Free Picks for Sunday, September 10th, 2017 from some of the nations best and worst handicappers
The Prez
Arizona Cardinals at Detroit Lions
Play: Detroit Lions -2.5
Two NFC foes take the 2017 opener in Detroit on Ford Field when the Lions (-2.5, 50) host the Arizona Cardinals in the Week #1 event. Detroit scuffled in the latter portion of the 2016 season. After a 9-4 start to the campaign the team lost their final three games to finish 9-7 and earn an NFC Wild Card berth. Arizona missed the postseason for the first time in three season finishing second in the NFC West with a 7-8-1 mark.
Arizona Cardinals
The Cardinals were a major disappointment last season. Head coach Bruce Arians and the front office didn’t believe the squad and units had personnel holes and during the offseason spoke openly about the results of the 2016 campaign being “one of those seasons.” Hence, the team was relatively quiet during the offseason concerning free agents.
While the front office and the coaching staff were satisfied to hold serve with last year’s roster they enter the 2017 season opener against the Lions in Detroit with a number of question marks. Given the struggles from last season and the players they lost, their 2017 results will be dictated by a 37 year-old quarterback, Carson Palmer, that waited until February after his body healed to announce he would return for another season.
Detroit Lions
Matthew Stafford led a 2016 Detroit offense to the largest number of fourth quarter comebacks in a single season. Stafford threw for more than 4,200 yards for the sixth straight season. Stafford and offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter clicked big time in 2016.
Running back Ameer Abdullah enters the Week #1 affair healthy. He was lost for the 2016 campaign to injured reserve due to a foot injury. Stafford will have the veteran presence of Golden Tate and Marvin Jones to throw to again this season.
The Lions upgraded the offensive line by adding 2016 Pro Bowl guard T.J. Lang and tackle Rick Wagner who departed Baltimore after starting 47 career games for the Ravens.
The Lions team liability a season ago was their defense. The secondary, most concerning their cover corners, surrendered 16 touchdowns and intercepted a mere three passes in 2016. Detroit also fell short in pressuring opposing quarterbacks.
The stop-unit lost safety Rafael Bush to the New Orleans Saints as well as defensive end Devin Taylor to free agency. The team cut linebacker DeAndre Levy.
The Lions did add defensive tackle Jordan Hill, linebackers Nick Bellore and Paul Worrilow, and added depth to the cover-corner position by signing D.J. Hayden.
The Lions host an aging and less talented Arizona Cardinals troupe that will have traveled three time zones for this 2017 opener. The Cardinals receivers will be the primary focus for head coach Jim Caldwell’s defensive staff.
Defensively the Cardinals are well-rounded and balanced but the personnel they lost this offseason wasn’t adequately replaced. Arizona’s Week #1 matchup versus Stafford and company will be difficult test.
I fully expect Teryl Austin’s secondary to do just enough to assist the Lions’ high powered offense under the guidance of Stafford to outscore Palmer and the Cardinals while covering the field goal handicap, as well.
Bryan Leonard
Jacksonville Jaguars at Houston Texans
Play: Jacksonville Jaguars +5
Teams who win six or less games and open the season on the road are an excellent pointspread proposition. Another advantage for the Jags here is that Houston swept the season series a year ago, so the Texans should overlook this division rival. Don't want any part of the host here breaking in a new quarterback. Jacksonville was heavily bet before last season and now is the time to see that return on investment.
Oskeim Sports
New York Jets at Buffalo Bills
Play: Buffalo Bills -6
Buffalo's 2016 campaign was defined by an ineffective coaching staff, together with turmoil in the front office. The termination of head coach Rex Ryan was a significant step in the right decision after Ryan proved incapable of fielding a half-way decent stop unit.
Despite inheriting an excellent defense from Jim Schwartz in 2014, Ryan's defenses ranked 24th and 26th, respectively, during his tenure (as per Football Outsider's DVOA system).
Buffalo's decision to replace general manager Doug Whaley with Brandon Beane was another positive off-season move by team owners Terry and Kim Pegula. New head coach Sean McDermott has experience working with Beane and, more importantly, the Pegula's have consolidated the authority to run the football operations around McDermott.
McDermott, who sources indicate had full decision-making authority in the 2017 Draft, selected wide receiver Zay Jones with the No. 37 overall pick. Jones is regarded as someone who can make an immediate impact in 2017-18, and McDermott was wise to invest in Jones in light of the uncertainty surrounding Sammy Watkins (recovering from foot surgery and could be sidelined until training camp).
