2020 was an interesting year for sports, with COVID-19 causing all kinds of grief for leagues everywhere. At the same time, though, sports fans were also kept entertained with some unexpected outcomes. The NFL season is close to the finish line, having survived a couple of coronavirus scares, with the Super Bowl coming up in just about a month. The final lineup for the postseason was cemented this past weekend as Week 17 games concluded and football fans can now get busy wagering on who’s going to advance in the playoffs and who’s going home. 

There was some doubt whether the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would be able to survive to make it to the playoffs this year, despite the fact that they brought on five-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady to lead the charge. They made it, but showed yesterday that they still have work to do in order to become a championship team. The Bucs, at times, looking like they might lose to the Atlanta Falcons, who were able to rebound and come to within three points with just over eight minutes left in the game. However, relying on the veteran QB, the Bucs kept it together and ended up clinching the fifth seed in the NFC as Brady pushed his team to a 44-27 victory. It was good enough for an NFC wild-card spot, and the Bucs will meet the Washington Football Team (WFT) in the wild card game next week.

The WFT gets to head to the playoffs in spectacular fashion. The team has had to deal with major adversities this season, from its owner being blasted for sexual misconduct to its head coach going through treatment for cancer. It survived all of it, though, taking the NFC East yesterday against the Philadelphia Eagles, 20-14, for its first playoff appearance since 2015. Not bad for a team that finished the season at 7-9. The WFT is the first team ever in the NFL to hit the postseason after starting the regular season 2-7.

The Miami Dolphins were on the verge of making it to the playoffs, but fell apart yesterday against the Buffalo Bills. Several interceptions and bad plays, coupled with an outstanding performance by Bills QB Josh Allen, left the Fins on the sidelines as they fell 56-26. The Bills will hope Allen, who is in contention for an NFL MVP award, will keep up his performance in the playoffs, as the number-two AFC seed take on the Indianapolis Colts in the wild-card round. 

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Rather amazingly, the NFL is going to be able to complete its full regular season during a coronavirus pandemic, something that Major League Baseball, the NBA or NHL couldn’t do. Week 17 is upon us, meaning every game is played Sunday and is an intradivisional matchup.

Some spreads will look a bit unusual this week where perhaps an inferior team is favored over a clearly better one. That’s because some playoff-bound teams have nothing to play for and likely will rest starters. For example, when the Los Angeles Chargers visit the Kansas City Chiefs.

Kansas City has wrapped up the top seed in the AFC, and Coach Andy Reid already has acknowledged he’s going to rest some key guys – a list that starts with quarterback Patrick Mahomes. It concludes a fabulous season for Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert, who should win NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year honors. Los Angeles is a 3.5-point favorite despite winning just once in the past 13 in the series.

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Presumably because it’s Christmas Eve, there is no NFL game on Thursday this week … or the rest of the season. However, there is a game on Christmas on Friday, meaning the unique 2020 season will be even more unique in one regard. It’s the first season at least one NFL game has been played every single day of the week. A few games earlier in the year were moved to Tuesday and Wednesday due to COVID-19 postponements.

The Christmas game, which goes up against the NBA’s loaded five-game slate in that league’s marquee regular-season day, features the Minnesota Vikings at the New Orleans Saints. It has potential playoff ramifications for both – the Vikings are barely alive, while the Saints could clinch the NFC South with a victory. The teams met in the Wild-Card round in January in the Big Easy and the Vikings pulled off a 26-20 overtime walk-off stunner on a controversial TD pass. New Orleans is -7 this time, and the favorite has won seven of the past eight in the regular-season series.

There are three Saturday games in Week 16, and the marquee matchup is the primetime affair between the Miami Dolphins and Las Vegas Raiders from Sin City. That has potential playoff ramifications for both and is Miami’s first-ever trip to Las Vegas. It could be an all-Hawaiian QB matchup between Dolphins rookie Tua Tagovailoa (who will start) and the Raiders’ Marcus Mariota (who probably starts with Derek Carr injured). Miami is -3 and 9-1 ATS in its past 10 games.

It might rub some football fans the wrong way, but it has to be said. This could be the end of the Belichick era in the NFL. Bill Belichick has been a coach in the league since 1975, most recently as the head coach of the New England Patriots, a position he has held for 20 years. He has won six Super Bowls and has been named the AP NFL Coach of the Year three times, and will always be known as perhaps the greatest coach ever in the NFL. However, even greatness comes to an end. The Pats have not had a very good season this year, and last night’s loss to the LA Rams could signal the beginning of the end. 

