The NFL and sports world at large came to a halt on Monday with the on-field incident involving Bills safety Damar Hamlin, who suffered cardiac arrest during the Monday Night Football game between the Bills and Bengals. He remains in critical condition at the UC Medical Center in Cincinnati, and CBSSports.com will continue to provide updates as they become available.

I'll be breaking down Week 18 in the NFL below, but Hamlin's well-being is the only thing that truly matters with regards to what happens in professional football this week. Hamlin, his family, his teammates and everyone on that field Monday will remain in our thoughts and hearts.

In this space, we try to forecast what the spreads of each NFL game should be each week based on a power ratings system that incorporates team strength and home-field advantage (we'll detail in further in a minute). But those projected spreads hinge on each team being fully motivated to win its game, and in the final week of the season, we know that's far from the case.

Some teams have playoff positioning locked up and appear likely to rest players. Others were just eliminated from playoff contention and may find it hard getting up for one final game before their offseason begins. In a few cases, a win would jeopardize the chance to select at the top of the NFL Draft, which could be the difference between ending up with Trevor Lawrence or Zach Wilson at quarterback.

When building power ratings, I don't factor in potential rest of playoff teams as I want to see what a line would be if both teams were going all out to win. So in the final week of the season, we run into certain games where my projected line is further away from the actual spread than it would be at any other point of the season. In those situations, further analysis of the situation is required. The Buccaneers would be three-point favorites in Atlanta as those teams are currently constructed if they were still playing for the division title, according to my power ratings, but we'll have to use factors like the quality of the backups at key positions and the sharpness of the coaching staff on gameday to know which side of the spread might be the right side.

What are power ratings? Well, anyone who has followed football (or really any sport) for any length of time has encountered a power rankings list that projects teams from best to worst. Where power ratings for NFL betting differs is that you're affixing a point total to each team that tells you how much better or worse it is from an average team. For example, if you think the Vikings are the midpoint of the league, their power rating would be a zero. If you think the Packers are a little bit better, you might make them a +1. The Chargers may be another step above and worth a +2 rating. Going the other way, you may think the Browns are a -1 or -2 team (or even worse).

After you've rated all 32 teams in this fashion, you can take the difference between two teams in a scheduled matchup to determine what the line would be on a neutral field. In our example above, we'd say the Chargers should be favored by two points against the Vikings on a neutral field. Then you add in home field advantage, which for a long time was considered three points as a standard but is actually lower on average in this era of football. I actually determine unique home field advantage totals for each team based on data from the last five years, and you can find my breakdown of this year's home-field advantage ratings here. I updated the HFA numbers of a few teams in my weekly workbook after six weeks and again after 12 weeks with a better understanding of which teams are good and bad, and which fan bases are likely to be more engaged than previously anticipated.

I've dived into each Week 18 game and evaluated my Week 18 power ratings to see what needed to be adjusted. I've also shared analysis of the most extreme differences between my projected lines and the market, as well as done the math to project the spread of every game based on my power ratings.

Which lines are several points off their power rating projections for Week 18? And which teams are being undervalued by the market? ... Join SportsLine right now to see Week 18 power ratings from the expert who's 445-378-24 on ATS picks from 2017-21, returning $2,542 to $100 players!