minnesota went to the West Coast and pummeled the Chargers. Green Bay had to fight through a tough division game. Now Minnesota is back at home with a tie for first place on the line. There are a lot of people out there that do not believe in the Packers, who are 11-3 with a +47 point differential and a negative yards per play margin. I think this line is going up. We’ll see if the public likes Aaron Rodgers at 4 or 4.5 because 4.5 should be coming.