Belichick can’t take all the blame for the team’s poor performance this year, but it simply might be time to make some changes. Perhaps even he knows it, which is about the only explanation for allowing Tom Brady to head down south to Tampa Bay. Maybe he’s preparing the Pats organization for a little housecleaning. That’s just speculation, of course, but it’s something to think about. New England’s performance on Thursday Night Football was, in a word, embarrassing, and there has to be a reason.

The Pats were held to a single field goal, which they scored as the first half was coming to an end. Apart from that, the team was sloppy on both offense and defense, and Cam Newton, brought in on a one-year contract (fortunately) to replace Brady, only lasted three quarters before being pulled. Even he must realize that there isn’t much of a future with the Pats for him. Newton only completed one of four passes in the second half and added a 79-yard pick-six to his record of non-achievements.

The Rams dominated right out the gate and walked all over the Pats. Their defense penetrated time and again, sacking Newton and his replacement, Jarrett Stidham, numerous times – six, to be exact. On offense, running back Cam Akers was, once again, the driving force behind the team’s success, racking up 29 carries for 171 yards. Wide receivers Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods and tight end Tyler Higbee each had over 30 yards as the Rams cruised to a 24-3 win. 

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It’s an interesting Week 14 schedule around the NFL because there are only three intradivsional matchups and two of them are essentially meaningless with one team in the game playing out the string on a lousy season.

The Tennessee Titans visit the Jacksonville Jaguars and should have little trouble sweeping the season series and continue a push to a possible AFC South title. The Jaguars might be as bad as the atrocious Jets at this point, although Jacksonville did play pretty well in Week 2 at Tennessee. The Titans rode four Ryan Tannehill touchdown passes and a Stephen Gostkowski 49-yard field goal with 1:36 left to win 33-30. Tennessee is -7.5 this time and 5-2 ATS in the past seven in the series.

The Green Bay Packers are going to win the NFC North perhaps as soon as this week and look to sweep the Detroit Lions, who will have a new head coach next season. In Week 2, the Packers handled the visiting Lions 42-21 behind 168 yards rushing and three total touchdowns from Aaron Rodgers. Detroit actually led 14-3 early but then was steamrolled. Green Bay is -7.5 on Sunday but 1-6 ATS in the past seven in the series.

This has been probably one of the oddest, clumsiest NFL seasons in recent memory. Week 13 hasn’t been the exception, with the New England Patriots taking a 45-0 win against the LA Chargers and the Cleveland Browns taking out the Tennessee Titans 41-35 in a game that was predicted to be a “blowout” for Tennessee. Yesterday’s Monday Night Football (MNF) action didn’t break the odd streak and the results have some football fans – and definitely some gamblers – still shaking their heads.

The Buffalo Bills and the San Francisco 49ers met yesterday in a game that most expected to go to the Bills. The 49ers, who had a superb year last year, have been hobbled due to major injuries that started as the season was getting underway, and they haven’t been able to recover since. The only out the Niners had last night was the knowledge that the Bills had lost seven straight MNF games. That, coupled with the fact that San Fran got a boost by defeating the LA Rams a week earlier, gave the team a little extra motivation. But, it wasn’t enough.

The Bills stayed in control for most of the game, as wide receiver Cole Beasley ran for 130 yards, the most in a single game in his career. 113 of those came in the first half and it was almost like everyone on the Bills offense was in sync. Quarterback Josh Allen completed 32 of 40 passes to rack up 375 yards, adding four touchdowns in the mix to secure the win. By the time the fourth quarter came around, the Bills were in complete domination of the game on the way to a 34-17 victory. With that, they maintain control of the AFC East, one game ahead of the Miami Dolphins. They have the chance to show off once again next week when they host the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday.

Speaking of the Steelers, there will forever be questions about what happened last night. Did they screw up plays or screw up plays on purpose, did they think they should give the Washington Football Team (WFT) a break, did they not care – the list goes on. No matter the reason, the Steelers are no longer undefeated this year after dropping the ball against Washington. No matter the reason, the WFT will forever be able to brag about the time they kept the Steelers from having a perfect, 17-0 season.

