suuma's 2016 NFL Week One

New York Giants @ Dallas Cowboys

I love Tony Romo as a QB and I feel sorry for him and for Football, but it's time to acclimate with Dak Prescott under center.  Dak played good in the preseason. He had a few bad throws but also a lot of good ones. He has got a rocket arm, shows a good pocket awareness and his ball placement was precise on most of his throws. This Cowboys offense is for real. They got the best offensive line with four of the five guys playing together the 3rd consecutive season and four of five guys being former first-round talents. Ezekiel Elliot is the real deal and gives Dallas a whole new element - a passing threat. Behind that offensive line, Elliott runs like a knife through soft butter.  With Romo healthy, this was hands down the best offense in the league. They can attack you in any area on the field. The first string Seattle defense just couldn't stop this offensive line during the first half of preseason week three. So how much of a downgrade is Prescott from Romo? He adds a running/scrambling threat but his football IQ and ability of reading coverages is far away from Romos'.

The Giants were much hyped during the offseason because of their big money signings on defense. But I am not sold at all. They didn't adress the real issue: coverage. They Giants got torched over the middle in 2015. The defensive line looks great on paper, but their LB corps is trash and their secondary is average. Their LBs can't cover, this is a crazy mismatch againt Jason Witten and Zeke Elliott. Janoris Jenkins is overrated and there was a reason the Rams didn't re-sign him. Jenkins got beaten handily in man coverage vs. the Bills in the preseason, just for instance. Leon Hall will either start at FS or NB. If he starts at NB, you got Landon Collins (2nd year) and rookie Darian Thompson building the safety tandem, the most inexperienced one in the league. All in all, I don't see any chance this back seven is going to stop the Cowboys' passing attack. And even the defensive line won't be able to stop the Cowboys' run game without good help from behind. Vernon has to work against All-Pro LT Tyron Smith and JPP might get some wins vs. Doug Free, but that won't be enough as they can't create disruptive pass-rushing pressure from the interior. The Cowboys offense vs. the Giants defense is a mismatch, even with Dak Prescott.

With Victor Cruz back and Sterling Shepard, this offense looks to be upgraded. But can they outscore the Cowboys in week one? I higly doubt that. Ben McAdoo installed the west coast offense off which Eli Manning benefited greatly. But their offensive line is completely garbage. Every defense can get some pressure on this line, Eli has to release the ball really quickly. When playing an offense that has matchup problems against the Giants defense, this offense can hang on. But staying in wire-to-wire against if the Cowboys can score is maybe too much to ask for in week one. The Cowboys defense isn't too shabby, atleast that's what they look like in preseason. Morris Claiborne had the first healthy offseason, Orlando Scandrick comes back and Byron Jones has himself established as a good coverage guy in this secondary.

This line was moving down to -3 and now re-opened at pk. But a lot of books haven't already re-opened the line. Is the difference between Prescott & Romo worth 3.25 points or more? Before you would have paid some juice on -3 which meant the Cowboys had to win by more than a FG. Now with a healthy Dak Prescott they just have to win the game. Probably the public likes the matchup of Eli Manning vs. a rookie QB and pushes the line for Dallas towards plus money. Don't know if I will end up touching the game but Cowboys at plus money would look tasty.

Minnesota Vikings @ Tennessee Titans

I've got several reasons to go with the Titans at great line value in this one. I even thought about making it a bigger play than just for one unit. As posted recently, the Titans fit my 16-3 ATS regression trend. According to public perception, the discrepancy between these two teams is very high. But it's way too high for a Vikings road game in a bad spot. With Teddy Bridgewater starting, the Vikings are 11-2 ATS on the road, but only 6-7 SU. The Vikes have been dogs in 11 out of those 13 games. As favs, they covered at Chicago on a last-minute FG and lost 3-20 at San Francisco, both in 2015. They would have covered -3.5 in just 5 of those 13 road games. Now they are favs of 3+ points for the first time in the Teddy Bridgewater era. So what is intriguing in laying 3.5 points with the Vikes on the road in a massive look-ahead spot?

