{"id":647824,"date":"2026-01-02T10:17:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T10:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/647824\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T10:17:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T10:17:15","slug":"nfl-week-18-picks-straight-up-and-against-spread-who-wins-best-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/647824\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Week 18 picks straight up and against spread: Who wins best games?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Ravens Steelers in Week 18 face big questions<\/p>\n

USAT’s Joe Rivera and Chris Bumbaca break down Lamar Jackson\u2019s status and DK Metcalf\u2019s suspension as Steelers and Ravens fight for AFC North.<\/p>\n

Sports Seriously<\/p>\n

The first weekend of calendar year 2026 also marks the final one of the 2025 NFL<\/a> regular season \u2212 and the league seems poised to ring in the new year properly.<\/p>\n

Twelve of Week 18’s 16 games are set to have some level of impact on the largely fluid playoff field<\/a> \u2212 whether they determine a divisional winner, home-field advantage and a first-round bye or simply postseason seeding. (The No. 1 pick of this year’s draft also remains unclaimed, so contests including the Las Vegas Raiders<\/a> and New York Giants<\/a> are hardly meaningless, either.)<\/p>\n

As it pertains to setting up the Super Bowl 60 tournament, Saturday should be especially fun \u2212 starting in the afternoon, when the Carolina Panthers<\/a> and Tampa Bay Buccaneers<\/a> might decide who wins the NFC South … though an already eliminated squad might still get a say on that front<\/a>. The prime-time game features the rematch of the Seattle Seahawks<\/a> and San Francisco 49ers<\/a> \u2212 the winner to be crowned NFC West champions while earning the conference’s top seed. The vanquished will be relegated to the wild-card scrum.<\/p>\n

Sunday afternoon won’t have as many tidy matchups, even as the Denver Broncos<\/a>, New England Patriots<\/a> and Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a> jockey for the No. 1 seed in the AFC, while the Jags<\/a> and Houston Texans<\/a> continue trying to capture the AFC South throne.<\/p>\n

However Sunday night, the 272nd and final game of the regular season, will have winner-take-all stakes as the archrival Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> and Baltimore Ravens<\/a> vie for the AFC North title in the latest installment of their border way. The loser goes gets nothing.<\/p>\n

How does this chaos resolve before 18 teams book their tee times? USA TODAY Sports’ crew of NFL experts break out their crystal balls:<\/p>\n

(Odds provided by BetMGM<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Week 18 picks, predictions, odds<\/p>\n

All NFL news on and off the field.\u00a0Sign up<\/a>\u00a0for USA TODAY’s 4th and Monday newsletter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ravens Steelers in Week 18 face big questions USAT’s Joe Rivera and Chris Bumbaca break down Lamar Jackson\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2081],"tags":[115,1466,247,265,825,357,184,117,210,1107,232,211,235,260,324,231,258,1109,7,519,221,253,20842,212,125,213,523,393,248,267,246,206,56,88,6,35196,245,264,236,525,169,818,238,237,261,2635,327,817,829,9,5433,1115,266,819,209,250,222,776,524,1108,225],"class_list":{"0":"post-647824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-seahawks","8":"tag-afc","9":"tag-afc-south","10":"tag-american","11":"tag-american-football","12":"tag-american-football-conference","13":"tag-and","14":"tag-baltimore","15":"tag-baltimore-ravens","16":"tag-bay","17":"tag-betting","18":"tag-broncos","19":"tag-buccaneers","20":"tag-carolina","21":"tag-carolina-panthers","22":"tag-conference","23":"tag-denver","24":"tag-denver-broncos","25":"tag-disclaimer","26":"tag-football","27":"tag-giants","28":"tag-houston","29":"tag-houston-texans","30":"tag-hub","31":"tag-jacksonville","32":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars","33":"tag-jaguars","34":"tag-las","35":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","36":"tag-national","37":"tag-national-sports","38":"tag-neutral","39":"tag-new","40":"tag-new-york-giants","41":"tag-news","42":"tag-nfl","43":"tag-nfl-hub","44":"tag-overall","45":"tag-overall-neutral","46":"tag-panthers","47":"tag-raiders","48":"tag-ravens","49":"tag-scores","50":"tag-seahawks","51":"tag-seattle","52":"tag-seattle-seahawks","53":"tag-seattleseahawks","54":"tag-south","55":"tag-sport","56":"tag-sport-scores-u0026-statistics","57":"tag-sports","58":"tag-sports-betting","59":"tag-sports-betting-widget-and-disclaimer","60":"tag-sports-news","61":"tag-statistics","62":"tag-tampa","63":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","64":"tag-texans","65":"tag-u0026","66":"tag-vegas","67":"tag-widget","68":"tag-york"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}