Week 1 of the 2017 NFL season is in the books and now it’s time for us all to overreact to what little game action we have seen. Kareem Hunt is a lock for rookie of the year and is the likely MVP. He is on pace to score 48 touchdowns this year. Tom Brady is on pace to throw 0 touchdowns this season. He is obviously a washed up old man and should be benched.

The Rams, Jaguars and Bills are all the sole leaders in their respective divisions while the Patriots are tied for the worst record in the league. Fun things can happen with a small sample size and I love to overreact. But in in the interest of objectivity, I will try to offer some perspective on just how little action we have seen.

The average NFL team gets roughly 12 possessions per game. The average NBA team gets about 100 possessions per game. So a basketball team’s offense gets twice as many opportunities to score in a quarter as a football team’s offense does in an entire game.

Good NBA offenses can have a bad half and bad NBA offenses can have a good half without much attention paid. But on a per possession basis that is the same as a good NFL offense having 4 straight bad games or a bad NFL offense having 4 straight good games. In the NFL, a 4 game losing streak can get people fired, but a 4 game winning streak can allow a few Eli Manning led teams to fall ass-backwards into 2 Super Bowl wins.

If 4 games can easily be written off as an anomaly, what can we possibly learn from 1 game? Very little if we put too much trust into what we just saw. But even less can be learned from ignoring new information, so we might as well try to make sense of what we have seen and try to learn a little something from it.

The most intriguing matchup heading into week 1 for me was the Raiders at Tennessee. Most analysis of the Raiders fell into one of two categories. Either they are a team ready to step up and contend for the Super Bowl, or they are a team that overachieved last year with close wins and a soft schedule and thus they are due to regress.

As with most issues in life, I tend to fall somewhere in the middle. I think they overachieved last year and I was skeptical of their chances in the playoffs. Maybe they would’ve proven me wrong if Derek Carr didn’t get injured. But I see no reason why they can’t improve this season. Their young studs like Carr, Cooper and Mack are all a year older and wiser. Plus the addition of Marshawn Lynch should help them gain the tough yards they need to ice games late. The extra yards he gained from pounding defenders and his 10 carries in the fourth quarter against the Titans were big parts of their opening day win.

The biggest issue for Raiders that I see is that they are in likely the toughest division in the league. They may not be better than the Chiefs and the Broncos and Chargers are not pushovers. Whoever wins that division will be battle tested and dangerous in the postseason.

Tennessee was a popular playoff pick amongst prognosticators. Their division is one of the weakest and most expect their offense to improve with Marcus Mariota in his third season. While a win would have been nice, there is no shame in losing to Oakland. Next week they take on the undefeated division-leading Jacksonville Jaguars. A win puts them tied atop their division, a loss puts them 2 games back and halfway to panic mode.

Under the current playoff system, teams that start the season 0-2 make the playoffs roughly 12% of the time. So it’s possible to make the playoffs after dropping your first 2 games, but it isn’t probable. We are guaranteed to have at least 4 teams at 0-2 next week, hopefully your team isn’t one of them.

Stand Alone Games

When there is only one game being played, it feels more important. The same play that gets lost in the shuffle of the early Sunday games is overanalyzed if it happens in a night game. Week 1 brought us 4 stand alone games but only 2 were worth watching.

Mercifully, talk of the Patriots going 16-0 this season was quieted by the end of the first game of the season. The Patriots looked a little flat but they didn’t play bad enough to merit any real concern yet. I think most of the credit has to go to the Chiefs whose offense looked more dynamic than most thought possible with Alex Smith as the quarterback.

The Chiefs played the kind of offensive game that I like to see. They were aggressive with a good mix of plays and they didn’t let up late. Andy Reid deserves a lot of credit for the win. I like him, and I think he’s a good coach. I want to like him more and I believe that he could be a great coach. Unfortunately his endgame play calling and clock management often makes me doubt my faith and revert from belief to agnosticism. Maybe he has turned a corner, more likely I am overreacting to 1 game. Either way I enjoyed watching Belichick get out coached for once.

The last Monday night game had the most exciting finish of them all. But since it went past 1 AM Eastern time, few were watching. Denver blocked a last-second game-tying field goal attempt by the Chargers. I give the Chargers credit for coming back late against a tough defense in a hostile environment. Even though they fell short, they showed heart.

The Broncos are tough at home. The combination of their defense and the crowd noise makes it tough for opposing offences to do anything simple, much less communicate changes and stay on the same page in today’s complex offences.

The other stand alone games offered little in the way of entertainment. The Cowboys looked pretty good as they seemed to pick up where they left off last season. The Giants looked pathetic. It obviously hurt to miss their sole dynamic playmaker in Odell Beckham Jr. He can take a short slant pass to the house and change the complexion of a game. But even with him in the lineup it’s hard for me to see them being much better than a .500 team.

New Orleans looked bad in their loss at Minnesota. I feel comfortable writing off the Saints but I’m not sure what to make of the Vikings. Over the last 2 seasons it seems like they run off wins when no one is paying attention but once their record makes them relevant they start to fade. So the way I see it, if they win next week at Pittsburgh they will likely get some attention and then no doubt lose a few. If they fall to the Steelers they will stay under the radar and then snag a few wins.

Super Bowl Odds

The Patriots have been the favorites ever since their Super Bowl win in February. If you like them, now is probably the time to bet them. After their week 1 loss their odds jumped from under 3-1 to roughly 4-1. Unless the wheels fall off, it’s hard to imagine that price getting much higher. The Pats are still huge favorites to win their division and are expected to have home field advantage in the playoffs. Once they rattle off 5 or 6 wins in a row their Super Bowl odds will dip below 3-1 easily.

The Packers, Raiders and Seahawks were co-second choices in the Super Bowl odds heading into the season at around 8-1. Green Bay’s odds have come down a bit after beating Seattle, whose odds have gone up. But the change is slight. Most expected the home team to hold serve as it has the last handful of times these teams have played.

The Giants odds jumped from 12-1 last week to 20-1 now after looking bad in their loss against the Cowboys. While the Chiefs odds dropped from 25-1 to 16-1 after beating the Patriots. The fact that many sports books gave the Giants a better shot to win the Super Bowl than the Falcons or Chiefs heading into week 1 blows my mind. I suppose it’s easy to say after watching week 1, but to me, the Giants are a middling team while the Falcons and Chiefs are legit contenders.

The Vikings and Broncos saw their odds drop from the 40-1 range to the 20-1 range after week 1 wins. The Saints odds jumped from 25-1 to over 50-1 once the mystique of Drew Brees and Sean Payton gave way to actual game action.

I like Atlanta, Dallas and Oakland at their current odds. If you can get double digit odds on any of those teams that’s a good play. And equal bets on all 3 would pay better than 3-1 in total if one of those teams wins it all. Those 3 teams combined still have similar odds to the Patriots on their own. Give me 3 good teams and let me root against the Pats all day.

I’ll stop writing now, there is plenty that I didn’t get to but there are only so many hours in a day. I know you are busy and I don’t want to waste anymore of your time. I’ll be heading to the Colosseum this weekend to take in my first live game of the season. Ideally I will have better insights after carefully observing the game live. Likely I will waste my time and brainpower tailgating and getting sunburned. With any luck I will see you back here next week.