The NFL’s Week 17 backup quarterback parade will continue Saturday evening, with Tyler Huntley and Malik Willis filling in for Lamar Jackson and Jordan Love. This season, the Ravens are 1-2 SU with Jackson inactive. This will be the first time in 2025 that Green Bay has been without their starting signal caller for a full game.

Kickoff between the Ravens and Packers is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET on Peacock.

If looking for a fun way to sweat Saturday’s action, I have put together a three-leg same game parlay (+415) for this game. As always, it is worth noting that straight wagers are a far more profitable long-term betting strategy than parlays. Still, parlays can be a fun way to get some extra action on a game to make things interesting!

Check this one out, or visit our Same-Game Parlay Tool to build one for yourself.

Baltimore Ravens @ Green Bay Packers Same Game Parlay

Leg 1: Baltimore Ravens Under 17.5 Team Total Points

(-130)

Green Bay’s defense has been sensational at home in 2025. They have held their opponents to 13, 18, 18, 16, 10, 6 and 21 points in seven games at Lambeau Field. Saturday, they will get to host the Lamar-less Ravens.

Baltimore has scored 10 points or fewer in two of the three games started by someone not named Lamar Jackson in 2025, with the lone exception being a home game against a bad Chicago defense. They aren’t likely to find a similar level of success in this matchup against Green Bay.

Leg 2: Derrick Henry 60+ Rushing Yards

(-195)

In three games without Lamar Jackson this season, the Ravens have done everything they can to get Derrick Henry going on the ground. He’s had 15, 24 and 21 rush attempts in those contests.

Green Bay’s run defense has done a good job limiting big plays, but they have struggled on a down-to-down basis, ranking only 24th in success rate since Week 13. Henry should be able to find at least some room to run on the ground in this matchup.

Leg 3: Zay Flowers Over 4.5 Receptions

(-142)

Our FTN model loves this play on Zay Flowers, who has at least 5 receptions in each of the team’s three games that they have started a backup quarterback in 2025. Tyler Huntley doesn’t have a particularly good deep ball, but that shouldn’t be a major detractor for Flowers, who operates a lot near the line of scrimmage in short and intermediate routes.

The NFL’s prime-time Christmas Day matchup between the Broncos and Chiefs certainly lost some of its luster when Patrick Mahomes went down with a season-ending injury, but there are still reasons to think Thursday’s contest could be entertaining – at least from a betting perspective!

If looking for a fun way to sweat Thursday’s holiday action, I have put together a three-leg same game parlay (+650) for the evening’s game. As always, it is worth noting that straight wagers are a far more profitable long-term betting strategy than parlays. Still, parlays can be a fun way to get some extra action on a game to make things interesting!

Check this one out, or visit our Same-Game Parlay Tool to build one for yourself.

Denver Broncos @ Kansas City Chiefs Same Game Parlay

Leg 1: Evan Engram Under 3.5 Receptions

-174

During Denver’s last three games, Evan Engram has played only 74 snaps, compared to 125 snaps for Adam Trautman. During that span, Engram hasn’t seen more than 4 targets or played more than 28 snaps.

The Chiefs defense is going to be in rough shape Thursday, with so many players on injured reserve, but Engram simply hasn’t been on the field enough to justify this number being so high.

Leg 2: Chris Oladokun Over 29.5 Pass Attempts

-108

Kansas City hasn’t had an explosive run in either of the last two games, and that doesn’t figure to change much during their final couple of contests, given how much of their offensive line is on injured reserve. Thursday in particular, they will have to face a strong Denver run defense. The likely consequence of having a non-existent rushing attack against a good defensive front is that Chris Oladokun should be very busy through the air on Christmas Day – especially if the Chiefs are facing a negative gamescript, which is expected.

Leg 3: RJ Harvey 70-Plus Rushing Yards

+174

In Week 16, Tony Pollard and Tyjae Spears combined to gain 154 rushing yards on 34 attempts (4.53 yards per carry) against the injury-depleted Chiefs defense. On Christmas, RJ Harvey will get his turn to see if he can put up some gaudy numbers.

Harvey has been the clear lead option for Denver’s ground attack since J.K. Dobbins went down with a season-ending injury in Week 10. Since that point, Harvey has received 67 of the 94 attempts that have gone to the team’s running backs, including 16 of 20 red zone carries.

If Harvey can break a big run or two Thursday, he could be well on his way to cashing his alts.

Week 17 is the end … for fantasy football contests. If you play NFL Survivor, you have this week and next week to keep track of. So Week 17 isn’t to win it all. It’s to stay alive.

Which brings me to the process for my Week 17 pick, below. And if you’re into numbers, don’t miss Aaron Schatz’s legendary content and our StatsHub advanced stats research tool for next-level insights.

NFL Survivor Picks for Week 17

Every week, we have the same process. We eliminate teams in groups until we narrow it down to our real considerations. Start with all 32, whittle it down. Also, just for the record — this game is “once you use a team, they’re off the board,” so I won’t pick a team I’ve already used. That said, I won’t eliminate such a team until I get to my final decision, because we don’t know if you used the team I used.

Opponent Is Too Good

Maybe these are good teams, maybe not, but it’s too hard to trust them given who they are facing. This is a 10-team list every week (fewer when there are byes); we are eliminating anyone facing a top-10 team in our FTN NFL Power Rankings.

