Posted Friday at 2:30pm EST and odds are subject to change.

NFL Week: 2

What you see below is our early leans. Many of the selections below will stay the same and some will be moved into official plays with wagers on Sunday. However, there is also the possibility that we see, read or get a sense that something is not right with one of our selections and change our pick. There are several different criteria we use to grade a game and make it an official play and a lot of things can happen or change between Friday and Sunday. We’ll have all write-ups (except Monday Night Football) posted on Friday but our actual wagers won’t be posted until Sunday morning between 10 AM and 12:00 PM EST

Week 2 Sunday Sept 20

Tennessee +7½ vs. Philadelphia

1:00 PM EST. There probably isn't a team in the NFL that bettors want less of this week than Tennessee, and that's exactly where our interest begins. The Titans just lost 23-10 to the Jets, Cam Ward threw for only 140 yards, and the offense didn't find the end zone until the game was essentially decided. Now Philadelphia comes to town with the superior roster and Tennessee is being offered at +7½. We don't like Tennessee. We don't particularly like anyone. What we do like is getting more than a touchdown at home against a favorite whose reputation is doing a good portion of the work in this number.

Ward was bad last week, but writing off a second-year quarterback after one game under a new coaching staff is exactly the type of overreaction we're looking to exploit. Tennessee didn't bring in Robert Saleh and Brian Daboll expecting everything to click immediately. Ward is learning another offense, working with new personnel and trying to develop chemistry with a group that includes Wan'Dale Robinson and rookie Carnell Tate. There were throws he missed and opportunities he didn't see against New York, but those are correctable problems. We're not asking Ward to suddenly become Josh Allen here. We're asking Tennessee to produce enough offense at home to remain competitive while taking advantage of a very generous number.

The bigger issue is Philadelphia laying 7½ points on the road. The Eagles may be significantly better than Tennessee, but that's already baked into the price. Asking a road favorite to win by more than a touchdown is an entirely different proposition from asking it simply to win the football game. That's especially true against a Tennessee team coming off an embarrassing performance that has completely poisoned its market perception. Nobody watched the Titans last week and came away eager to bet them Sunday. Philadelphia will attract money because it's Philadelphia, while Tennessee will repel it because it just got handled by the Jets. That combination has created precisely the type of inflated number we want to attack.

This isn't about predicting some dramatic Tennessee turnaround or suggesting the Titans are suddenly a good football team. They don't have to be. We're getting 7½ points at home because the market has very little appetite for them, and we'll gladly accept that premium. Laying big numbers on the road with good teams against perceived bad teams has never been a strategy we're particularly interested in. Philadelphia can control much of this game and still fail to cover. Give us the ugly home dog, give us the hook above seven, and let everyone else pay the premium to back the team they'd much rather have. Recommendation: Tennessee +7½.

Chicago -5½ vs. Minnesota

1:00 PM EST. If you looked only at Minnesota's 39 points last week, you'd think the Vikings put on an offensive clinic. They didn't. Minnesota was outgained 419-239, was trailing 22-10 late in the third quarter and received five first downs via Green Bay penalties. Turnovers, penalties and some favorable calls completely changed the complexion of the game and helped turn what looked like a dead Vikings team into one that suddenly appears dangerous on paper. We're not taking anything away from Minnesota's defense, which played well, but offensively the final score was considerably prettier than the actual performance. We're not interested in paying for 39 points that were largely created by circumstances Minnesota can't count on repeating.

There is also uncertainty at quarterback, with Kyler Murray questionable after leaving last week's game with a concussion and Carson Wentz replacing him. We generally don't build wagers around injury reports because we're not doctors and don't have information the market doesn't already possess, but quarterback is obviously an exception when the starter's status is uncertain. Wentz helped ignite last week's comeback, but we're also talking about Carson Wentz, a veteran backup who entered the game after Minnesota had done very little offensively. Whether it's Murray or Wentz, Chicago gets a much different challenge than the 39-point headline suggests, and we're comfortable laying the points with the Bears against either one

Meanwhile, Chicago gave us something much more sustainable in its opener. The Bears established the aggressive offensive identity they spent the offseason building, and now they get to bring that approach home against a division opponent whose Week 1 result is begging to be overvalued. Chicago has enough speed and weaponry to stretch Minnesota horizontally and vertically, and if the Bears can play from in front, the Vikings aren't likely to receive another parade of turnovers, penalties and short fields to rescue them. This is where the difference between results and performance matters. Minnesota scored 39 and won; Chicago's underlying performance was more convincing. We'll side with the team whose success appears more repeatable.

You'll also hear plenty about Minnesota's recent success in Chicago and Kevin O'Connell's record there. The market loves those little nuggets because they make for convenient narratives, but a Vikings victory at Soldier Field two or three years ago has absolutely nothing to do with what happens Sunday. Different players, different circumstances and, in Chicago's case, a different coaching staff make those results meaningless to this handicap. We're laying 5½ because we believe Minnesota's Week 1 explosion was largely fool's gold and Chicago is positioned to expose it. If the Vikings need another collection of turnovers, penalties and gifts to manufacture offense, they're going to have a difficult time staying inside this number. Recommendation: Chicago -5½.

