Week 2 was schizophrenic. I don’t think many people saw the Ravens and 49ers losing to vastly inferior teams, but that’s how it goes in the NFL, especially with teams doing very little in the preseason. The first month or so is all over the map with many big spreads and surprises. As we march forward, though, there’s more “film” on each team, and trends start to develop, so let’s hope this week shakes out a little bit more predictably.
NE @ NYJ -6.5: How the mighty have fallen. Back in the day, the Patriots played more prime-time games than anybody outside of the Cowboys, but this week 3 TNF showdown with the Jets is their only appearance in prime time all year. As a Patriots fan, I’m totally cool with this because, if we’re in the circle of trust and can speak freely for a moment, I’m not looking to stay up until 11:30 on a school night to watch the Patriots grind out a 24-21 loss. BUT, the lack of prime-time appearances directly reflects the state of the Patriots franchise, and that makes me sad. Anyways, on to the game.
The Patriots do what they do, and they don’t try to hide it. Through two weeks, their running game looks to be elite, but their passing game lacks any true sparkle. It’s been good enough for a 1-1 record with their loss last week coming in overtime against a fringe playoff team in the Seahawks. That said, this style of football severely limits the Patriots for two reasons. First, it almost totally eliminates the chance for a big play. Sure, Gibson ripped off a 40-yard run in the 4th quarter last week, but outside of that play, it was 4 yards and a cloud of dust rubber pellets all day for the Patriots offense. The second reason piggybacks on the first, and it’s the clock. When you pick up most of your yards on the ground, the clock is constantly running and you have no chance to move the ball quickly in clock terms. Simply put, this style of play shortens the game for the Patriots – and their opponents – which is a double-edged sword. If they can flash even one or two chunk pass plays, just enough to force opponents to respect the vertical game, that’d be a huge plus for a Patriots offense moving forward. The Jets’ defense is vulnerable against the run, so I don’t see anything changing this week, especially given the quick turn.
How will the Patriots’ defense match up with the Jets offense? I’m really not sure. Aaron Rodgers has not looked particularly good so far, but I’m not quite ready to write him off just yet. If he continues to play mediocre football, the Patriots defense will hold them to somewhere around 20 points, but if Rodgers shakes off the inevitable rust that comes when you don’t play football for almost 2 years, he can put up 30 and, as mentioned above, the Patriots offensive style simply won’t allow them to keep up with the Jets on the scoreboard.
I don’t think the Patriots will win, but I also don’t think the Jets will win by 7, so I’ll take the Patriots to cover in a typically ugly TNF game. Pick: Patriots
DEN @ TB -6.5: Bo Nix looks lost, and Baker and the Bucs look like they’re going to waltz to 10 wins. Sure, last week I was confident in picking the Ravens and 49ers to cover big spreads and we all know how that worked out, but much like those games, I can’t see the Broncos being able to keep up with a Bucs offense that has looked really good so far. Also, it’s going to be 90 degrees and humid as FUCK in Tampa on Sunday which is just another checkmark in the Bucs column. Pick: Bucs
HOU @ MIN +2.5: If this was a week 1 matchup, the Texans would be 7+ point favorites in a game that would have been seen as a mismatch. CJ Stroud vs Sam Darnold doesn’t sound like a fair fight, but heading into this matchup it’s a lot closer than anyone expected. The Vikings beat up on a bad Giants team in week 1 and outplayed a Super Bowl favorite in the 49ers last week with the aforementioned Darnold looking like the guy the Jets were expecting to see when they drafted him in the first round a few years ago. The Texans look like the team everyone expected when the season kicked off. A high-powered offense paired with a more than good enough defense. They’re also 2-0 with wins over the Colts and Bears to their name. Two weeks is not a big enough sample size for my opinion of the Vikings to truly shift, so I’ll ride with the Texans to cover on the road, but if Minnesota plays another clean game and wins, they’re officially on the map and have to be taken seriously moving forward. Pick: Texans
LAC @ PIT -2: The Steelers offense makes the Patriots look like a high-powered machine. Through 2 weeks they have scored one TD and about 600 field goals en route to a 2-0 start. Much like the Patriots, they ride an elite defense and enter every week with the mindset of “the first team to 20 wins the game.” The Chargers are also 2-0 on the young season and look like a much more polished team under Harbaugh than they did under that asshat Staley last year. Oh yeah, they also have a good QB in Herbert who, despite his flaws and lack of true (i.e. post-season) success, is light years better than Fields. For that reason and that reason alone, I’ll take the Chargers in this one. Pick: Chargers
PHI @ NO -2: Last week I said Derek Carr looked like Peyton Fucking Manning in a week 1 route of the lowly Panthers. I figured that was an elite performance against a bad team, but he was even better last week against a legit playoff team in Dallas. Earlier in this blog I said I wasn’t going to truly buy in on a surprise 2-0 team in the Vikings until I saw them do it for a third week in a row, but this feels a little different. Shit, they’re averaging 45.5 points a game thus far, so even if they fall off a bit against a good if not great team in the Eagles, they should still be able to put up 30 given their playmakers. The Eagles suffered an UGLY loss on Monday night against Khols Kash Kirk at home and things just don’t look right with them…especially their coach. I’ll take the Saints to win this one by a TD or more and officially put the league on notice. Pick: Saints