Many people had expected Week 13 in the NFL to offer some additional excitement over previous weeks, and they weren’t disappointed. From games that had five players ejected to final scores that still have some football fans scratching their heads, yesterday’s lineup kept sports fans and gamblers on the edge of their seats. With the week almost over, though, the playoff picture continues to come into focus and several teams have secured their spots in the postseason. 

The Kansas City Chiefs had more difficulty taking down the Denver Broncos than they would have liked. Still, they got the job done, with Patrick Mahomes throwing for 318 yards and a touchdown and Harrison Butker going five for five on field goals. It was just enough to keep the Broncos down, but the Chiefs will need to shape up in the postseason. They won yesterday’s game 22-16 and secured a playoff berth, but the win against a weaker team didn’t come easy. 

The Seattle Seahawks fell apart yesterday against the New York Giants. This game didn’t go at all the way the Seahawks had planned and the frustration continued to rise as their quarterback, Russell Wilson, was sacked again and again – five times in total. The Giants defense did their job and are now on top of the NFC East, the weakest division in the league, with their surprising 17-12 upset win. With the loss, Seattle is close to losing its position atop the NFC West. 

Aaron Jones gave the Green Bay Packers the win that almost wasn’t. The running back had an impressive 130 yards on the ground, but it was his 77-yard TD run with just over two minutes left in the game that gave his team the 30-16 victory against the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles had started to mount a comeback in the fourth quarter, down 23-3, that looked like it would threaten the Packers, but QB Aaron Rodgers kept his cool, found his receivers and backs and got the job done. 

The Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens finally got on the turf last night, facing off in an NFL game that was initially meant to be played on Thanksgiving Day. Because the Ravens couldn’t remain disciplined enough to minimize the team’s COVID-19 risk, which ultimately resulted in over ten players and staffers testing positive for the virus, the game had to be rescheduled to Sunday, then Tuesday and, finally, to last night. The Steelers are happy to finally get it over with, especially since they have had to change their schedule more than once this season because of other teams’ coronavirus problems, and they walked away with yet another win to remain undefeated this year. However, even the team’s own head coach, Mike Tomlin, thinks it was an ugly win. 

No decent coach in any sport will ever be satisfied with his or her team’s performance, always looking for ways to improve and make the team better. After logging a 19-14 win in a game that was full of turnovers and clumsy plays, Tomlin told reporters, “It was really junior varsity, to be quite honest with you. It was in all three phases. We couldn’t run the ball effectively when we needed to. We dropped too many significant passes, very catchable, makeable passes. We didn’t make significant plays in the special-teams game. Our kickoff coverage unit wasn’t good enough. We turned the ball over. We gave up big plays in critical moments on defense. Can’t have it.”

The Ravens had to bring in quarterback Robert Griffin III to replace Lamar Jackson, out due to COVID-19. In the first quarter of the game, he threw a pick-6 right to Steelers cornerback Joe Haden. The team’s troubles continued throughout the first half, including up to the very last seconds when they were denied a chance to get into the end zone from the one-yard line. If they had gotten in, the Ravens would have been in the lead; however, Baltimore made a few poor judgment calls that cost the team precious seconds and ended their chances.

The Steelers found a stronger Ravens defense than they had anticipated and struggled to move the chains down the field. QB Ben Roethlisberger threw a season-high 51 passes and racked up 266 yards; however, there were a number of dropped passes that made the game more difficult for Pittsburgh. Across the first half, the Steelers were held to just 12 points – six in each quarter – and didn’t add any points in the third. Only off a clutch grab by James Washington on third down on their last possession was Pittsburgh able to ensure the win by keeping the clock running and denying Baltimore a chance at a return.

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Good news for NFL fans: Barring coronavirus postponements, Week 13 will be the last this regular season where every team is not in action. Tampa Bay and Carolina are on the bye and then off weeks are finished … we hope.

There doesn’t appear to be one matchup Sunday that screams must-see TV. Cleveland Browns at Tennessee Titans with a 1 p.m. ET kickoff is very important in the AFC playoff race and in theory could be a postseason preview if the Titans win the AFC South and the Browns slot into the right Wild-Card slot (both would be the case right now). A lot has changed for both clubs from Week 1 of the 2019 season when Marcus Mariota and the Titans blew out the Browns 43-13. Baker Mayfield was picked off three times. This time, the Titans are -6 and Cleveland is 1-10 ATS in its past 11 road games.