Atlanta Falcons (vs. LA Rams)
Buffalo Bills (vs. Philadelphia)
Carolina Panthers (vs. Seattle)
Chicago Bears (@ San Francisco)
Indianapolis Colts (vs. Jacksonville)
Kansas City Chiefs (vs. Denver)
Los Angeles Chargers (vs. Houston)
New York Jets (vs. New England)
Philadelphia Eagles (@ Buffalo)
San Francisco 49ers (vs. Chicago)

That’s 10 off the board, leaving us 22 to go.

They’re Too Bad

You can face the worst team in all of football, but if you’re the second-worst team, well, I’m still not going to be too excited about selecting you. We’ll return to the power rankings here and cross off any team in the bottom 12.

Arizona Cardinals (@ Cincinnati)
Cincinnati Bengals (vs. Arizona)
Cleveland Browns (vs. Pittsburgh)
Las Vegas Raiders (vs. NY Giants)
Miami Dolphins (vs. Tampa Bay)
Minnesota Vikings (vs. Detroit)
New Orleans Saints (@ Tennessee)
New York Giants (@ Las Vegas)
Tennessee Titans (vs. New Orleans)
Washington Commanders (vs. Dallas)

Ten more out leaves us with 12.

Want more tools and analysis to keep you alive in your survivor pool? Check out PoolGenius for all the best offerings.

Island Games

This one isn’t a hard-and-fast category — if I don’t have another pick I like and feel like a prime-time (or Europe) game is just the overwhelming choice, I might double back. Generally speaking, the spotlight games are just weird. That’s not analysis, but also you know I’m right. I would much rather avoid games on Thursday, Sunday or Monday night. And as we get to the final few weeks, the Saturday-and-whatever-else games are ones to avoid as well.

Lot of them this week! And yes, some of them (Thursday in particular) feature some teams in really bad situations, but … it’s still “weird time of week.” I want to steer clear.

Baltimore Ravens (@ Green Bay)
Dallas Cowboys (@ Washington)
Denver Broncos (@ Kansas City)
Detroit Lions (@ Minnesota)
Green Bay Packers (vs. Baltimore)
Houston Texans (@ LA Chargers)
Los Angeles Rams (@ Atlanta)

Seven more. We have five left — our nine contenders.

The Contenders

Once we’re down to this small a number of teams, we’re done cutting them in swaths. We look at the pros and cons for each team and then figure it out. I’m also diving into our NFL Betting Model to see what the numbers think of the game.

Jacksonville Jaguars (@ Indianapolis)

Model Projection: Jaguars 23.56-20.89, Jaguars 57.5% win rate

Pros: Suddenly, the Jaguars look like one of the league’s elite teams, while the Colts have lost six of seven and the defense couldn’t stop a feather last week.

Cons: The Colts have their backs against the wall. And it was only a couple months ago that absolutely no one trusted the Jags.

New England Patriots (@ NY Jets)

Model Projection: Patriots 30.10-14.49, Patriots 86.1% win rate

Pros: The Patriots might be the 1 seed in the AFC. The Jets might have the first pick in the NFL Draft.

Cons: Maybe the Patriots decide to give the Jets a Christmas present? Short of absolute charity, I got nothin’.

Pittsburgh Steelers (@ Cleveland)

Model Projection: Steelers 18.59-15.26, Steelers 62.1% win rate

Pros: The Steelers have every motivation to win and potentially lock up the AFC North. The Browns have no such motivation.

Cons: The Cleveland defense still has the ability to go game-wrecker mode.

Seattle Seahawks (@ Carolina)

Model Projection: Seahawks 24.64-20.55, Seahawks 61.2% win rate

Pros: The Seahawks are pretty unequivocally a better team than the Panthers and have been road monsters under Mike Macdonald.

Cons: The Panthers just happen to beat elite teams with surprising frequency this season.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@ Miami)

Model Projection: Buccaneers 25.90-20.64, Buccaneers 63.8% win rate

Pros: The Dolphins appear to have all but phoned in the season. Maybe Notre Dame can play them if they want a good opponent.

Cons: The Buccaneers have fallen apart before our eyes. Can they beat anyone anymore?

The Pick

New England Patriots (@ NY Jets)

It felt a little silly to eliminate all the bad Thursday matchups in one fell swoop, but even if I still had them available to me (and even if I hadn’t already selected all the other teams in The Contenders), the Patriots would still be the easy pick. Imagine what would have to happen for the Jets to win this game. I can’t think of a non-natural-disaster scenario.

Honorable Mention

Denver Broncos (@ Kansas City) — if you didn’t use them when I did
Los Angeles Rams (@ Atlanta) — if you didn’t use them when I did

2025 record: 13-3

Week 1: Broncos (W)
Week 2: Rams (W)
Week 3: Chiefs (W)
Week 4: Packers (L)
Week 5: Cardinals (L)
Week 6: Steelers (W)
Week 7: Bears (W)
Week 8: Colts (W)
Week 9: Chargers (W)
Week 10: Lions (W)
Week 11: Ravens (W)
Week 12: Seahawks (W)
Week 13: Jaguars (W)
Week 14: Buccaneers (L)
Week 15: 49ers (W)
Week 16: Texans (W)
Week 17: Patriots