Bears-Seahawks on TNF, Staring Down Betting Opportunities

In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter, presented by Guillotine Leagues:

Good luck finding someone as interested as I am in every minor machination the NFL offers. Conflicting schematics altered in real time, played out on the field by the world’s best athletes in spectacular crashes of humanity. That said, the quality of those Christmas Day games was worse than my in-laws’ baked ziti. Yuck. The worst.

Here’s an idea. Maybe rather than risking player health and product quality by forcing ridiculous schedule turnarounds, we enjoy a holiday without football for once. I’m pretty sure we’d survive just fine.

Just in case you saved room for bad football leftovers, you’re in luck! We get the Bears and Seahawks tonight, two of the league’s more unwatchable offenses lately … yay. Luckily, Seattle’s still alive for the postseason with a chance to correct course for a miracle run. We haven’t gotten the classic DK blowup game in a while … just saying.

Thursday Night Blitz, Seahawks (8-7) at Bears (4-11): The Seahawks finds themselves in a perfect get-right spot tonight against downtrodden Chicago after losing two straight. Mike Macdonald’s got his back against the wall with no one to blame but themselves if the Seahawks can’t force their way into the playoffs. Just a game back from the Rams, the Seahawks must win and then root for the Cardinals on Saturday. If Arizona does, in fact, pull off a road win, it will face off Week 18 for the NFC West title. Stakes couldn’t be higher for the ‘Hawks tonight, but they’ll need to correct course for a shot to get there.

Lately, inconsistency has been the only consistent element of the Seahawks’ play. Every time we think they’ve nailed down a more static, repeatable approach it gets completely upended. Seattle looked great to start the season, winning three straight out of the gate, only to drop the next three games and five of six overall. So, so frustrating. Then the bye week came at the perfect time to save their bacon, starting a four-game win streak, spurning questions of a deep playoff run. Long story long, it’s been a total whipsaw all year. However, given the situation and downright tailspin the Bears are experiencing, I’m expecting another sea change.

No two ways around it, Chicago has stunk worse than the cologne secret Santa got me off Temu. Woof. Seriously, this two-and-a-half-month losing streak off the bye needs to be studied by the scientific community for potential extraterrestrial involvement. What in the world happened in the Windy City? My grandparents would’ve said it’s the horns. Since the Bears’ Tyrique Stevenson taunted Commanders’ faithful during a game-winning Hail Mary he probably should’ve spent more effort in defending, nothing’s gone right for Chicago. If not for the Giants, they’d contend for the NFL's worst team in that span—they’re 31st in average point margin, yards/play, and net-yard differential. Talk about a season-altering event. Our player projections can help you see where we lean.

WEEK 17 NFL BETTING ODDS

What else is in today’s newsletter?

Laghezza’s Charts: All 32 Teams Expected Points Added Per Play
Look Into My Crystal Ball: Chaos Theory

The Best Sweat in Fantasy Football Just Got Sweatier.

Playoff Guillotine League contests are now LIVE.

LEARN MORE

AROUND THE WATERCOOLER

The latest analysis and insights from our merry band of sports betting nerds:

🪓 Postseason fantasy games. Bah. Postseason fantasy games where the lowest-scoring team gets cut every week? SIGN ME UP!!

🙌 Attention dynasty leaguers! The time to trade for Bryce Young has probably passed. The time to trade AWAY Bryce Young? Please, have a seat.

🙏 Can we please, PLEASE, have just one week without a 1-yard-line kneeldown?

🤔 Week 17 Rankings! What do we do with Deebo Samuel and Tyreek Hill?

🚀 Our latest 2025 NFL Mock Draft is here. We have six skill players in the first seven picks!

Laghezza’s Charts🧠📊—Team Expected Points Added Per Play

Each week we present the league through the lens of a single image. While no one picture or stat can truly shoulder such a load, learning to take the temperature of each team’s offensive and defensive expected points added (EPA) will sharpen your game—this per-play metric that defines the value of each play by the effect it has on the offense's likelihood to score.

It provides an analytically dense, perspective-laden snapshot that is absolutely worth familiarizing yourself with.

NOTE: The cross is league average. Also, positive EPA is ideal on both sides of the ball—so in this specific case below, the closer to the upper-right corner, the better a team’s combined performance in both phases.

TAKEAWAYS: After an entire season of the usual suspects populating the top-right corner, we’re finally seeing a changing of the EPA guard. Strong defensive play from BUF and DET kept them atop the leaderboard for so long I started assuming it as a given. Well, injuries plus poor play can change that in a blink—the Lions and Bills make up half the teams to allow more than 115 points and 6.0 yards/play this month. Regardless of how prolific either offense is on any given day, taking down a championship gets increasingly more difficult as your opponents approach 28 on the scoreboard. Make way for the new Fab Four—GB, BAL, DEN, and TB.

