Against The Spread:

The final game of wild card weekend pits the Green Bay Packers at Washington Redskins. During the off season Green Bay was expected to be a Super Bowl contender, and the Pack is in the post-season for the seventh consecutive season. Washington on the other hand was viewed as being one of worst teams in the league before the season began; this is just their second winning season in eight years, and their last playoff victory came ten years ago when Joe Gibbs was still the head coach for Washington.

The Week 14 game was one of the chippiest of the 2015 season, a game that where many lambasted the officiating crew for letting the game get out of hand. That NFL handed out five fines to players following that game, but the NFL – in yet another questionable decision – has assigned the very same crew to officiate this game. Welcome to the world of decision making by Roger Goodell and his minions.

Expect the New England offense to perform much better than it did last week. Let’s give credit where it is due: the Jet defense is one of the best in the NFL. The Patriots should have much better success on third down than they did last week, which will lead to more scoring opportunities – and at the same time keep the Patriot defense off the field, allowing them to be less gassed and more effective.

One nice thing about the final week of the season for football fans is that two networks televise both an early and late game, plus restrictions that prohibit another game being televised while the local team plays a home game are lifted. There was a time when this was actually standard operating procedure: the AFL would televise two games on NBC, and the NFL would televise two games on CBS. Once the two leagues merged that ended though, and now pro football fans are forced to either pay big bucks or watch crappy games between losing teams far too often.

As has been the case nearly all season, this week there is a paucity of games between teams that both have winning records. There are only three games that fit in that category this week (and just two for the entire day Sunday): the Patriots at Jets in an early game, Green Bay at Arizona late, and then Cincinnati at Denver on Monday night.

Tennessee just gave up 183 rushing yards (while gaining just 24 yards on the ground themselves), so normally you would think that New England’s game plan would be to just run, run and run some more. Problem for the Patriots is that they are running out of running backs, so that may not be feasible.

There are plenty of pivotal games to the NFL playoff picture this week, starting with New England at Houston on Sunday night. Pittsburgh at Cincinnati should not only be a very entertaining game to watch, it will play a critical role in the Bengals’ quest for a first round bye, and whether or not the Steelers make the playoffs. Other important games include Oakland at Denver, Dallas at Green Bay, Buffalo at Philadelphia, Washington at Chicago and Indianapolis at Jacksonville.

The 10-2 New England Patriots seek to avoid their first three-game losing streak since 2002 when they travel to Houston to face the 6-6 Texans on Sunday. The Patriots need a win to keep even with Denver and Cincinnati in the race for a first round bye in the AFC, while Houston looks to overtake Indianapolis for the lead in the AFC South.

Philadelphia rookie CB Eric Rowe gets his first NFL start Sunday, and it against a New England team that since 2003 is 38-4 coming off a loss and is 52-8 in the month of December since 2001.

Week 13’s best game is between Seattle, who just went over .500 for the first time all season, and Minnesota, who ranks 25th in the league in scoring. The only other game with two winning clubs involves a pair of 6-5 teams: the under achieving Colts with a 40-year old backup QB, and a Pittsburgh defense that has given up 39 and 35 points in recent games. NFL fans deserve better than this.

In NFL Week 14 Early Advanced betting lines, the Westgate in Las Vegas has initially installed the New England Patriots as 3.5 point road favorites over the Houston Texans. Jacksonville is a 1-point favorite over Indy, the Broncos are favored by 6.5 over Oakland, and Carolina is an 8-point favorite over Atlanta.

Unbeaten Carolina is just a 3½ point favorite against a struggling Saints defense in New Orleans; Miami is favored by 6½ (granted, it is against the Ravens); Minnesota is a 1½ point home underdog against Seattle; and Dallas was listed as a three-point road favorite at Washington – though to be fair, this was prior to Tony Romo’s injury on Thanksgiving Day. It is also interesting to note that there are more favorites playing on the road (nine) than home favorites (just six).

It is incredible the number of statistical categories that these two teams both rank in the top ten, top five, or best overall in – especially when you compare the Patriot offense versus the Bronco defense.

While Sunday once again leaves NFL fans with a dearth of games between two quality teams, at least there are several competitive matchups involving a pair of clubs fighting for a playoff berth. Leading up to Sunday night’s highly anticipated game between the Patriots and Broncos, the only afternoon game between a pair of teams with winning records is Minnesota at Atlanta. However, with the exception of ESPN’s odious foistering of Baltimore at Cleveland Monday night, almost all of the of the other games should be competitive and entertaining; the Steelers-Seahawks, Bills-Chiefs and Bucs-Colts are among those that could be compelling games well worth watching.

As is what seems to be the case every year, a Thanksgiving Day game involving the Detroit Lions is seemingly in place to simply make the following games look that much better