NFL’s Biggest Winners and Losers After Week 1
Green Bay Packers
Green Bay absolutely destroyed their division rival, the Chicago Bears, in their first real game without Aaron Rodgers. The Bears looked terrible. Their defense should have stayed in the locker room at halftime and their supposed MVP quarterback, Justin Fields, looked anything but. I’m sure every Chicago fan was ready for the Bears to beat up on the Packers now that Rodgers is out of town, but they’ll have to wait a little longer.
San Francisco 49ers
I, like a lot of other gamblers, was all over the Steelers in this game. Pittsburgh normally excels as an underdog. Especially an underdog playing at home. That wasn’t the case on Sunday. The 49ers came into town and made it known their success with Brock Purdy last season wasn’t a fluke. They were firing on all cylinders the entire game. At one point in the second half after a Pittsburgh touchdown, it looked like the Steelers might start to mount a comeback. That thought quickly vanished once Christian McCafferey took a handoff and ran for a 65-yard touchdown. The 49ers are here to stay and the entire NFC should be scared.
Cleveland Browns
Cleveland was a 2.5-point underdog all week until a ton of money came in Sunday morning pushing this game to a pick ’em. The conditions weren’t the best, but if we spent all last offseason dogging the Bills for their poor play against Cincinnati in the playoff snow game, we can’t give the Bengals a pass now. Joe Burrow looked like a $2.75 quarterback, not a $275 million quarterback. The Bengals will be fine, but the Browns should be on cloud 9 right now after starting the season 1-0, especially given their opponent was taunting them all week.
Seattle Seahawks
What was that second half performance? Seattle went in to the break leading 13-7. They never scored again and lost 27-13. Geno Smith only threw for 112 yards on 26 attempts. Meanwhile, the Seahawks defense let Matthew Stafford throw for 334 yards without his number one wideout, Cooper Kupp. Some guy named Puka Nacua hauled in 10 catches for 119 yards. Seattle was getting picked as a potential winner of the NFC West. After this game, it looks like they still have a ton of work to do if they’re going to contend with San Francisco for that title.
Chicago Bears
Chicago is going to get dragged twice in this blog. They can’t put up a performance like that and expect anything else. Just a terrible, terrible game. They have no time to cry about it though as next week they head to Tampa Bay to play the Buccaneers who just beat a talented Vikings team. Another loss and they could head into Arrowhead stadium on September 24th already 0-2.
New York Giants
The only reason the Giants made this list is because technically they were the biggest loser. Getting clobbered by Dallas to the tune of 40-0 is not something to be taken likely. However, I don’t think it means anything other than how dominant the Cowboys defense is. I have been a Daniel Jones supporter his entire career and my opinion of him hasn’t changed after that game. He drove down the field against a top 3 defense and had his team ready to go up 3-0. Instead, the field goal is blocked and returned for a touchdown. Officially a 10 point swing. Then after a 3 and out and a Dallas field goal, Jones gets the ball back and Barkley tips the ball to the Cowboys defender for a pick 6. It was 16-0 before anyone got comfortable on their couch and while it made for bad television, I don’t think it means much for the Giants. They’re still a solid team who got absolutely blasted by a great Cowboys team.
**Disclaimer: The biggest loser might be the NY Jets, despite their win vs Buffalo, they likely lost Aaron Rodgers for the season after just 4 plays in the opening possession. This blog was written prior to this happening, but we felt it necessary add in. We hope it’s not the case for the NYJ and their fans but things as of now are not looking good.
Tyreek Hill
We should’ve believed him when he said he was going to have a 2,000-yard season. In Sunday’s game against Los Angeles, Hill hauled in 11 catches for 215 yards and 2 touchdowns. After one game, he’s on pace for a 3,655-yard season. Obviously, that’s not going to happen, but if a sportsbook put up a line on if Tyreek would hit 2,000 yards I would say Yes would be favored.
Tyler Allgeier
Hopefully you didn’t listen to me when I said to sit this guy on your fantasy teams. Even with Bijan taking 10 carries, Allgeier still went for 75 yards and 2 touchdowns on 15 attempts. I’m not sure if the Falcons plan to keep Allgeier or if they gave him the goal line carries to increase his stats and in turn his trade value. Either way, it’s clear Tyler Allgeier is a top running back in this league and combining him with Bijan Robinson might make this the best backfield we’ve seen in a while.
This year is starting off like last season ended. In order to be successful at anything in life, you have to have a fair amount of luck and I seem to have none when it comes to sports betting. The two games in the noon and afternoon slates that had defensive touchdowns were also the two games I placed an under bet on. Nothing kills an under like a defensive or special teams’ touchdown.
Pittsburgh never had a chance to cover, but at least Cleveland didn’t let me down. We end Week 1 at 1-2 for -1.09 units. In the wise words of Bill Belichick, “We’re on to Cincinnati”.
On a side note, if you played our FanDuel lineup of the week you definitely won a decent chunk of change. Total points scored came in a little over 173 which is the highest point total lineup we’ve ever put together.