Week 18 NFL Picks

Week 17 still has one game marked as "live" -- the Buffalo Bills/Cincinnati Bengals game that was "suspended" after Damar Hamlin collapsed and went into cardiac arrest. Still no word on how that game (and its effects on e.g. playoff seeding) will be resolved.

Of the 15 games that were completed, I picked nine correctly, but still came out negative on points (-6.4 points to be precise) because I went big on the Eagles' chances of beating the Saints (100%) and the Vikings chances of beating the Packers (91%), for a loss of 132.8 points. In the FiveThirtyEight NFL Forecasting Game, I have a season-to-date total of 76.2 points and am performing better than 65% of players.

Week 18 picks:

Kansas City Chiefs beat Las Vegas Raiders-- 100%
Jacksonville Jaguars beat Tennessee Titans -- 100%
Cincinnati Bengals beat Baltimore Ravens -- 71%
Carolina Panthers beat New Orleans Saints -- 53%*
Pittsburgh Steelers beat Cleveland Browns -- 53%
Indianapolis Colts beat Houston Texans -- 71%
Minnesota Vikings beat Chicago Bears -- 100%
New England Patriots beat Buffalo Bills -- 53%*
Miami Dolphins beat New York Jets -- 53%
Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat Atlanta Falcons -- 53%*
San Francisco 49ers beat Arizona Cardinals -- 100%
Dallas Cowboys beat Washington Commanders -- 100%
Los Angeles Chargers beat Denver Broncos -- 61%
Seattle Seahawks beat Los Angeles Rams -- 71%
Philadelphia Eagles beat New York Giants -- 100%
Detroit Lions beat Green Bay Packers -- 53%*

Asterisks denote games where my pick to win disagrees with the FiveThirtyEight model's pick.

As you can see, I've gone all in, 100%, on six games -- for a potential pickup of up to 150 points, or a potential loss of up to 450 points. I plan to either massively boost my score or go out in a blaze of glory.

If I make any changes to my picks, those changes will be made before kickoff and mentioned in an update to this post.