New England -5½ vs. Pittsburgh

1:00 PM EST. If you bet Pittsburgh last week and cashed your ticket, congratulations. Take the money, put it in your pocket, lower your head and don't make eye contact with anybody on the way out. You got away with one. The Steelers beat Atlanta 20-13, but Pittsburgh was god-awful offensively, was outgained, lost the time-of-possession battle and benefited from 96 yards of Atlanta penalties. The Steelers' biggest offensive weapon wasn't Aaron Rodgers, DK Metcalf or Jaylen Warren. It was a yellow flag. Rodgers threw for barely more than 200 yards despite dropping back more than 40 times, couldn't complete a single deep ball and spent the afternoon operating an offense with all the explosiveness of a shopping cart with one bad wheel. Then T.J. Watt returned a fumble for a touchdown and Pittsburgh somehow walked away looking like a competent football team. We've seen this movie before.

Now Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers are reunited, because apparently Pittsburgh's plan for the future was to recreate Green Bay circa 2014 without any of the 2014 parts. Rodgers is 42, McCarthy is 62, and somewhere Brett Favre is probably waiting for his phone to ring. Pittsburgh's defense remains legitimate and Watt can wreck a game by himself, but the offense produced just 264 yards against an Atlanta team playing its third-string quarterback. We're supposed to be impressed because the Steelers escaped with a seven-point victory? Pittsburgh has made an art form out of winning games it seemingly has no business winning. A tipped pass here, a fumble there, a defensive touchdown, a missed kick, somebody getting struck by lightning in the opposing huddle—they've been pulling rabbits out of their ass for years. Eventually you have to actually play well.

New England lost its opener 13-10 to Seattle, but we're much more interested in backing that loser than Pittsburgh's fortunate winner. The Patriots led 10-0 for a long stretch and were in position to win before turnovers, poor decisions by Drake Maye and a fourth-quarter collapse flipped the game. Those mistakes were costly, but they're also fixable. More importantly, New England played Wednesday night, which gives the Patriots 10 days to prepare for this matchup. That's a significant advantage for a coaching staff that now has a full game of Pittsburgh's new McCarthy offense on film. And what exactly requires 10 days to decipher? Rodgers throwing five-yard passes and hoping T.J. Watt scores? New England doesn't need to reinvent defensive football here. Protect the ball, make Pittsburgh's offense drive the field and force Rodgers to consistently beat you.

We're not buying Pittsburgh's 1-0 record and we're certainly not selling New England because it blew one football game. The Patriots' mistakes against Seattle turned a game they controlled into a loss, while Pittsburgh's opponent made enough mistakes to turn an unimpressive Steelers performance into a victory. That's precisely the type of Week 1 result that creates value in Week 2. Pittsburgh has the prettier record, New England has the extra preparation, and we're betting that what actually happened on the field matters more than the final scores. If the Steelers want to beat us, make Grandpa Aaron and Uncle Mike do it without a defensive touchdown, 96 penalty yards and a gift basket from the opposition. New England exposes these impostors big time. Recommendation: New England -5½.

N.Y. Jets +3½ vs. Green Bay

1:00 PM EST. 1:00 PM EST. Apparently the NFL standings will cease to function if Green Bay starts 0-2 and the New York Jets start 2-0. The market simply cannot wrap its head around that possibility, because otherwise we're having a difficult time understanding why the Packers deserve to be road favorites here. Green Bay just blew a 22-10 lead against Minnesota, allowed 29 points from that point forward and walked away with a 39-22 loss. The Packers committed 12 penalties, couldn't protect Jordan Love and scored three points in the second half. Yet we're supposed to forget all of that, send them on the road and lay more than a field goal because, well, they're the Packers and these are the Jets. No thanks.

Maybe New York is simply better than everyone expected. That's allowed to happen. The Jets went into Tennessee and won 23-10 with Geno Smith completing 19 of 24 passes for 215 yards without turning the ball over. Breece Hall rushed for 102 yards, the offensive line didn't allow a sack and the defense held Tennessee to 195 total yards and 10 points. Was the opponent great? Absolutely not. But the Jets did exactly what a decent team is supposed to do against an inferior opponent: they controlled the game and won comfortably. More importantly, there appears to be a different feel around this team. Now they're coming home 1-0 with some confidence instead of spending another September answering questions about what's wrong with the New York Jets.

Green Bay's offensive line is the biggest concern. Love threw for 387 yards against Minnesota, so the quarterback wasn't the problem, but he was sacked four times and pressured constantly. Both starting tackles struggled badly, and now they face a Jets defense that generated pressure against Tennessee without having to send the house. That matters. New York can create problems up front while keeping bodies in coverage against Christian Watson, Matthew Golden and the rest of Green Bay's weapons. The Packers also produced very little on the ground last week, which puts even more responsibility on Love and a pass-protection unit that hasn't earned anybody's trust. Green Bay might have more talent offensively, but talent doesn't mean much when your quarterback spends half the afternoon looking through the earhole of his helmet.

