We all know there is no better time of the year.
It’s football season.
And it’s time to get to the picks!
What I find resurfaces every single year as I type this article is the importance of using what we learned during the offseason to immediately target opportunities. It’s actually similar to what teams are doing during their own practices.
We know what’s shown to the world — via the sports media and what we see during preseason games — but we also know what people saw last year — and how they hold their memories too long into a new year.
But the third and most important element is what we don’t know but can reasonably expect.
This is the National Football League. Turnover is imminent. If we can target the teams that will surprise the football-watching world over the next 18 weeks, then we can ask them to start winning games now when they are undervalued.
That’s exactly what we’ll do here.
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, Caesars Sportsbook, or Fanatics Sportsbook (formerly PointsBet). 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 – 2024 Season: —– (Last Week: —)
(2023 Season: 63-61-4) (2022 Season: 54-54-5) (2021 Season: 55-50) (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) (10-Year Total: 581-504-30)
All Picks Against Spread – 2023 Season: 142-135-8 (Last Week: —)
(2023 Season: 142-135-8) (2022 Season: 143-132-9) (2021 Season: 158-126-2) (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) (10-Year Total: 1406-1243-75)
Baltimore Ravens at Kansas City Chiefs
As usual, a new season for the National Football League starts with an outstanding battle between two of the previous year’s playoff teams and, in this case, a direct rematch from the AFC Championship Game.
The Kansas City Chiefs, as defending Super Bowl Champions, will host the Baltimore Ravens. This will be only the second matchup between these two teams since the start of 2022 — it actually felt like they played each other much more often, but that’s because they met basically every year for a decent stretch of time before 2022.
The initial and obvious read is simple. The Chiefs are coming off a Super Bowl win, so there’s no reason to expect anything other than greatness. But the Ravens are also one of the best and most consistent regular season teams of the past decade, and quarterback Lamar Jackson is returning to action after winning his second Most Valuable Player Award.
The reality is that we don’t know if either team will look anything like what we saw in the playoffs of last year or what we will see throughout the season ahead of us. There is, however, a fair and solid belief that, without being fully into game action, Baltimore would be in a better position than Kansas City. It’s not easy to deal with the rushing ability of Jackson at any point, but asking the defense to be fully ready for action on what-should-be an emotional night celebrating the back-to-back championships the Chiefs just won is quite a lot.
But what that really does is explain the spread. It’s helping to hold it in-place from ballooning as a result of lazy analysis. It’s the counter to the argument of, “The Chiefs just won the Super Bowl so will obviously win their first game of the year.”
And we know that because, one year ago, the Chiefs had just won the Super Bowl and then failed to win their first game of the year. That was the first Week 1 loss by the Chiefs since 2014. Each of the team’s eight wins from 2015 to 2022 were by no fewer than four points, and the average margin-of-victory in that span was 11.6.
Kansas City sets the tone with a six-point win, covering the spread.
Prediction: Kansas City Chiefs (-3, -102 at DraftKings Sportsbook)
Green Bay Packers at Philadelphia Eagles — in Brazil
I’m actually a little surprised by this spread.