Meanwhile, the Jets are in full-blown rebuild mode after dumping Brandon Marshall, Darrelle Revis and Nick Mangold, among others. The rebuilding project continued during the 2017 Draft wherein the Jets traded down on four separate occasions to stockpile much-needed picks.
Finally, the Jets signed quarterback Josh McCown to play quarterback, a decision that borders on professional malfeasance. Devoid of a legitimate tight end and very little talent (or experience) in the wide receiving corp., McCown (or whoever earns the starting job) has little hope of success.
Scott Spreitzer
Oakland Raiders at Tennessee Titans
Play: Tennessee Titans +1
The Raiders are once again one of the hottest tickets in Las Vegas sports books and those who're backing the Silver & Black will have to pay for it. Tennessee is one of the teams on our most improved list this season and we have them power rated a couple points better than Oakland at Nissan Stadium. Tennessee won eight of their final 12 games last season, including wins over the Broncos, Chiefs, and Packers and they've suffered 11 defeats by eight points or less over the last two seasons, coming close to a postseason berth with last year's 9-7 SU mark. The offensive line has been bolstered in the off-season, while the defense gains needed talent and experience in the secondary with Logan Ryan and Johnathan Cyprien signing on. Offensively, QB Marcus Mariota already owned protection and a decent ground game and the WR corps just got more diverse and deeper with the selection of Corey Davis with the 5th pick in the 2017 draft. Oakland is a squad that could challenge in the AFC this season, but we feel they're overvalued from a betting standpoint and we'll back the Titans in week-one.
Tony Finn
Indianapolis Colts at Los Angeles Rams
Play: Indianapolis Colts -3
The 2017 season opener in the Colts (-3, 48) vs. Rams matchup kicks off the campaign with a backdrop of Los Angeles glitz. The Rams will have a shiny new look on the sidelines under the guidance of a first-year head coach and the likelihood of starting the franchise’s prized signal caller, Jared Goff, from begging to end in 2017. The Sunday afternoon Week #1 event will feature a battle between experience and youth. In a league driven by quarterback play veteran signal-caller Andrew Luck takes his experience to Hollywood to square off against the Rams new coaching staff and second-year field general, Goff.
Under new front office leadership the Colts made a number of offseason moves. General manager Ryan Grigson is out and former Kansas City Director of Player Personnel Chris Ballard is in. The Los Angeles brain trusts let go of longtime head coach Jeff Fisher, replacing him with Sean McVay, the former Washington Redskins offensive coordinator.
Indianapolis Colts
The Indianapolis Colts began their 2016-17 season, a year ago last January, by firing six of the clubs coaching staff. The organization fired their Defensive Coordinator Greg Manusky, Safeties Coach Roy Anderson, Secondary Coach Mike Gillhamer, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Roger Marandino, Tight Ends Coach Alfredo Roberts and Running Backs Coach Charlie Williams. It began the fourth season under the trio of head coach Chuck Pagano, general manager Ryan Grigson and quarterback Andrew Luck. The Colts entered the 2015 campaign as the defending AFC South champions after compiling an 11–5 record before falling to the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game. The result of the firings in the 216 offseason were the result of the Colts failures to improve from their 3 consecutive 11–5 records and finished 2015-16 with an 8–8 mark. It was the first time since 2011 and only the 4th time since 1998 that Indy had not qualified for the postseason schedule.
Backing the Colts — giving or getting points the last two seasons — hasn’t been a profitable venture. Last year the team went 8-8 overall and depending on the particular sportsbook closing numbers the club went 8-8 against the spread, as well.
Luck did all he could in 2016 to help his team win. Long gone was the pass-happy scheme of Bruce Arians and due to free agent losses, injuries and retirements the offensive coaching staff was forced to engineer a more balanced game-plan with the hope of keeping their undermanned defense off the field and to shorten games.
Luck was forced to work behind an offensive line that lacked average league talent and do so with aging running back Frank Gore. Luck had just one game-breaker at his disposal, that being receiver T.Y. Hilton.
The defense was the focus for the new front office this offseason, signing defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins and rush end Jabaal Sheard, while finding the muster to retain CB Darius Butler. The stop-unit did lose safety Mike Adams to the Carolina Panthers and Robert Mathis to retirement.