The Vikings have their new stadium opener in week two with their most important matchup of the season, the one against the Green Bay Packers. I could write a novel, but the fact is that players & teams neither prepare 100% for every game, nor join a game with the exact same high motivation they should to every time. As much as coaches and players tell you they are 100% focused, those are lies. I am a subscriber of the Minnesota Vikings Facebook page and I can tell you one thing: over the summer I got spammed by photos, in-view looks, interviews & videos of players in the new U.S. Bank Stadium. Players and coaches were already talking about the Packers game in week two. Former Vikings headcoach Dennis Green died and will be honored in week two. Furthermore, this is an interconference game against a team that owned the second overall draft pick in April. This is a major look-ahead spot for the Vikes. On the other side, the Titans don't need to hold anything back in week one, they are motivated to prove that they aren't the same team that held the number two pick for two consecutive drafts.

I don't think the "exotic smashmouth" philosophy of Titans HC Mike Mularkey is going to bring success in the long run. However, the Titans have a solid matchup in week one. The Vikings defense looked so good last year and finished as the 5th-best scoring defense. But per to the Football Outsiders Almanac, the Vikings defense faced only 170 drives in 2015, 3rd-fewest in the league. In comparison, the best scoring defense (Denver) faced the most drives at 190. Also per FO, Minnesota's run defense was average (18th in DVOA) and they finished bottom-10 in adjusted line yards, stuff rate and second level yards. They also allowed 4.2 yards per carry, which ranked just 20th in the league. Also their run defense ranked 30th in DVOA on first downs. This defense hasn't changed on any position, so I don't expect them to having transformed into a good run defense during the summer. This is a good matchup for the Titans, who have the ability to exploit just that weakness and with Mariota they got a QB who can roll out to bootlegs which has to be respected. This is just a classic good matchup for a run-first offense.

The Vikings offense is still finding an offensive philosophy because Adrian Peterson needs to run from under center while Teddy Bridgewater excels out of the shotgun. According to reports, the Vikings want Peterson to run more from shotgun, but he averaged just 3.8 yards per carry during his career when running from shotgun. So how is that inefficient offense from 2015 going to improve so early if Peterson runs from the shotgun? The offensive line is improved but will this offense with Peterson work early on? I doubt that. person LeBeau is in full control of the Titans defense and this guy loves to blitz. They ranked 1st in blitzes with 5 men and 6th in big blitzes. They also sent a DB blitz on 11% of their snaps. Guess who worked terribly against a DB blitz last season? The Vikings offense who averaged just 3.4 yards per play against DB blitzes. LeBeau will open the gates of hell in week one and probably send a DB blitz more often than usual, because Bridgewater is a smart guy and can torch standard blitzes from shotgun.

Summary: we get an excellent line with an undervalued home side that has some key matchup advantages and whose opponent is in a massive lookahead spot to week two.

LEAN: Titans +3.5

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Chicago Bears @ Houston Texans

Not many words to write down here. The Bears will benefit greatly from their revamped front seven this season and this is also a terrible matchup for the Texans' offensive line who lost two solid linemen in Brandon Brooks and rookie Nick Martin. What's more important, they will be without their Pro Bowl LT Duane Brown who is great in pass protection. Behind that line you got an overpaid QB who collapses under pressure, has poor ball placement and makes bad decisions. It also doesn't help that he plays against his former head coach. This isn't a recipe for success. Osweiler struggles to throw deep balls. During the preseason game vs. Arizona it was the first time I've seen him throwing accurate deep balls. The Cards were without Mathieu & Peterson and Bethels for instance got terrible beaten in press off the line by Will Fuller. Will Vic Fangio let his corners play press or off coverage against Fuller and force Osweiler to be highly accurate? I think it's the latter one. Get immediate pressure from the front seven and let Osweiler throw into tight windows.

The Texans also have the Chiefs and Patriots on deck. So will they bring their A-game in week one? The Chiefs routed them 30-0 in the playoffs, the Pats routed them 30-7 during the regular season. Both games were in Houston. So these games should have been circled a long time ago. Another point is JJ Watt. Will he play? Will he be 100%? It doesn't look like that. If he plays, the line might climb again.

You can make some valid points regarding the Bears offense looking real bad but Dowell Loggain said that he isn't going to change the philosophy from Adam Gase, so we will see a lot of screens and quick passes to the outside again this year. Even without Watt, the Bears offense won't light up the scoreboard here but we are talking about getting 4 or more points with them. I like the Bears here and fading Brock Osweiler behind that offensiveline while getting 4 is good value for me.