The first weekend of calendar year 2026 also marks the final one of the 2025 NFL regular season − and the league seems poised to ring in the new year properly.
Twelve of Week 18’s 16 games are set to have some level of impact on the largely fluid playoff field − 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 and New York Giants are hardly meaningless, either.)
As it pertains to setting up the Super Bowl 60 tournament, Saturday should be especially fun − starting in the afternoon, when the Carolina Panthers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers might decide who wins the NFC South … though an already eliminated squad might still get a say on that front. The prime-time game features the rematch of the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers − 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.
Sunday afternoon won’t have as many tidy matchups, even as the Denver Broncos, New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars jockey for the No. 1 seed in the AFC, while the Jags and Houston Texans continue trying to capture the AFC South throne.
However Sunday night, the 272nd and final game of the regular season, will have winner-take-all stakes as the archrival Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens vie for the AFC North title in the latest installment of their border way. The loser goes gets nothing.
How does this chaos resolve before 18 teams book their tee times? USA TODAY Sports’ crew of NFL experts break out their crystal balls:
(Odds provided by BetMGM)
Week 18 picks, predictions, odds
Panthers at Buccaneers
Seahawks at 49ers
Packers at Vikings
Browns at Bengals
Saints at Falcons
Cowboys at Giants
Colts at Texans
Titans at Jaguars
Chargers at Broncos
Chiefs at Raiders
Jets at Bills
Commanders at Eagles
Lions at Bears
Cardinals at Rams
Dolphins at Patriots
Ravens at Steelers