The 2017 offseason by new GM Chris Ballard included a large number of upgrades to the offensive and defensive lines. Defensively the team added the aforementioned ex-New York Giants run stuffer Hankins.
The Colts ranked 30th in the NFL in total defense in 2017. The Finn Factor ratings positioned Indy equally as porous against the pass (29th) as the run (30th).
The front office did their dandiest to bring in defensive depth and they accomplished this by inking Sheard, Barkevious Mingo, Al Woods, Margus Hunt and Sean Spence via free agency. In the May draft they used a third, fourth and fifth round pick on defensive help selecting Tarell Basham, Grover Stewart and Anthony Walker, respectively. The club spent their first round draft pick on safety Malik Hooker, second round pick on cornerback Quincy Wilson and in the fifth round reached out for cover cornerback Nate Hairston adding capable bodies to the defensive secondary.
Ballard massively overhauled the defense for the sole purpose of making a 2017 run at the AFC South title. Ballard held serve with former GM Ryan Grigson’s offensive line. Ballard was vocal before and after this spring’s draft that the current player personnel on the O-Line were not only getting a bad rap but showed significant improvement as the 2016 season wore on.
Los Angeles Rams
Goff doesn’t have the talent surrounding him to become a second-year quarterback-wonder. The offense has no true game breakers at the receiver positions making ground-gaining life difficult for running back Todd Gurley. While most NFL pundits lambasted Colts general manager Grigson a season ago it was the Los Angeles Rams offensive line that lacked competence. Rookie QB Goff had a large number of mental breakdowns and lapses in courage behind an offensive line that offered him little to no time to execute the game plan. Goff not only crumbled on most Sunday afternoons under the pressure of opposing defensive fronts his accuracy rating was the lowest of any quarterback in the league.
At this time a year ago, during his rookie minicamp, Goff looked everything but comfortable. The Rams’ No. 1 overall pick scuffled with every important variable that makes an NFL leader successful. He didn’t understand the playbook verbiage and struggled with even the simplest parts of his job, moving the offense in and out of the huddle and managing the play clock.
The Rams’ offense last year was nothing short of a disaster. The head coach and his staff at the time, Jeff Fisher, dummied down the playbook to the point that the unit was laughably predictable. The biggest hurdle that Goff had to overcome was the under-talented offensive line. In the latter stages of the season opposing defenses didn’t respect Goff and the passing game and focused on stacking the box and containing the dangerous legs of Todd Gurley.
New head coach Sean McVay and the front office made offseason upgrades to the offensive line and have added depth to their receiving corps through free agency.. For most of last season, the Rams lined up with left tackle Greg Robinson, left guard Rodger Saffold, center Tim Barnes, with a rotation of Jamon Brown plus Cody Wichmann at right guard and right tackle was manned by Rob Havenstein. The average age of this group was less than 25-years-old. Experience wasn’t the unit’s strength.
The 2017 offensive line, barring training camp injuries, projects out as newly signed Andrew Whitworth at left tackle, Saffold at left guard, former Vikings and Redskins’ John Sullivan at center, Havenstein at right guard and Robinson at right tackle. While there is reasonable optimism that Goff will operate behind a more experienced and talented group believing the winter changes are the cure for the maladies that Goff suffered through a season ago. is unrealistic.
The strength of the Rams is their defense but the lack of offensive production puts the stop-unit in a large number of field position conundrums that the squad ultimately won’t be able to overcome, especially against quality offenses and experienced quarterbacks. There is no doubt that Goff is talented and will grow in conjunction with the improvement of the team’s offensive line, but the new coaching staff is by all evidence mortgaging the 2017 season and will let Goff grow into the team leader role, slowly. The new team of coaches and their overall plan won’t come to fruition in 2017, especially in Week #1.
Carmine Bianco
Carolina Panthers at San Francisco 49ers
Play: Carolina Panthers -4.5
The Panthers 2016 season was a disappointment to say the least, finishing 6-10 and last in the NFC South after great 2015 but the Panthers 2017 season looks to be a promising one buoyed with drafting some offensive talent in Curtis Samuel and Christian McCaffrey (both in the top 40 of the draft) but just as important is getting that offensive line that left Cam Newton unprotected all season back to where it was in 2015 and they added Matt Kalil as well as drafting Taylor Moton and with Daryl Williams and Michael Oher looking to return to the line up this O line should have more than enough depth to protect Cam. If we thought Carolina's season was a disappointment then the 49er's 2016 could only be described as disastrous as they finished an NFC worst 2-14. This team made a series of offseason moves but on the field and head office in starting the rebuilding stage and are still a long way from contending and a difficult early schedule with the Panthers and Rams at home with a trip to Seattle sandwiched in between before 3 straight on the road won't do them any favors.
