Game Flowbotics: Week 17 Picks Against the Spread

Dec 31, 2021

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The new year approaches, and we somehow have two full slates left in the NFL regular season. I am still thrown off by the 18-week schedule, and I’m further discombobulated after crossing multiple time zones with a toddler to vacation around the holidays. Escaping the cold of the northeast for a couple weeks, good. Nuking your one-year-old’s sleep schedule, bad. Making picks against the spread, a challenge no matter what, but hopefully the Game Flowbotics spreadsheet can help. Linked below, as always, the sheet gathers pace and efficiency data from Football Outsiders and color-codes the stats so you can see the matchups within each game. Before we get to the spreadsheet and my resulting Week 17 picks against the spread, let’s review last week’s performance.

Accountability

Last week, I went 2-2 with my picks for a loss of 0.15 units. Year to date, my record is 62-54-1 (53.4%) and I’m up 5.28 units overall. Of my two losses, I’m not going to sweat the Steelers and Chiefs going over 44.5 total points. An under on the Steelers’ team total was the correct pick in hindsight, but my under on the game total was on track until Pittsburgh added a touchdown in garbage time. Solid analysis on the type of outcome, but improperly applied.

Backing the Seahawks to cover a touchdown-spread last week is less defensible. Seattle had a 10-point lead through three quarters, so they turtled up in the fourth quarter, emerging from their shell at the end of the game with a one-point win. We’ve seen this movie before, Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson just look older now.