ESPN senior writer Mike Sando asks league insiders to pick winners in selected games each week. Three evaluators joined the panel for Week 17. This week's selected games: Panthers-Falcons, Cardinals-Seahawks, Jaguars-Titans, Raiders-Chargers and Saints-Buccaneers.
Carolina Panthers at Atlanta Falcons
Sunday: 4:25 p.m. ET, Fox | Point spread: ATL by 4 | PickCenter
Two of three insiders are taking Carolina to win on the road against the defending NFC champions, a result that would eliminate the Falcons from the playoffs while clearing a path for Seattle to qualify as the sixth seed. Carolina has an outside shot at the NFC's second seed and could win the division. The Panthers won the first game between the teams 20-17.
"The Carolina linebacker corps with [Luke] Kuechly and Thomas Davis matches up against those Atlanta backs better than most people's linebacker corps, so now the only way Atlanta capitalizes is to get Julio [Jones] involved," one of the insiders said. "They have not done a great job keeping Julio involved. As soon as people double Julio, they go away from him. That is the biggest deal, and then Julius Peppers is still playing well."