Week one will be two teams looking to get their season's going in the right direction but realistically for the Panthers it's while an eye on returning to their winning ways and back to the playoffs while the 49ers it'll be the first step in rebuilding what was once a great franchise. Carolina's offence here is the difference.
Dave Cokin
Jacksonville Jaguars at Houston Texans
Play: Houston Texans -4
Considering the aforementioned issues with Bortles, it’s fair to suggest this is a terrible opening week matchup for the Jaguars. Not that I’m enamored wth the Houston offense, which figures to be a question mark at best, at least early in the season. But this Texans defense could be downright nasty, especially with a healthy JJ Watt back on the field. No one turns the ball over more than Blake Bortles, and I can see Houston getting into the end zone with its defense in this game. Plus, if Bortles plays so poorly in August that the Jags decide to go to another option under center, Chad Henne is the backup signal caller.
The idea here is to garner what could be value. I can definitely see this number creeping toward -6 by the time it actually gets played. With that in mind, I’m going ahead and grabbing the Texans at what seems to me to be a very palatable -4.
Art Aronson
Falcons vs. Bears
Play: Falcons -7
ATL was 0-4 SU/ATS in the preseason. Chicago was 2-2 SU/ATS. We had a play on the Falcons in the Super Bowl last year and while we covered with our teaser (FALCONS and UNDER), we lost with the normal spread and also with our play on the “under.” It was an epic second half collapse for the ages for ATL and clearly it’s going to be playing with a chip on its shoulder this season. The year before it was the Carolina Panthers that fell apart in the Super Bowl, only to then suffer a 6-10 campaign the following year. The same fate may be in store for the Falcons as well, but we think they’ll come to play in Week 1. The Bears lost WR Cameron Meredith to a torn ACL in the preseason Week 3 game against Tennessee. And that’s significant as he led Chicago with 66 catches for 888 yards and four TD’s in 2016.
SPORTS WAGERS
NFL Season Win Totals
Oakland Under 9½ -120
We’re always preaching that nobody can predict the outcome of games because of in-game variance that causes so many twists and turns in almost every football game. Thus, teams that were very fortunate last year are in line for regression while teams’ that got unlucky are in line for improvement. We’ll now take that information and apply it to Oakland’s season win total to easily go under the number.
First off, the Raiders got a healthy season from its expensive offensive line with its five starters playing 74 of 80 games. Five of those missed games were from right tackle Austin Howard, who was generally considered to be the line's weakest link before being cut this season, a week before the opener. Key backup Menelik Watson is also gone, to Denver, so a less effective season from the line could cancel out any improvements from luring Marshawn Lynch out of retirement. Over/under win totals do not take injuries into consideration because they are unforeseeable but there is practically no chance of the Raiders staying as healthy as they did last year.
How many times have you heard this, “Whoever wins the turnover battle will win the game”?. Turnovers won or lost is not a skill. The Raiders were opportunistic enough to produce the league's sixth-best takeaway rate on a per-possession basis. Combined with Derek Carr chopping his interception rate in half, the Raiders' turnover differential hit plus-16, which was tied with the Chiefs for the best mark in the league. Winning the turnover battle wins games but turnover margin from year to year is markedly inconsistent. Need proof? From 1989 to 2015, there were 41 teams to post a turnover differential between plus-15 and plus-20. Their average turnover margin was plus-17.3. The following year, those teams had an average turnover differential of plus-2.3. They fell off by an average of 15 turnovers. Apply that to the Raiders last year and maybe they’re a .500 team. We say that because the Raiders, not coincidentally, were one of the best teams in close games in recent memory. Jack Del Rio's team went 8-1 in games decided by seven points or fewer. Now apply the turnover margin to that and it should come as no surprise that teams’ with that sort of record also struggle to keep it up. The Raiders have one of the 25 best records in one-score games from 1989 on. During their standout seasons, those other 24 teams were a combined 131-6-1 (.953) in one-score games. The following year, those same teams -- stocked with quarterbacks such as Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger and Steve Young -- went a combined 87-88 (.497) in games decided by seven points or fewer.
