NFL Week 17 Best Bets: What Has Vegas Been Smoking?

I like that one-two punch in Seattle and TB—TB coming off an embarrassing loss (that won me some $$ last week) and Seattle coming off an even more embarrassing loss, despite not needing the W at all.

I know the Colts and Cowboys are lower conviction picks, but I can't help be drawn to those games that clearly feel like they were handicapped to reflect public sentiment more than team performance. Week 17 is an excellent week for arbitrage I think, as the "who will play" frenzy that factors into the spreads is often overwrought. In fact, if the Box were Vegas and ignored the statistics, here's how it would have handicapped this week:

	Vegas	Vegas
Fav	Guess	Actual	Dog
NE	-14	-14	NYG
PHI	-3.5	-7.5	BUF
GB	-5	-3.5	DET
NO	-4	-2	CHI
HOU	3	-6	JAC
CAR	4	-2.5	TB
CLE	-13	-9	SF
CIN	-6.5	-2.5	MIA
ATL	9.5	-2.5	SEA
WAS	9.5	-9	DAL
PIT	-8	3.5	BAL
ARI	-7	-6	STL
SD	-7	-8	OAK
MIN	-4	-3	DEN
NYJ	-3	-6	KC
TEN	10	-6.5	IND

There are some giant shifts there—owing entirely to public sentiment. If the spread was like the stock market, this is a nice bear market chance to make some money on quality teams that are undervalued because of mob mentality.

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