Betting Odds For Week 17 NFL Games
The final week of the NFL’s regular season makes football fans more than a little anxious. Rarely is the playoff picture still unclear at this late stage of the game, and fans and sports bettors alike are already focused on the first week of playoff games. But the NFL itself doesn't take a break, and there’s always going to be some exciting games lined up for diehard NFL fans in the season's seventeenth week. Though the regular is season is now well behind us, it helps us understand some of the ramifications of the last week of the regular season with regard to the betting odds for Week 17 NFL games as offered by the leading legal offshore sports betting sites accepting NFL fans in the US, namely Bovada, BetOnline, SportsBetting and 5Dimes. With that said, let's take a closer look at the highlights of the NFL lineup in Week 17 of the 2017 season.
Before we get started looking at some of the most important and exciting games on the Week 17 docket, fans should take note: there was no Thursday Night Football, Sunday Night Football or Monday Night Football game in Week 17 of the 2017-2018 season. Owing to that, NFLBettingOdds.org will to break down the best of the huge lineup of games on Sunday, December 31st.
Notable Matchups For Week 17 – 49ers At Rams
Upsets don’t come much more shocking than this game turned out to be, as the 3-13 and pretty much bottom-rung San Francisco 49ers stunned the Los Angeles Rams with a 34-13 result. Let’s be frank, nobody – not even the ‘Niners’ most dedicated fans or the bettors watching the Week 17 betting odds – saw this result coming. Robbie Gould got things started with a 33-yard field goal just minutes into the game, but the 49ers really took off with a string of first half scores coming from Marquise Goodwin, Jimmy Garoppolo and Carlos Hyde scores to give San Fran a 20-6 halftime lead. Just to punctuate how crazy this upset was, the Rams – looked at as perhaps one of the biggest spoilers for a Playoffs berth this year – were prevented from scoring more than 7 points in the entire second half while the 49ers, led by Hyde and Aldrick Robinson, tacked on score after score until the end of the game.
Notable Matchups For Week 17 – Cowboys At Eagles
Another big upset affecting the Week 17 betting odds was the incredibly low scoring 6-0 victory of the Cowboys over the Eagles, which, as every serious NFL fan and sports bettor knows, has solid chances of making it all the way to the 52nd edition of the so-called Big Game this year. Philadelphia had a Playoffs berth in the bag, so they rested many of their key players but even then the Cowboys struggled to score. Dallas finally managed to break through with a 20-yard passing touchdown from Dak Prescott to Brice Butler with 12:19 to go in the fourth quarter. That turned out to be the only score of the game, in which only 199 total yards of offense were accrued by both teams on the ground. Prescott contributed 172 passing yards for the Cowboys but was only able to hit 17 of his 30 intended targets. It was a strange game by any stretch of the imagination.
Notable Matchups For Week 17 – Browns At Steelers
There’s no need to mince words – the Cleveland Browns were awful in 2017-2018, but the embattled Ohio squad shone like superstars in their heroic but ultimately fruitless 28-24 loss to the Playoffs-bound Pittsburgh Steelers. The home team, which later went on to get drubbed in turn by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the AFC Divisional Playoff game, struggled to put away the winless Browns, and only an early 29-yard spring to the end zone from Darrius Heyward and the Chris Boswell point-after kept this from being a game that went to OT. The Browns got on the scoreboard early in the second half, scoring on a s hort run from Duke Johnson and a long pass completion between DeShone Kizer and Rashard Higgins, but Cleveland tied the game 21-all shortly into Q3 with a another Kizer/Higgins pass play. Both teams scored again after that, but it took Juju Smith breaking loose on a 96-yard kickoff return to give the Steelers the narrow and harrowing win. The Week 17 betting odds were almost thrown completely out of whack by games like this one.
Notable Matchups For Week 17 – Bills At Dolphins
Though neither the Bills nor the Dolphins ended up making a huge impact with a trip to the post-season, they both put on a heck of a show in their final meeting of the 2017-2018 season. The Week 17 betting odds on this game couldn’t have predicted just how thrilling the game turned out to be despite a lackluster first half showing from Miami. Buffalo was up 10-zip at the half and even went ahead 19-3 after the third quarter, but Miami tacked on 13 points in the fourth thanks to the efforts of kicker Cody Parkey and some very short runs from Jarvis Landry and David Fales. Though the final score ended up being separated by a touchdown, the Dolphins showed their verve in covering the spread despite a woefully played first half.