I had a good start to the picks competition in week one, although with another seventeen weeks to go we very much know that this is a marathon and not a sprint so definitely not going to over react, but it was a nice salve after the Bengals losing start to the season. My week two has got off to a bad start as I second guessed myself and went with the Chiefs for Thursday night because I was laying half a point less than the consensus, when my original instinct was to back the Chargers so I shall try to remember that as I go through the rest of the week.

Gee:	Week 1:  10 – 6
Russ	Week 1:  7 – 9
Dan:	Week 1:  6 – 10

Survivor Competition

It is good that Dan and I have an ongoing points system for our survivor competition as we would have both fallen in the first week. I’m slightly nervously putting my faith in Burrow not to fall to 0-2 against a very injured Cowboys team, whilst Dan is clearly working on the theory that as Aaron Rodgers owns the Bears that he would put his faith in that.

Current Score

Gee: 0
Dan: 0

Week 2 Selection:

Gee:    Bengals
Dan:    Packers

Bold Prediction of the Week

Those of you who heard the podcast would know that this is a heart more than head based pick, but that still doesn’t stop me from going for the Jets to beat the Browns this week.

Early Games:

The pick of the early games for me is the Buccaneers visiting the Saints and whether Tom Brady can break the regular season hoodoo the Saints have over him so that’s the one I will be watching. That said, we’re still at the stage of the season where there is a lot to be learned from most games.

Jets @ Browns (-6.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Jets
Dan’s Pick:       Browns

Washington @ Lions (-2.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Lions
Dan’s Pick:       Lions

Buccaneers @ Saints (+2.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Saints
Dan’s Pick:       Buccaneers

Panthers @ Giants (-2.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Panthers
Dan’s Pick:       Giants

Patriots @ Steelers (+1.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Steelers
Dan’s Pick:       Steelers

Colts @ Jaguars (+4.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Jaguars
Dan’s Pick:       Colts

Dolphins @ Ravens (-3.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Dolphins
Dan’s Pick:       Dolphins

Falcons @ Rams (-10.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Falcons
Dan’s Pick:       Rams

Late Games:

The closest line in the late games is the Cardinals trying to recover from their horrible opening day loss to the Chiefs against the Raiders, but it feels like the 49ers are laying a lot of points against the Seahawks. I just hope the Bengals come out of Jerry’s world with a win against the Cowboy with Micah Parsons not wreaking too much havoc amongst the rebuilding offensive line.

Seahawks @ 49ers (-8.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Seahawks
Dan’s Pick:       Seahawks

Bengals @ Cowboys (+7.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Cowboys
Dan’s Pick:       Bengals

Texans @ Broncos (-9.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Texans
Dan’s Pick:       Texans

Cardinals @ Raiders (-5.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Raiders
Dan’s Pick:       Raiders

Sunday Night Football:

Bears @ Packers (-9.5)

This is a lot of points for the Packers to be laying given how their offence looked in week one and given Aaron Rodgers’s record against the Bears it is hard to look past them for a win, but I do feel like the Bears could be more competitive than nine points. It will at least give us a chance to see how the Bears look in something vaguely like normal conditions.

Gee’s Pick:       Bears
Dan’s Pick:       Packers

Monday Night Football

We have two Monday night games, but interesting they overlap each other, which I’m not entirely sure about. The Bills looked very good opening the season against the Rams ten days ago, and I like them to beat the Titans, but even though the Titans lost to the Giants last week ,this seems like a lot of points to lay and I do think the Giants are going to be more competitive this season under Brian Daboll.

My game selected by Dan to watch this week is the Vikings at Eagles and I’m looking forward to seeing the new Vikings offence under Kevin ‘Connell as well as  the combination between Jalen Hurts and AJ Brown for the Eagles. I’m leaning against the numbers as I have a feeling the Vikings are a more complete team, and they are a significant percentage better than the Eagles by overall DVOA percentage.

Titans @ Bills (-9.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Titans
Dan’s Pick:       Bills

Vikings @ Eagles (-1.5)

Gee’s Pick:       Vikings
Dan’s Pick:       Vikings

DVOA is Football Outsiders statistic for measure a team’s success on every play versus the league average and you can read more about it and other football topics at https://footballoutsiders.com.