All but Tampa have essentially packed their bags for the dance, currently holding down a multiple-game lead in the playoff standings. Sunday night’s loss to Dallas really stung as the Northeast's biggest Bucs backer but there’s still hope. As composed as Michael Penix looked in his debut, he’s still a rookie, and Washington’s an order of magnitude better than the Giants. They’ll both face the feisty Panthers except TB gets the Saints in the season finale, and they were just blanked in rather embarrassing fashion.

Mark GB and BAL for strong pops to come from mid-pack to make a deep playoff run, hitting their stride at just the right time. Denver’s in a really unique scenario, one that I’ll get to in more detail below.

NFL BEST BETS

Look Into My Crystal Ball🏈🔮—Chaos Theory

THE BET: Bengals (+1800; FD), Colts (+900; DK), Dolphins (+1400; DK), To Make Playoffs

Only one of these can happen but the more I go down this current AFC postseason rabbit hole, the more likely I think it happens. Plus, it’s so much fun to root for craziness to unfold. Essentially, we’re betting against the Broncos and the way the entire landscape’s schedule shook out.

Denver heads to Cincinnati Saturday to face Joe Burrow and the NFL’s hottest offense. Nothing’s changed for the Bengals—lose and pack your striped bags. Win, and there’s an ember glowing, no matter how faint it may be. Denver’s still in the lead with a loss, but then hosts KC in Week 18. The public’s first instinct will be that Andy Reid’s sitting his starters with home field clinched, but I’m not sure. Yes, Patrick Mahomes sat Week 18 in 2021, but KC had to play the next week. The Chiefs added pieces mid-season to an offense just starting to fire on all cylinders. Will Kansas City really take 24 days before meaningful snaps? Expect at least one half from the Chiefs we all know and love. Bottom line? It’s far from a cakewalk to the dance for the Broncos.

The Colts couldn’t ask for more than a chance to control their own destiny after an impressive win over Tennessee last week. Indy heads to MetLife Stadium on Sunday to face the bottom-feeding Giants before closing at home with a shot at revenge against 3-12 Jacksonville. Anthony Richardson gets his shot to silence the haters as a TD favorite. How can you not love that?

And we can’t forget the Dolphins, who swim back to Miami for the summer with a loss but can squeak their way in with some help. They’ll spend the next two weeks rooting against Denver and Indianapolis from the road at CLE and NYJ in winnable, yet must-win games to close out.

If Cincinnati, Miami, and Indy all handle their business and beat the Broncos, I’d expect these odds to be sliced in half at a minimum by Monday.

NOTE: Whenever playing longer odds, reduce risk accordingly. Once a play hits longshot territory, let’s call it (+300) or higher, I scale bets down to one-tenth of my standard betting unit (or 0.10u). Odds get listed this high for a reason. Always play responsibly, and feel free to reach out to me with bankroll management questions.

Hope you enjoyed today’s Betting Life newsletter! Please feel free to contact me on X @JohnLaghezza with any questions, comments, or feedback. I love hearing back from you!

NFL FUTURES BETS

Where Are The Sharps Leaning For TNF?

By Mike Mutnansky

Source: Sharp Hunter

A Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from all of us at Sharp Hunter.

As you finish up the Christmas clean up, the NFL gives us all a Thursday night game after a pair of games on Christmas Day. It will mark the final TNF game of 2024.

Don’t cry because it’s over … smile because it happened.

The Seahawks are in Chicago to face the Bears, where Seattle is a 3.5 or 4-point favorite as of Wednesday night, depending on where you’re betting. The total is 42.5 across the board.

Note that home underdogs (like the Bears) have struggled against the spread this season—counting the Chiefs’ win over the Steelers Wednesday, home ‘dogs are just 39-52-3 ATS in 2024. Not very good.

We’re always tracking the sharp action at Sharp Hunter. By tracking thousands of sharp bettors everyday, we can show you a sharp score that shows you where the sharpest bets are going.

As far as Thursday goes, we’re showing a Sharp Score of One-Bag on the OVER of 42.5 on Thursday Night.

Looks like I’ll be betting against our sharps on Thursday night.

We’ll start with a Seattle defense that is much-improved under rookie head coach Mike Macdonald. They’re a Top-6 unit EPA/play since Week 9 and are likely to slow down Caleb Williams and the Bears’ offense on Thursday night. Both the Chicago starting LT and LG were ruled OUT for this game—Seattle should be able to get pressure on the talented rookie QB.

On the other side, Seattle’s offense has slowed down as of late—since Week 12 they’re the fifth-slowest team in the NFL when you look at FTN’s SNAP/SEC pace stats. They will throw the ball, but they've been playing slower the last month. Star RB Kenneth Walker was ruled OUT for this one, taking a weapon away from that Seattle offense.

The short week is always something I look for playing an under. We get the short week here in addition to Seattle traveling east off the home game late Sunday afternoon.

The Seahawks are the better team. They need the game and I think they’ll win here.

The sharps at Sharp Hunter think this game goes OVER the 42.5 total and we have a sharp score to back it up.

In the final Thursday Night game of the NFL season, I’m on the other side of the sharps and betting the UNDER.

LET’S BUILD A PARLAY FOR TNF!