Week 1 ATS picks are tough because you really have no idea about anything. How much coaching, coordinator or personnel changes mean in particular situations is guesswork. And even if there were no changes to coaching or rosters, just the span of eight months between games makes a difference. So I approach these with lower conviction than I’d have in say Week 8, for example.
In any event, here are my picks:
The first game that jumped out at me was the Patriots laying 2.5 at home against the Raiders. Mike Vrabel is at least a good coach, and he might be a great one. He led the Titans to multiple playoff runs with Ryan Tannehill as his QB. Jerod Mayo last year was awful, so even the upgrade to an average coach would make a difference. The Raiders also have to make a long trip for an early game and this before they are in the swing of playing week in and week out. (The Raiders have also likely improved with Geno Smith replacing a bunch of scrubs at QB. But Pete Carroll is 74 now, and I’m not sure he’s a plus anymore.)
The second one was the Giants getting six in Washington. Jayden Daniels is a star, but the rest of the team is nothing special. The Giants are loaded in the defensive front seven, their offensive line played much better this preseason, they’ve upgraded their QB position at least a little bit, and possibly by a lot later in the year. It’s just a different energy coming out of preseason than in years past. I expect this game to be close.
The third was the Bengals. There’s a narrative that Joe Burrow gets off to slow starts, but as Scott Barrett pointed out, there were reasons for that in years past, and no reason for it now. This is also a short road trip (in state), and they’re facing a 40-year old Joe Flacco who wasn’t even great at his peak.
Those were the games that jumped out at me, and the rest of the slate was more or less a bunch of coin flips. But randomly yesterday, I stumbled on Rufus Peabody’s and Jeff Ma’s Bet The Process podcast (I don’t listen to podcasts very often), and they had a guest, Judah Fortgang, (who I hadn’t heard of prior) that made interesting cases for the Falcons (Michael Penix great in the small sample, Bucs regress without Liam Coen) and Dolphins (underrated, strong pass rush, good offensive braintrust, Tua healthy.)
And it’s not so much the cases he made, but my reaction to them. As soon as he said it, it was like aha, right, the Dolphins! No one wants to use the Dolphins! And the Falcons are a little like that too. When you get on a roll picking games ATS, it’s always when you spot those teams on which the narrative had turned sour ahead of any real performance indicator. And these felt like good ones.
Incidentally, I don’t recommend outsourcing to anyone, including me, but if you read something that resonates with you, or even with which you find yourself strongly disagreeing, that’s signal, in my opinion. It’s not the recommendation, but your visceral response to it.
So I tossed those two in at the end. One of the challenges with Circa Millions is that you rarely likely five games in a given slate (sometimes you like only one or even none), but you’re forced to pick anyway. So I appreciate their supplying me with the last two games and have someone to blame if they go south.