It's Week 16 in the NFL, and with the playoffs around the corner, we have some great matchups this weekend, including two on Saturday with playoff implications in Bills-Patriots and Rams-49ers. Sunday brings the game that should decide the NFC East in Cowboys-Eagles, while Monday night features a massive NFC North showdown in Packers-Vikings.

But for gamblers, the biggest edge comes in the games on the other end of the spectrum, those featuring two bad teams. The teams with the top four picks play each other, with the Bengals on the road against the Dolphins and the Redskins hosting the Giants. In Week 16, if you have a matchup between two teams that finish the year with a losing record, here's the rule: take the points.

Going back to 2000, teams that will finish the year with a losing record getting points against another team that will finish the year with a losing record are 54-26-4 against the spread in Week 16. That's a massive 67.5% cover rate! When you think about it, it makes sense. There's no real way to judge the motivation factor for bad teams at the end of the year, so if the betting market is willing to give you points in a matchup between two bad teams, just take them.

The trend gets even better if you throw out matchups where one team is favored by two points or fewer, which as of Tuesday evening would apply to Bengals-Dolphins. In those matchups the underdog is just 4-4, so underdogs of 2.5 points or more since 2000 are 50-22-4 against the spread in Week 16.

The Browns are a mess, Drew Brees' legend is growing and the 2020 draft is just four months away. Brady Quinn, Ryan Wilson and Will Brinson break down all that and more on the Pick Six Podcast. Listen below and be sure to subscribe for daily NFL goodness.

So what does this mean for you this week? Take the 3-11 Giants against the 3-11 Redskins. Take the 3-10-1 Lions in Denver against the 5-9 Broncos, who can finish no better than 7-9. And take the 5-9 Jaguars against the 5-9 Falcons. I can't say I love any of those teams, but history says they'll cover more often than not. The Raiders and Colts are 6-8 now, so there's no guarantee they finish the year with a losing record, but if you think that's likely for either, you can add them to your value list too.

Each week, I break down what you need to know about each game from a betting angle before you lock in your picks. I'll talk about big line moves, teasers and parlays to consider and more.  

If you want to know which sides I like, you can find that info at the SportsLine link below, where all my rated plays appear during the season along with my five SuperContest picks each week and plenty of great analysis from a fantastic collection of experts. You can also check out where all our CBS Sports staff lands on each game each week right here.

My picks

Over at SportsLine, I'll be posting my picks for Week 16 throughout the week. Join now and use promo code WHITE for $1 on your first month and you can get mine and every SportsLine expert's picks throughout the year, as well as my SuperContest picks each Saturday.

Big line moves (lookaheads)

Texans -3 at Buccaneers (was PK)
Saints -3 at Titans (was PK)
Cowboys -3 at Eagles (was PK)
Ravens -10 at Browns (was BAL -7)
Bengals at Dolphins -1 (was MIA -3)

Lookaheads are lines that are posted for matchups before the previous week's games. Analyzing the biggest movers is beneficial for smart bettors, who have a chance to examine those moves to determine whether there's value in playing against a potential overreaction. Last week, fading the big moves went 6-0, though put an asterisk on the Eagles covering. The other winners included the Cowboys, Chiefs, Jaguars, Packers and Bills.

The three pick 'ems on the lookahead all shot up to the road team being favored by three points after convincing wins by the Saints and Cowboys, as well as ... the Bucs losing another pass-catcher, I guess? Not sure I have a great explanation for that one. The Ravens also shot up three points after the Browns' latest stumble, while the gap is closing between the Bengals and Dolphins in the betting market.

Who should you back against the spread, on the money line and the total in every Week 16 NFL game? And which Super Bowl contender goes down? Visit SportsLine to see their Week 16 NFL cheat sheet, all from the model that is up almost $7,000 on its top-rated NFL picks.  

Where DVOA disagrees with line

Texans -3 at Buccaneers
Giants at Redskins -2.5
Bengals at Dolphins -1
Packers at Vikings -4.5

Part of my research each week is calculating the DVOA as tracked by Football Outsiders and seeing where the metric has a significant disagreement with the market. For this section, I employ the weighted DVOA statistic, which puts more emphasis on more recent games. Trusting DVOA last week led to a 2-1 mark, hitting on the Eagles and Cowboys but missing on the Titans.

The Texans make another appearance here this week, and DVOA believes the line is way off, as the weighted metric has the Bucs as the clearly better team in this matchup. In fact, our projections have this game almost 10 points off, with the Bucs projected to be favored by 6.5 points. Is the gap between a team playing for January and a team already eliminated enough to erase that huge gap? We'll see in the Saturday matinee.

Washington doesn't have a good home-field advantage historically, and with the Giants owning a better weighted DVOA, this game should be around pick 'em, per our projections.

The weighted DVOA metric says the Bengals are much better than the Dolphins, a team with one of the worst pass defenses in recent memory. Giving the Dolphins two points for home-field advantage, the Bengals should be -2 in this matchup, per our projections.

There are a few other matchups that come close to my line of demarcation to listing the matchup here, but the only other one that gets over the edge comes on Monday night, where the Vikings are considered a much better team than the Packers in weighted DVOA. Factoring in their home-field advantage, the line projection for the matchup is Vikings -7.

Fading the public

Chiefs -5.5 at Bears
Ravens -10 at Browns
Texans -3 at Buccaneers
Cowboys -3 at Eagles

If 80% of the action or more is on one side of a line, you want to be thinking about taking the other side, a practice commonly known as fading the public. If the consensus thinks it has a game figured out, that should be flashing warning signs for you. All betting trends data is from Sports Insights as of Tuesday night.

The Chiefs are massive public favorites at this point of the week, topping 90% of the tickets. The Rams were in the same spot last week, so be careful hopping on Kansas City. The Ravens are close to 90%, while the Texans and Cowboys check in a little lower but above our 80% mark. 

Underdog parlay of the week

Bucs +140 vs. Texans
Jaguars +275 at Falcons

With all the indicators above that favor the Bucs, they have to be featured in this space. On the other side, I wanted to throw one of our bad-matchup 'dogs in here and bump up our potential payout, and using the Jags gets us to +800. Why can't they beat the Falcons, a 5-9 team with a coach likely on his way out that's coming off a huge road upset?

Want a free shot to win $1,000,000 just for picking winners? How about 17 of 'em? Join Parlay Pick'em now to play every week for a million-dollar jackpot and our $10K season prize.

Teaser of the week

Bengals +7 at Dolphins
Packers +10.5 at Vikings

I love getting a touchdown against a Miami team with a horrendous pass defense, leaving the backdoor wide open if we need it. And the Vikings pass defense hasn't been as crisp as it typically is, so I like that we're getting double digits with a Packers team that doesn't look as strong as its record but is still a good team overall.

The teaser of the week is just 7-8 this year after a 12-5 run in 2018, but we got a win last week and needed every point of our teaser after the Eagles tacked on a late TD, which didn't ruin our Redskins +10.5 leg. The Bills won outright, so we didn't even need our 8.5 points.