Surviving Week 1

No Paywall This Week

I’m taking the Eagles.

I thought about it, and they’re the team on which I want to bank, especially with Landon Dickerson slated to play, and Micah Parsons not only not playing but traded to the Packers in what almost looks like a white flag move.

I also like the Super Bowl champs opening the season at home to defend their title against a division rival in front of a national audience, i.e., I’d expect them to be up for this game against “America’s Team.”

The Cowboys have some offensive firepower — they are a little dangerous — but the Eagles should get to Dak Prescott a few times. I also love Philly’s edge in the running game. Maybe the scariest thing about the Cowboys is if the game is close, and they have the ball, their kicker can probably hit from up to 70 yards. But if it comes to that, your pick was already wrong, and you’re just hoping to get lucky. Once the kicker is a factor, you’ve cut it too close.

There is one complication to this which is that in the $15M Circa contest, you have to pick a team for the four-game Thanksgiving slate and also for the three-game Christmas Day one.

Here’s the Thanksgiving Day schedule:

Notice the game likely to have the biggest line is Bears at Eagles, and they won’t be available to me should when I make it that far. But that’s okay. If the Eagles are the obvious play (I suspect the Chiefs will be good-sized favorites too), they’ll have a ton of ownership, and I’ll at least get some pot-odds benefit to fading them.

For what it’s worth, I initially had the Broncos who get the Titans at home, but I didn’t feel great about it. Bo Nix has upside, but the floor is still low, and Cam Ward might be good out of the gate. I don’t think they’re a bad pick, but I’d rather have the elite team facing an average one than an above-average one facing one that’s slated to be weak.

I didn’t think too much about pot odds this week, but I expect most people will be on the Broncos (to save Philly) and also in Circa due to the Thanksgiving issue. There’s also a site (survivorgrid.com) that tracks various percentage-owned numbers, and Philly is more in line with the Cardinals and Redskins than the Broncos, according to them.

As for those other two teams, I don’t trust Kyler Murray on the road, and I think the Giants are a team on the rise. The Bengals are a possibility, but their defense is bad, but maybe I’m just salty because they knocked me out in Week 1 last year when Mike Gesicki’s TD was overturned, only for the NFL to admit later it should have held up.

Moneyline-wise, the biggest favorites are the Broncos and Eagles, but I’m not going to dwell too much on that this year. In 2021, when Dalton and I made our run to the final 23 in Circa, we faded consensus all year, dodged so many landmines before losing on maybe our chalkiest pick of the year. The key is to win this week (keeping an eye on pot-odds opportunities when warranted) and never save anyone except for the Thanksgiving and Christmas short slates, and even then bad choices often get paid back in pot odds.

For a deeper dive into the “pot odds” discussion, you can click here.