GB @ TEN -3: Malik Willis did enough last week to win but certainly didn’t light the world on fire against the Colts. The Titans have lost their first two games of the season because of stupid, boneheaded plays by their weirdo QB Will Levis. As someone who had to suffer through backbreaking turnover after backbreaking turnover these last few years watching Mac Jones play QB, I sympathize with Titans fans, but I also offer a warning to them that this generally doesn’t get better. Those stupid turnovers don’t stop and tend to get worse as things play out and the young QB starts pressing. I’ll be picking against the Titans every week moving forward unless there is an astronomically high spread, and that starts now. Pick: Packers
NYG @ CLE -6.5: These two teams stink out loud. Daniel Jones is truly inept, and Deshaun Watson is rich as FUCK and doesn’t care anymore. It’s actually impressive how uninterested he is given how much the Browns paid him and how tarnished his reputation is. I’m not excusing the things he allegedly did, but if he played well and won a few playoff games in Cleveland, the court of public opinion would start to turn around on him. Instead, he’s doubling down on being a fucking dunce. From a pure talent perspective, the Browns should roll in this one against an outmatched and outmanned Giants team, but something feels very off in Cleveland so I’ll take the bad team that knows their bad and does what they do to cover against a team that had Super Bowl aspirations heading into the season and is slowly realizing they stink and seem ripe to fold like a Wal Mart tent. Pick: Giants
CHI @ IND -2.5: Before 2 sentences of analysis on this one, I want to point out the scheduling anomaly for the Bears. They open their season with three straight games against the AFC South. Very weird. Anyways, the Caleb Williams experience is not off to the start that Bears fans expected, but thanks to Will Levis’ turnover fetish, they snagged a week 1 win despite Williams throwing for a robust 95 yards in a very Jacoby Brissett-esque performance. Last week was a reality check against an elite Texans team that dominated the Bears on both sides of the ball. I still think Williams will be a very good QB and will show the world a little more of the magic that won him a Heisman at USC against an 0-2 Colts team that lost to a backup QB in Green Bay last week. Pick: Bears
MIA @ SEA -5.5: The Dolphins without Tua are not a good team. Hell, even with Tua they have looked very pedestrian through 2 games this year, and dating back to the last quarter of the 2023 season things have not looked right with them for a good stretch. The Dolphins playmakers, Hill, Waddle, and Achane are Lamborghini’s being driven by a grandma with Skyler Thompson under center. The Seahawks play mistake-free football and while Geno Smith is no Peyton Manning Derek Carr, he is better than most give him credit for, doesn’t turn the ball over a ton, and has enough weapons to hang with almost anybody. 5.5 points is a decent number, but I think the Dolphins are feeling bad for themselves after Tua’s 347th concussion and will come out dead. Pick: Seahawks
CAR @ LV -5.5: Andy Dalton vs Gardner Minshew is the matchup America has been looking forward to since the schedule was released. All jokes aside, the Raiders takedown of the Ravens last week was an eye-opener for a team that I thought was destined for a top 5 pick in April. Rookie TE Brokc Bowers seems to be as advertised, and if Gardner Minshew doesn’t turn the ball over too much they will do just enough to be annoying for opponents. The Panthers, on the other hand, are a fucking joke. They benched the #1 overall pick last year in Bryce Young just 18 games into his tenure and seem to be a franchise without a direction. Their owner has officially taken over the vacant seat left by Daniel Snyder as the most hated owner in the NFL and seems to be intentionally driving his franchise into an iceberg. I’m no believer in the Raiders long-term, but they’ll stay hot and handle the Red Rifel easily, winning by a TD or more. Pick: Raiders
BAL @ DAL +1: Raise your hand if you had the Ravens losing both of their first two games before the season started. Yeah, me neither. Sure it’s still early, but dropping to 0-3 is a deep hole that they may not be able to dig out of given the perceived strength of their division. Dallas got their ass whooped by the greatest show on field turf last week and are in desperate need of a bounce-back game, at home, against a legit opponent. I’m torn on which way to go here. I think both Lamar and Dak are good but flawed signal callers who can’t seem to win the big one but do enough during the regular season to secure a home playoff game most years. The real difference between these two teams is the head coaches. Harbaugh isn’t an elite coach in my opinion, but he’s definitely above average while Mike McCarthy flat-out blows. I’ve said it a thousand times on this blog, but he’s a wind sock for Jerry Jones who either can’t or won’t hire a strong head coach that would push back on him and tell him to shut his botox-filled mouth. I’ll roll with Harbaugh here to get his season back on the rails and cast some serious doubt on the whole operation in Dallas. Pick: Ravens
SF @ LAR +7: I was at the Patriots game last week so I didn’t watch much football besides a bit of late window Red Zone so I didn’t see any of the 49er’s loss to the Vikings but I, along with basically everyone else, was shocked to see the score. One bad loss is not a problem, especially for a known commodity like the 49ers, but the absolute beatdown the Rams suffered at the hands of the Cardinals is a whole different story. That was an absolute demolition and I think it may be more indicative of where the Rams are as a franchise than it is of where the Cardinals are. Let me explain.