In Week’s 1, 4, 5 and 8 last year, Oakland was incredibly lucky to win. There were other week’s too in which many things had to go right but those aforementioned weeks stand out as extremely good fortune:
In Week 1, Oakland beat the New Orleans Saints when the Raiders scored a TD with 47 seconds left to come within one point before successfully converting a two-pointer to make it 35-34. Del Rio's decision to go for two, could just as easily turned into a loss.
In Week 4, the Raiders nearly blew a 17-10 lead against the Tennessee Titans when Andre Johnson caught a game-tying touchdown pass on the 13-yard line, only to be flagged for a questionable offensive pass interference call. The Raiders held on for the win.
The next week, the Chargers were set to kick a 36-yard field goal that would have tied the game with 2:07 to go, only for holder Drew Kaser to fumble the snap.
In Week 8, the Raiders went to overtime with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Oakland committed penalties on each of its first two drives in overtime to push itself out of comfortable field goal range, turning one drive into a 52-yard miss and another into a punt. This time, the defense came up with two stops, giving the offense a third chance, which Carr turned into a touchdown.
It's not to say the Raiders wouldn't have won any of those games otherwise, of course, but most would agree they were extremely fortunate to come away with five wins in five tries. History strongly suggests that Oakland’s luck in close games is extremely unlikely to occur again the following season. The arrival of Marshawn Lynch might help the Raiders grind out the clock in the fourth quarter, but the perfectly timed offensive pass interference penalties and failed field goals won't stick around.
The Indianapolis Colts have posted a .714 win percentage in seven-point contests (or less) since the 2012 season and the New England Patriots posted a .639 and nobody else even tops .600. That hadn't been the case for Carr before 2016. He and the Raiders were 2-5 in one-score contests in 2014 and 5-5 in 2015. For the Raiders to win 10 games, more things will have to go right this year than they did last year because Oakland’s schedule is so difficult.
Three of Oakland’s first four games will be on the road at Tennessee, Washington and Denver. They could go 0-3 in those games. Unlikely, but it’s certainly possible. The game against Washington is in prime time on Sunday night. Oakland’s schedule for the next five games is not easy either, as they’ll host games versus Baltimore, the Chargers and K.C while playing at Buffalo and Miami in back-to-back weeks. Games’ versus K.C and Miami are both prime time games too. Winning in Buffalo is rarely easy. There is not one gimme there and by the end of that stretch, the Raiders will be nine games in with a third of those being prime time affairs. Games before and after prime time events cause look-aheads and letdowns. We’re not counting on that, we’re merely pointing out that prime time games are emotionally charged and there are before and after effects, usually.
Oakland’s final seven games will be against New England, Denver, the Giants, K.C., Philly, Dallas and the Chargers. That would be zero easy games in the final seven weeks. No Cleveland, no San Fran, no Jacksonville, no Houston, no Chicago, no Detroit, no L.A. Rams or no easy games out of 16 means the Raiders will have to get a ton of lucky breaks, stay healthy and play near flawless football to get to 10 wins and we’re very confident that they won’t get there with five of their 16 games being prime timers. Under gets the call.
Houston Under 8½ -115
This might be the best under we’ve seen in the past 30 years. The 2016 Texans won their division, which influences the number this year and provides us with this outstanding opportunity. The 2016 Texans were about as bad as a division winner can get. Consider that they ranked a lowly 29th in DVOA, (a relevant metric that measures defense adjusted value over average) safely sandwiched between two teams that fired their coaches, the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams. This was a bad team that won some games.
The Texans joined the privileged ranks of those teams that posted a winning record while being outscored over the season. Houston posted the fourth-worst point differential for a team with a winning record since 1989, and things don't often go well for teams in that bracket. The 10 winning teams with the worst point differentials declined by an average of three wins the following season.
