Week 17 Football Behavior Guide

BIG day in the NFL with divisions and playoff seeding on the line! Let’s line it up!

In here:

• Sunday Night Football Projection

• Monday Night Football Projection

• Every pick and Week 17 Projection for Pigeon Picks+ Subscribers

Sunday Night Football

Final Score Projection:

• Commanders 26, Falcons 21

Pigeon Picks:

• Commanders ML (-180)

We were actually surprised by our own projection that this game had a spread of only five points. Even more surprised that the books have it at 3.5.

Last week’s win against the Giants in Michael Penix’s first start is likely being very overweighted. The offense only scored 20 points in over a whopping 34 minutes against a Giants defense that has basically folded up shop.

They were the beneficiaries of extreme outliers in TWO defensive touchdowns. That 34 point performance is a mirage. But why our spread is only six points is the Commanders defense which has had a rough last three weeks allowing over 0.8 points per minute of opponent possession time.

That said, look for the Falcons defense. They’ve gotten fat in each of the last two weeks playing a Raiders (27th) and Giants (31st) offense that is bottom of the league. Against good offenses this defense has folded like a cheap tent.

And if nothing else, Washington has a good offense. Expect Washing to close it out and likely put a dent in Atlanta’s playoff hopes.

Monday Night Football

Final Score Projection:

• Lions 29, 49ers 17

Pigeon Picks:

• Lions ML (-200)

• Lions -3.5 (-110)

Another game where we think the Lions are undervalued here. Contextually, they have everything to play for. The number one seed is still up for grabs, the NFC North division is still up for grabs.

Meanwhile, 49ers have already been eliminated from what has been a beyond frustrating season for them.

Even if you don’t take the above into account, the behavior suggests Lions win this going away. The 49ers offense has been abysmal in four of the last six weeks, and below average in five of the last six weeks.

The one exception was a big win over the lowly Bears.

The Lions defense is in a regression phase, and even accounting for the worst version of that regression, the 49ers still fail to come within double digits. in our model.

The Lions offense is formidable, scoring more than 0.8 points per minute in 10 of 15 games played, over 0.9 points per minute in 9 of 15 games played, and over 1 point per minute in 7 of 15 games played, including their last three.

And somehow they are still in a growth phase, improving 11% week over week in scoring behavior rate.

The 49ers defense is actually helped by what look like two outlier performances against the Rams and Bears, which is accounted for in this projection. But remove that, and they are a bottom third of the league defense in score prevention behavior.

We expect the Lions to win easily as they pursue the top seed in the NFC.

EVERY Week 17 Pigeon Pick

Every pick and final score projection for every Week 17 game. Our projection model has converted 63.48% of every NFL bet made from it over the course of four NFL season (1,148 bets placed in total).

In the month of December, we have a profit of nearly 7 units of profit heading into Week 17.

Here is every pick we have made for Week 17:

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