It may be Christmas week, but the NFL will not take a holiday break. The NFL will host Week 17 games on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, providing numerous gifts for fans but not so much for players, particularly those on the Kansas City Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens (both teams had Yuletide duty in 2023).
A year ago, Kansas City exploited a Christmas loss to the lowly Las Vegas Raiders to kick off their current Super Bowl run. This season, the Chiefs can secure a first-round bye and home-field advantage by defeating the Steelers at Pittsburgh on Wednesday.
Following that game, the Ravens will travel to Houston to face the Texans and possibly catch some of Beyoncé’s halftime show.
The Seattle Seahawks’ final Thursday night game of the season is less enticing, but they will most likely need to defeat the Chicago Bears to keep their NFC West title aspirations alive.
If not, the Los Angeles Rams can clinch the division on Saturday by defeating the Arizona Cardinals. The Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos can potentially secure wild-card spots on Saturday.
That makes for a light Sunday with only nine games, but the Green Bay Packers’ rematch with the Minnesota Vikings might be the game of the weekend… though the Vikings will have considerably more at stake given the Pack’s inability to win the NFC North at this point.
The Detroit Lions can win the NFC North (along with the conference’s No. 1 seed) and may do so Monday night by defeating the 49ers in Northern California… if Green Bay defeats Minnesota first.
USA TODAY Sports’ panel of NFL experts will try to guess what’s in the Week 17 packages before they’re unwrapped…