Free Week 17 NFL Expert Picks

By Jeff Wilson: Week 17 has four selections after a lot of careful thought. The hard part about this week’s games is just figuring out which teams are motivated to play, and which others might be resting their starters. With that in mind, here are the picks.

Editor’s Note: The selections in this column are purely the opinion of the writer, and are not being endorsed by any parties.

Week 17 Selections

Jacksonville (+2.5) at Kansas City:

These two squads both looked like playoff caliber teams before the season, but there is a good chance that neither makes the post-season. Jacksonville (8-7) has a very good defense and running game, but the passing attack is not explosive enough to be a dominant team. Losing to 5-10 Houston twice this year also didn’t help.

Kansas City is 8-7 as well, and 5-2 at home. The Chiefs lost three straight games before beating Oakland last week, so they are not playing great football right now either. However, Kansas City will have success on the ground with Larry Johnson, and they will be good enough to beat this Jaguars team that struggles (2-5) on the road.

NFL Free Expert Pick: Kansas City

Seattle (+3.5) at Tampa Bay:

Tampa Bay is 4-11, but hasn’t shown much quit as evidenced by last week’s, 22-7 win at Cleveland. The week before, they took the Bears to overtime in Chicago. Veteran quarterback, Tim Rattay will again get the start this week which improves Tampa’s chances of winning.

Seattle is 8-7 and they have won the NFC West division already. That means that this game is essentially meaningless to them. The question is, how much will the Seahawks starters play, and are backups like quarterback Seneca Wallace good enough to beat Tampa Bay anyhow?

My view on this game is that Seattle will play their starters more than you think as they want to break their three game losing streak. Tampa Bay will be very fortunate to even walk away with a field goal win.

NFL Free Expert Pick: Seattle

Cleveland (+4) at Houston:

Cleveland is 4-11 on the year, and they will be playing third string quarterback Ken Dorsey this week. That is because Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson are both injured. Even with Frye and Anderson playing, the Browns had lost six out of their last seven games, and they are playing like a team that is about to get their coach (Romeo Crennel) fired.

Houston is a strange team as they have only won five games this year, but three of them were against Jacksonville (twice) and Indianapolis.

It is a little worrisome that the Texans have played worse against lesser competition, but they are still playing hard, and Coach Gary Kubiak will be pushing to finish the year at 6-10.

NFL Free Expert Pick: Houston

Miami (+9) at Indianapolis:

Miami is a disappointing 6-9 on the season, and it looks like quarterback Cleo Lemon will get the start in this game. Lemon has looked pretty good in relief this year, and the Dolphins want to see if they have a potential starter for the future.

Even with Lemon playing, the Dolphins know the best way to keep this game close is running Ronnie Brown versus the Colts very poor run defense.

Indianapolis is 11-4, and Coach Tony Dungy has already said the team will try hard to win this game and earn the number three seed in the AFC. A big issue here is that New England is playing at 1:00 EST in Tennessee.

If the Patriots lose that game, then Indy will have already locked up the third seed before their 4:15 EST kickoff.

I look for Miami to keep this game close either way.

NFL Free Expert Pick: Miami

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