Those numbers do not bode well for the Texans, nor does one element of the game that often regresses toward the mean from year to year. Houston was terrible on special teams last season, finishing dead last in DVOA while finishing well below league average on everything except punt returns. Normally, teams will make a change in their coaching staff or personnel, and that, combined with some randomness, will push a truly bad special-teams unit toward the middle of the pack. The problem, though, is that the Texans were also last in special-teams DVOA last season, at which point they fired Bob Ligashesky and hired Larry Izzo. They were 28th under Ligashesky in 2014, 29th in 2013 and last in 2012. It has been five seasons since Houston peeked out from the bottom five in the league in special teams. You would think that might inspire personnel changes but the Texans brought back kicker Nick Novak and punter Shane Lechler on one-year extensions and will return four of their six most frequent special-teams players from a year ago. None of this inspires any confidence that things will be different in 2017.
The Texans played in a putrid division last year but things are improving greatly in the AFC South. The Jaguars imported arguably the two best defensive players in free agency with Calais Campbell and A.J. Bouye, the latter of whom was Houston's top cornerback in 2016. Indianapolis hired general manager Chris Ballard and spent the offseason finally making coherent moves for its defense, although Andrew Luck's shoulder is a concern. The Titans profited from robbing the Rams last year by adding two first-round picks to their roster at positions of notable weakness. Meanwhile, the Texans weren't able to do much in free agency this offseason, thanks to their spending spree from a year ago and the $9 million in dead money they're eating on Osweiler's contract. The one downside to winning its division is that Houston will be stuck playing the Patriots and Chiefs in 2017, while the rest of their division plays lesser teams from the AFC East and West. The Texans also play in Seattle, Cincinnati, and Baltimore among others while hosting games against Pittsburgh and Arizona. That’s very likely five losses right there. They could easily go 0-5 to open the year with games against Jacksonville, New England, Cinci, Tennessee and K.C. before they play Cleveland in Week 6.
The Texans did beat the Kansas City Chiefs by seven points last season and they had another seven-point victory over the Detroit Lions. Otherwise, Houston was eking out wins against the AFC South and the likes of the Chicago Bears and Cincinnati Bengals. Meanwhile, its average loss came by 13.3 points, including a 27-point loss to the Patriots with Jacoby Brissett at quarterback on a short week. The Texans were really 8-1 in meaningful one-score games, given that they lost a meaningless Week 17 game to a Matt Cassel-led Titans team -- and even that required a late Brock Osweiler rushing touchdown to make it close. Houston's largest win of the season was over the lowly Bears in the opener by nine points. Meanwhile, it had three losses of 18 points or more. We find it hard to believe Tom Savage is likely to be better than Brock Osweiler over any stretch of time or until Deshaun Watson inevitably takes over.
Houston is one of the worst teams in the NFL that went 8-2 in one score games last year. Pay more attention to its average loss of two TD’s and three losses of 18 points or more. Frankly, we’re not expecting them to win five games, let alone nine to beat us and if you are going to make just one over/under bet this season for wins, this should be it.
Jason Sharpe
Cincinnati Bengals Under 8½ Wins
The Cincinnati Bengals look to be heading downward as they come in off their first losing season since 2010 last year, going just 6-9-1 overall. A deeper look at their season last year shows it wasn't an impressive 6-win year either as two of those wins came against the hapless Cleveland Browns and two other victories were against two (Miami and Baltimore) of the most injured teams in the league at the time that they played them. The Bengals were the third-oldest team in the league last year, and on paper it looks like they've went backwards a bit this off-season. They suffered two big losses on their offensive line coming into this season, and that's huge as offensive line play around the league has become more important over the last five years. One of those lineman was arguably the Bengals best overall player, OT Andrew Whitworth, who's loss will likely be huge. Why this becomes even more important is because Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton ranked near the bottom of the league last season in QB rating while pressured, which could be something he sees a lot this upcoming season. Add this all up and I don't see how this team makes it to 9+ wins this year.
Teddy Covers
New York at Buffalo
Play:New York +8
The very first question I ask myself when I’m looking at an NFL pointspread is this: ‘Does the favorite deserve to be favored in this price range’? And my answer to that question when it comes to the Buffalo Bills in Week 1 is a resounding ‘No friggin way’.
For this pointspread to be categorized as reasonable, two things must be true. First, the Jets legitimately must be one of the very worst teams in NFL history. And secondly, the Bills have to be capable of beating an opponent by more than a touchdown. I’m not convinced that either is the case.
