Home Forums Skybox Sports Bar First and Goal AP's Season long NFL Thread

I'll be posting my plays in this thread for the season. Hopefully I can produce a winning season, but certainly feel free to fade me if it turns into a dumpster fire.

Tonight is actually going to be a pass for me (it's the 1st game of the season and there will be plenty of better opportunities). I'll just have to be content in rooting for players on my fantasy football teams.

I'm sure the reasoning with many prognosticators will be to take the Ravens bases on Harbaugh's stellar opening day record as he has gone 7-1 in the last 8. And many will play into the "revenge" angle (I think that's the biggest garbage angle in all of handicapping). There will also be cappers looking at the combined scores in the head-to-head matchups which would clearly point to the over with the average being above 50 in the last 6 matchups.

With that said, my gut just tells me the game will be close. The Ravens will hope to use the ground game to neutralize the Chiefs. Assuming the game doesn't get out of hand and Henry can be somewhat productive, that will shorten the game. Both defenses should be good and I suspect the start of the game may be conservative. Will Mahomes' receivers get off to a good start or will they have a case of the "drops" which plagued them throughout most of the regular season last year? We will see. I simply hope we can get through the bulk of the game without talking about Taylor Swift.

Tonight's game in Brazil should be a fun one. Looking back to last season, these are two teams that were going in opposite directions. The Packers won 7 of their last 10 games and were averaging 27 points in those contests. Jordan Love was arguably in the top 3 of NFL Qbs at that point and really had a hot hand in finishing the season. On the other hand, the Eagles defense was a sieve. Their secondary was garbage as the team lost 6 of their last 7 games, culminating with an embarrassing loss to Tampa Bay in the playoffs. During that stretch they allowed 30 points per game. Vic Fangio takes over the role as defensive coordinator and has been a bit of a defensive "whisperer", running top 10 defenses in San Francisco, Chicago, and Denver. That's all fine and dandy, but I need to see it first as it's not like the personnel has changed a whole lot on the field. Compounding problems on the offensive side is the retirement of Jason Kelce, the QB of the offensive line, and a main driver of the "tush" push. With that said, Green Bay's defense is fairly average, so there will definitely be some scoring in this game tonight (and the current total of 49 1/2 reflects that).

I'm going to start the season off with a teaser:

GB +8 1/2 and Ov 43 1/2 120/100

I feel very good about going "over" that lower total and I wouldn't be surprised if the Packers win this game outright.

Record 1-0 +$100

What would the Cowboys be without the moronic actions of its owner, Jerry Jones. The season hasn't even started and the team already seems like it's in disarray. Contract negotiations galore and your top WR on a pitch count. Add to that an aging RB (that I guess Jones feels he got a bargain with) vs a Browns defense that was 1st in yards allowed and 13th in points. Cleveland is also extremely tough at home allowing only 2 teams to score 20 points all last season.

I'll take the "under" all day on this one as the only thing that's going to keep the Cowboys in this game is their defense. If they don't play well, it's going to be a long afternoon for them.

Dal/Cle Under 41 105/100