The Cardinals are a young(ish) team on the rise that is bearing the fruits of multiple top 10 picks and were able to snag a generational talent, potentially, in Marvin Harrison Jr with the 4th pick this year. Kyler is 2 years removed from ACL surgery and looks to be back to his old ways. Simply put, the Cardinals almost have to be a team on the rise. The Rams, however, are getting Old. They lost Aaron Donald to retirement this year, Stafford is another year older, Cooper Kupp is hurt yet again, and the team, as a whole, feels…old. McVay is still a great head coach, but I think the roster they have in LA is more of a middle-of-the-pack squad than the elite one that won a Super Bowl a few years ago.
Listen, I don’t think the Rams are going to finish 5-12, but I’d be shocked if they finished over .500 this year, especially if they lose this one and drop to 0-3. For that reason, and that reason alone, I’ll take the Rams to cover in a game they almost need to win to cling to any playoff hope. Pick: Rams
DET @ ARI +3: Speaking of the Cardinals, they looked really good in their beatdown of the Rams last week, but the Lions are a different animal. They are a favorite to go to the Super Bowl, and coming off a loss, I have to think they’re going to come out with a chip on their shoulder in this one. They’re giving 3 points on the road which means Vegas thinks they’re 6-points better than the Cardinals with home teams generally getting 3 on the spread and I tend to agree. I’ll take the Lions here, but I think this is going to be a great game to watch with a ton of points, and in games like that, the team with the ball last usually wins. The real bet here is to hammer the over 51.5 points. Pick: Rams and the over.
KC @ ATL +3.5: The Falcons stunned the Eagles on Monday night in week 2, but, the Chiefs are the Chiefs and the Eagles are most definitely NOT the Chiefs. KC is rolling along at 2-0 with nail-biting wins over two AFC contenders in the Ravens and Bengals. They could easily be 0-2, but when you have Patrick Mahomes, you win those games just like Brady-lead teams used to get every single fucking break for 20 years (which was glorious). Kirk looked light years better in week 2 than he did against the Steelers in week 1, and I’d assume he’ll continue to improve as he gets more comfortable in this offense and can trust his surgically repaired achilies more and more. That ain’t gonna be enough against the Chiefs, though. I don’t think the Falcons will get blown out, but until the Chiefs lose one, I can’t pick against them, and the 3.5-point spread is not quite enough to give me any doubt in KC covering. Pick: Chiefs
JAX @ BUF -5.5: The Jags may be in trouble here. They are 0-2 with losses to the Dolphins and the Browns, neither of whom are actually good teams. Doug Pederson and Trevor Lawrence pulled the Jags into the playoffs in their first year together, but it all fell apart last year (with some injuries to blame) and things are not off to a good start this year. Much like the Rams and Ravens, the Jags NEED this one to keep any real playoff hope alive, but I don’t think Josh Allen cares too much about the Jags playoff chances. The Bills, as they have been for the last handful of years, are really fucking good. In fact, they may be better this year than in years past due to “addition by subtraction” in shipping Diggs out of town. I think the Jags will come out with urgency, but the Bills feel inevitable, so, much like the Chiefs, I’m riding with Josh Allen and Co. until I’m given reason to second guess. Pick: Bills
WSH @ CIN -8: Ho hum, another perceived contender that has started the season 0-2. The Bengals were tough luck losers to the aforementioned Chiefs last week and were totally outplayed and outcoached (Jerrod Mayo, baby!) in week 1 against the fucking Patriots. I’m still a believer in Joe Burrow. Full Stop. But I’m starting to lose faith in the Bengals operation. Not getting Jamar signed is a head-scratching move, although I’ll allow for the possibility that his contract demands are just so astronomically high that they truly can’t come to an agreement. Tee Higgins is either hurt or holding out for a deal of his own meaning their two best pass catchers are unhappy and probably not playing as hard as they can. Messy all around in Cincy and their 0-2 start is not helping anything. The Commanders are in true rebuild mode, but they think they have the most important piece secured in rookie QB Jayden Daniels. Whether he becomes what they are hoping he will (and can stay healthy) is something only time will tell, but the Commanders are not in the same stratosphere as the Bengals even when considering the drama in Cincy. I’ll take the Bengals to win big in a get-right game they desperately need. Pick: Bengals
