Happy Thursday!
New members: Every week (typically Thursday morning; Wednesday morning this week) we send out the Angles email — in which we take a critical, “overview” look at the slate ahead.
Week: 17
Total Main Slate Games: 13
Slate Overview:
The last two weeks of the regular season are upon us, with plenty still up in the air with regards to playoff seeding and the final playoff spots, and — unlike next week — very few teams at serious risk of playing things any differently than they have for the last couple months. With that said, however, there are some nuances in play this week (teams that have a meaningless Week 17 game but an important Week 18 game, or teams with lesser playoff seeding at stake, where some interesting elements may come into play), so while I always encourage you to spend some time each week with the NFL Edge, this is a week in which doing so could prove particularly important.
We have an absolute gem of a game waiting for us on Monday night, with the Bills and Bengals squaring off (the Bills control their own destiny for a first-round bye and home field advantage; and while it’s unlikely that the Chiefs will drop one of their final two games, the carrot of this possibility keeps the Bengals in play for that coveted number one seed with a win here), and with 13 games on the Main Slate, we can lose this game and still have a full helping of top-end offenses taking the field. Even with Baltimore (somehow still ninth in offensive DVOA) and Dallas (somehow only 13th in offensive DVOA) also missing from this slate, we have 13 of the top 17 offenses (DVOA) in play. This is the power of “no bye weeks // no London games // no Saturday games” — a setup we haven’t had in a while.
Of course, it isn’t all sunshine and buttercups, as this slate still gives us only two teams implied to top 26 points, and only five teams implied to climb above a mere 24 points. Those teams are ::
