207 days, the hottest summer ever in Dallas, and a miserable season from my St. Louis Cardinals have separated today, from the night my Chiefs were crowned SB LVII Champions. While that sounds like a rough couple of months, at least this Super Bowl win didn’t lead to another pandemic like 2020.
Welcome to Rick’s Radio, a new place to get your sports news. Mostly football and basketball stories if I had to guess, but you can’t hold me to that. There will be content from basically anything I want to write about.
While I don’t know what we’re going to be talking about in 2 months (or next week), I did want to publish the first blog on the opening day of this NFL season. We’ll go through a few team previews then a handful of big matchups and most importantly, best bets.
Commanders, Chiefs, and Colts Season Preview:
WASHINGTON COMMANDERS
Surprisingly not starting with the Chiefs here, but we are talking about a 2-time Super Bowl Champion with KC, Eric Bieniemy. I love his additional to that staff in D.C. and they’ve got a super favorable schedule this season since they get to play the quarterback-less NFC west. If they play the Cardinals in week 6, I think it’s a blowout. Since they’re matched up here in week 1, I’m not as confident and expect some growing pains, but still should be a 1-0 start for the Commies regardless.
As for season-long expectations, if their D-Line and McLaurin can stay healthy, I think they’ll surpass their win total of 6.5 and can be a chaos team down the stretch. Their last three matchups of the season are all against playoff hopeful teams, at the Jets, then home for the Niners and Cowboys. Assuming they’ve accumulated some W’s and aren’t looking to tank for Shedeur Sanders, don’t sleep on them knocking off one of those big players late in the year. Buy your Commanders stock.
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
Now to KC. Hate to be a pessimist and say it, but it’s likely going to take another MVP season from Patrick Mahomes to get this team the top seed in the AFC. Good news, he’s won the MVP twice before so at least it’s possible.
No Chris Jones (currently) or Frank Clark on that side of the ball will really hurt our ability to disrupt the opposing QB, but I’m hopeful that Karlaftis, Nnadi, and Gay will all take big leaps and keep our front 7 solid. As for the back end, the young guys showed that they can cover some elite receivers and I’m expecting the same this year. When it’s all said and done, yes we lost a couple of our best pass rushers, but I’ve never wanted to rely on our defense much anyways. It always was and always will be up to our offense to win us the big games.
On offensive, I’m all-in on Justyn Ross and Skyy Moore. Obviously, Toney is the big name in the WR room right now, but Ross and Moore are extremely talented and I wouldn’t be shocked if they BOTH passed MVS on the depth chart and could be WR1/2 if Toney goes down again. No word yet on Kelce for Thursday night, but I’m hopeful that he’ll be healthy by week 2 at the minimum so no long-term affect on this team’s ability to win a Super Bowl.
INDIANAPOLIS COLTS
Last team I’m doing a preview for is the Colts. Thought about Jaggin’ off here and talking Doug Pederson’s team in Jacksonville, but it seems like everyone is high on them so there’s plenty of info out there. The reason I want to talk about Indy is because of how good this team could be. Their win total is set at 6.5 and I want to say that’s an easy over, but the JT situation just makes it hard to know. They would be pushing .500 with a happy Jonathan Taylor in the backfield, but without him, I just don’t know how good they can be.
Anthony Richardson will be the best rookie QB in the league, Pittman will take a leap, and their O-Line is going to be top 10. Without a substantial run game, they’ll have to get creative to win games and I like naming Cooter as OC, but is it enough? 5 wins or 10, I think they’ll be one of the more entertaining teams to watch this season and I’m excited to see how the situation with JT unfolds.
Best of the Week 1 Slate:
Every week I’ll highlight 3-7 big games and go through some best bets for each one. Odds courtesy of DraftKings as of 7:40am today.
(Last season I went 57-85-2 (40%) but only ended -4.3 units. Thx Pat Mahomes for cashing some big KC SB Future tickets.)
TNF: Lions at Chiefs (O/U 53, KC -4.5)
The Chiefs do not cover football games. We all know that. But you can’t forget how great Andy Reid is at covering spreads after a bye week, and the offseason is just a massive bye week when you think of it. Chiefs are also 4-1 ATS in week 1 with Patty as the starter. I know Kelce is currently questionable, but I still feel comfortable laying the number with KC.
Pick: KC -4.5
Bengals at Browns (O/U 48.5, CLE +2.5)
Great opening test for Deshaun Watson and the Browns. I expect both teams to show some flashes, but at the end of the day, I think the Bengals are just a better team overall. Not taking a side here, but for my pick, I’ll take the under. I know people are excited to see Burrow and Watson toss the rock around, but when these teams had O/U totals of 47 or higher last year, the under was usually the play. The under was split in the 4 games the Browns had of totals that high, but it went 5-2 in all Bengals games that qualified.
Pick: Under 48.5
Jaguars at Colts (O/U 45.5, IND +5)
You’re probably thinking, why the hell is this guy writing about Jacksonville at Indianapolis being a big matchup this weekend? Well as you read in the first half of the blog, I think I’m going to LOVE Anthony Richardson this season. Absolute cannon, good agility, and an all-around stud at QB.
On the other side, I think Jacksonville is sneakily the biggest threat to the Chiefs dynasty. They won’t be the second-best team in the AFC this year, but they are a well-coached and very young team. I think in 5 years we’ll be talking about the KC vs Jax rivalry more than a KC vs Cincinnati or Buffalo rivalry. My pick for the game is simple, I think this game is going to be fun and an exciting matchup for the noon slate of games.
Pick: Over 45.5
SNF: Cowboys at Giants (O/U 46.5, NYG +3)
The first Sunday Night Football matchup of the season belongs to the Cowboys… shocker. This is going to be a messy game and I don’t expect either team to look like a true playoff contender, but one of these teams will likely end up in the playoffs and I expect it to be Dallas. The Giants are a fine ball club, but I just don’t think that their WR room of Isaiah Hodgins, Darius Slayton, and Parris Campbell will win them a lot of games this year. The addition of Waller is nice and I think he’ll take a jump this season from a Fantasy Football perspective, but I don’t see any big offensive plays from these guys on Sunday.
There’s more playmakers on both sides of the ball in Dallas and I think they take the game by a full touchdown here.
Pick: DAL -3
MNF: Bills at Jets (O/U 46.5, NYJ +2.5)
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but another quality week 1 AFC matchup. This league is loaded with teams that can make some noise and if you this the NFC is better top to bottom, you’re kidding yourself.
While I think this is going to be a great QB matchup and we’ll see the two best arm talents out on the field Monday night, it doesn’t feel like this is an easy over play. I think both defenses are solid enough that we’ll see some great plays, but maybe not a lot of scoring plays.
Against the spread, it feels like one of these home underdogs is going to have to compete and potentially win. The Jets are giving me a Colorado-esque storyline like we’re seeing in college football so I’m going to take them, but with the points.
Pick: NYJ +2.5
That’s it for week 1. Excited to continue to write about this NFL season and anything else that pops up! As for other ways to get this content, I’ll be on Reddit soon and you can track all my bets by following me on ActionNetwork at Back_Rick.
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