Make no mistake about it – the Jets are currently being priced like the worst team in NFL history. Last year’s 1-15 Browns were power rated by the markets higher than this year’s Jets squad. The 0-16 Lions from 2008 – the only winless team in the modern era – were -3.5 point road favorites at Atlanta on opening day. I’ve lived in Vegas for 20 football seasons and I’ve NEVER – not once – seen a team that has been devalued as much as the 2017 New York Jets, now lined at an all-time historical low of three wins for the full season.
Yes, the Jets have entered rebuilding mode and they have all kinds of question marks on the offensive side of the football, starting with their quarterback. But Todd Bowles is a defensive minded head coach – that’s how he got the job – and New York’s defense looks rock solid on paper, not a ‘sieve-like’ stop unit!
Buffalo has no upside. Their starting QB, Tyrod Taylor, and his backup, TJ Yates, are both in concussion protocol following preseason Week 3 injuries. That leaves rookie Nathan Peterman, a fifth rounder from Pitt, as the potential starter here. If Taylor does start, he’ll have missed the last three weeks of timing with his teammates. If Peterman starts, we’re talking about a rookie who completed only 54% of his preseason passes despite playing mostly against second and third stringers. I’m not expecting the Bills offense to march up and down the field here any more than they did in August (which wasn’t very much – Buffalo scored 16 or less in their three ‘meaningful’ preseason tilts). Let’s not forget that new offensive coordinator Rick Dennison didn’t exactly wow the NFL as the Broncos Offensive Coordinator under Gary Kubiak.
It’s not like the Bills defense is loaded, capable of winning games all by themselves! They traded a pair of potential defensive starters in August, stockpiling draft picks for the future. The Bills were #28 in the NFL at stopping the run last year, allowing 4.6 yards per carry. They’re transitioning from a 3-4 defense back to a 4-3. And their GM and entire scouting staff were fired the day AFTER the draft, which speaks volumes about what management thought about what they had accomplished.
Bottom line? Buffalo can’t be laying more than a TD on any field to any opponent. There’s clear value here on the New York Jets side of the equation, betting on the team that the markets are struggling to attract money towards.
DAVE COKIN
FALCONS AT BEARS
PLAY: BEARS +7
Nice mix of a longstanding angle and opinion here. The angle is very well known, as it deals wth playing against Super Bowl losers early in the season. It worked again in Week One last season. Fading the big game loser in openers the next season is now 15-3 ATS the last 18 years.
As for the opinion, I’m not about to make a loud case against Atlanta. The Falcons are still very talented and I don’t expect a Carolina-like collapse that we witnessed last year to repeat itself.
But I actually am starting to believe the Bears are going to be better than most observers expect. One of my most trusted models points to this being an up season for Chicago based on a variety of factors. Aside from that, teams that are very unfortunate one season often bounce in positive fashion the next. The Bears fit on that count, at least from my perspective. I also believe there’s simply a far better attitude in place to start this season, and I do not believe that confidence was present at this time in 2016.
There are some indicators this line could move off the 7 and tick down a bit. So I’ve decided to go ahead and grab the full TD now with the Bears.
Harry Bondi
PHILADELPHIA EAGLES OVER 8.5 WINS -120
The Eagles were 7-9 last year but six of their nine losses were by a TD or less. They could have easily won nine games in 2016 and this year will be more experienced particularly at QB where Carson Wentz will be much improved in his second pro season. They also had more games lost to injuries by starters than any team in the NFL. Philadelphia added several veterans on both sides of the ball and with improved QB play, a better closing percentage in close games, and less injuries, getting to nine wins is a solid bet.
Matt Josephs
Eagles vs. Redskins
Play: Redskins +1
The Eagles have become a bit of an offseason darling as many pundits are predicting good things for them. Yes, the offense got an upgrade and so did the front seven, but they can't run it consistently and will struggle against the pass. Alshon Jeffery and Torrey Smith come over via free agency to help Carson Wentz, but really he needs to throw it less. Washington has a very good duo at CB in Josh Norman and Bashaud Breeland. They are vulnerable at safety with this week's news about Su'a Cravens though. The Skins starting offense struggled to get going and people are wondering if Kirk Cousins and Terrelle Pryor can find their chemistry in time for this one. Washington's offensive line will be under siege by the likes of Fletcher Cox and Timmy Jernigan, but if Cousins gets time, he'll be able to pick apart the Philly secondary. Ronald Darby can only cover one receiver and Pryor has the size advantage over everyone. Washington has dominated this series as of late. At home, I think they get the win despite the line move.