New York Jets (6-9) at Buffalo Bills (10-5)

I’m going to do the rest of my picks this weekend as normal, but I want to get a couple quick ones out of the way. There are four games this week where a team is expected to rest starters with their seeding locked in or all but locked in. Two of those games (Baltimore/Pittsburgh and Houston/Tennessee) have one team playing for their playoff lives, so at least one side will be highly motivated in those matchups. In the other two games, the other side is eliminated from the post-season and might not care much about a game against an opponent who is playing a lot of backups. 

This game falls into the latter category (Minnesota/Chicago is the other). With the Bills getting eliminated from the division after their loss in New England last week and both the Titans and Steelers losing last week, the Bills are now locked into the 5th seed in the AFC and will rest key players for all or most of the game to keep them fresh for the wild card round. The Jets may play hard for pride, but I’m skeptical that they’ll take the Bills’ backups seriously, with the off-season right around the corner.

If neither of these teams are going to put much effort into this game, I’m not going to put much effort into this write-up. I would have this line calculated at Buffalo -6 under normal circumstances, so this line at Buffalo -1.5 doesn’t seem like it’s swung enough. In the Minnesota/Chicago matchup, there are 8 points of difference between my calculated line under normal circumstances and this actual line, but in this one the difference is just 4.5 points. I have no desire to wager anything of significance on this game, but I’m taking the Jets for pick ‘em purposes.

Buffalo Bills 17 New York Jets 16

Pick against the spread: NY Jets +1.5

Confidence: None