As much as I celebrate the return of each new football season by detailing my excitement of Opening Day, it’s Week 2 that has my heart.
It’s the only time throughout the year when everything — thoughts, predictions, expectations — can be erased with just one game.
And it always happens.
No matter where you look — and it’s actually quite apparent among professionals in the sports media — people are overreacting to one game. Whether it’s to bury a team or crown a new champion, months of preparation for a 17-game stretch were thrown out the window and replaced by just four quarters of action.
I love it.
I will always love it because I will always preach how important it is to separate perception from reality.
We will have no better opportunity for this than in Week 2.
Below are predictions for each game against the spread. Spreads have been taken from various websites and are subject to change. The spread in parenthesis denotes the selected team. Spread is listed as advertised number and odds at either DraftKings Sportsbook, FanDuel Sportsbook, Caesar’s Sportsbook, or SugarHoust Sportsbook. All efforts were made to provide picks at -110 or better, with some stretching to a -125 if no reasonable advertised spread was found.
*Confidence Picks – 2021 Season: 3-3 (Last Week: 3-3)
(2020 Season: 53-42-3) (2019 Season: 57-43-3) (2018 Season: 63-48-4) (2017 Season: 53-48-4) (2016 Season: 53-67-3) (2015 Season: 69-45-2) (2014 Season: 61-46-2)
(7-Year Total: 409-339-21)
All Picks Against Spread – 2021 Season: 8-7-1 (Last Week: 8-7-1)
(2020 Season: 132-128-7) (2019 Season: 142-118-7) (2018 Season: 137-118-12) (2017 Season: 137-119-11) (2016 Season: 123-136-8) (2015 Season: 143-117-7) (2014 Season: 149-114-4)
(7-Year Total: 963-850-56)
New York Giants at Washington Football Team
I approach every game in a given week differently. Sometimes, the reactions from the prior contests are enough that the spread is basically irrelevant — because the ‘wrong’ team would be favored. Other times, it’s a deep dive breakdown of actual matchups.
In the case of the Washington Football Team and New York Giants, it is in deciphering the ‘unknowns’ from the ‘knowns.’
My spell-checker doesn’t even think that’s a word.
Good place to start.
Here’s what we know and what we don’t.
We know that Washington’s original quarterback, Ryan Fitzpatrick, is injured and Taylor Heinicke will start. We know that Heinicke started for the Football Team in the playoffs and threw for over 300 yards against the Buccaneers in a loss. We know that he also threw for 122 on 11 completions with a touchdown in relief of Fitzpatrick last week.
In other words, we know that Heinicke is a good backup quarterback and, most of all, we know that others know this.
What we don’t know is how he will play over an extended period of time. We don’t know if he can be a future starting quarterback — if he could, then why did Washington bother adding Fitzpatrick? Which means that we know Washington wasn’t thrilled with the idea of giving Heinicke the starting job despite his inspired effort in the postseason.
We also don’t know anything about the New York Giants. Really, nothing. Maybe we know that they played terribly in their loss to Denver, but was that more because the Broncos played well or because New York is simply a bad football team? We don’t know.
We also don’t know how the game unfolds if the Giants tackle Teddy Bridgewater on 4th down at the end of the half instead of allowing him to escape and throw a touchdown. And we don’t know what New York would have done if quarterback Daniel Jones didn’t fumble deep in Denver territory.
I find this exercise especially important because of the early movement in the spread. It actually doesn’t matter if it has gotten smaller or larger in this particular case. It matters that someone — whether it’s those who are making the spread or those who are chasing it — is trying to figure out the answers to the questions above. It means that there are too many unknowns for anyone to feel comfortable.
That’s a good thing. It means we have found an edge.
In the absence of any certainty, people will probably lean toward what they know. They will probably expect Washington to continue playing excellent defense and get thoroughly solid play from Heinicke. They will expect a win.
Conversely, we can point to those game-changing moments from last week and find the disconnect.
We can see how Heinicke regresses. We can see how the Giants don’t let opportunities slip through their fingers again. And we can see the mistake in unilaterally deciding that Washington must be good and New York must be bad and therefore the game is easy to predict.
And we know how flawed that thinking is.
New York plays a much more complete game and wins by four points, beating the spread.
Prediction: New York Giants (+3.5, -114 at SugarHouse Sportsbook)
Cincinnati Bengals at Chicago Bears
One of the reasons why I love Week 2 as much as I do is because we get overreactions in both directions. Normally, I will write about a team being buried by the football-watching world but really isn’t as bad as we think. When that happens, said team is almost always an underdog.
That’s not the case with