Ultimately, we're taking the number because we believe the wrong team is being asked to prove itself. Green Bay is being priced on reputation and the assumption that it simply cannot start 0-2, while New York is still being treated like the same hopeless Jets team everyone expected before the season started. Maybe the Jets aren't hopeless. Maybe they're competent, organized and considerably better than anticipated. We don't need them to win to cash this ticket, although an outright victory wouldn't surprise us one bit. We're getting the home team plus 3½ against a Packers team that did absolutely nothing last week to earn the privilege of laying road points. Let everyone else bet the logo and explain why Green Bay has to win. We'll take the Jets, the hook and the points. Fuck the Packers..Recommendation: N.Y. Jets +3½.

New Orleans +8½ vs. Baltimore

1:00 PM EST. Baltimore couldn't have scripted a much better opening act. Lamar Jackson threw for 324 yards, Derrick Henry ran for 144, the Ravens accumulated 506 yards and hung 41 points on Indianapolis. Naturally, after one football game, Baltimore is now apparently the 1985 Bears, the 2007 Patriots and the Avengers rolled into one. Meanwhile, New Orleans fell behind Detroit 21-0 and appeared headed for an afternoon that would require parental supervision. Then something interesting happened: the Saints refused to go away. They fought all the way back, forced overtime and came within a whisker of winning before losing 31-30. Baltimore's performance gets the headlines, but New Orleans showed us plenty, and now we're being handed 8½ points because one team looked spectacular and the other had to dig itself out of a crater.

We're becoming rather fond of this blue-collar Saints team. Tyler Shough threw for 410 yards and three touchdowns in Detroit, and Chris Olave absolutely went off with 10 catches for 182 yards. Shough also turned the ball over three times, which obviously can't happen again if New Orleans wants to beat Baltimore, but there's a significant difference between a quarterback making correctable mistakes and an offense that simply can't move the football. The Saints moved it. They demonstrated explosiveness, resilience and the ability to play from behind against a quality opponent in a hostile building. Clean up a couple of those mistakes and perhaps they don't need to spend the afternoon performing an NFL version of The Great Escape.

Nobody needs us to explain that Jackson and Henry are difficult to defend. Baltimore is the better team and probably wins this game more often than New Orleans does. Wonderful. That's why we're getting 8½ instead of laying three. Our job isn't to determine which roster we'd rather have; it's to determine whether Baltimore deserves to be spotting more than a touchdown to a Saints offense that just generated enough firepower to erase a 21-point deficit in Detroit. The Ravens are also coming off the type of performance that makes everyone eager to bet them again. That's generally when we'd rather be standing on the other side of the counter. Last week's 41 points have already been deposited. Unfortunately, FanDuel isn't allowing Baltimore to bring any of them into this game

New Orleans doesn't need another 410-yard performance from Shough and it doesn't need to win outright. It needs to avoid another disastrous start, protect the football and remain within striking distance. Do that and 8½ becomes an awfully large number for Baltimore to cover. We're buying the Saints before everybody else discovers that they might actually be pretty good, and we're selling the Ravens after the market watched them spend three hours looking like world-beaters. Maybe Baltimore wins 31-27. Maybe New Orleans scares the hell out of them and threatens to win outright. Either scenario works beautifully for us. Give us our favorite new lunch-pail team and more than a touchdown, and let everyone else line up to pay retail for Lamar and company..Recommendation: New Orleans +8½.

Houston -2½ over Cincinnati

1:00 PM EST. If Cincinnati wants to send Tampa Bay a thank-you card, perhaps include flowers and a nice bottle of wine. The Buccaneers turned the football over four times last week, Cincinnati converted those mistakes into 24 points, and the Bengals still only escaped with a 33-27 victory. Think about that for a moment. You win the turnover battle 4-1, you're playing at home, your opponent keeps handing you the football like it's trying to get through airport security, and you win by six. That's not impressive. That's evidence that somebody upstairs likes you. Cincinnati's defense was bad last year and didn't exactly announce a transformation in Week 1. You might survive that way at home against a careless opponent. Trying the same routine on the road against Houston is another matter entirely.

The Texans lost 36-31 to Buffalo, but we'll gladly buy that loss while everyone else buys Cincinnati's fraudulent victory. Houston led 31-30 with 3:13 remaining and was one defensive stop away from beating one of the best teams in football before Josh Allen drove Buffalo 96 yards for the winning touchdown. That's painful if you had Houston, but it's hardly discouraging. The Texans went toe-to-toe with Buffalo for four quarters and demonstrated that they can score with an elite offense. Cincinnati, meanwhile, needed Tampa Bay to repeatedly leave gift-wrapped footballs underneath the Bengals' Christmas tree. One team lost while showing us plenty. The other won while giving us reasons to be concerned. We'll take the loser.

The number makes even less sense to us. Houston was approximately a one-point favorite against Buffalo and now we're only being asked to lay 2½ at home against Cincinnati? What exactly happened last week that should cause these teams to be priced this closely? Houston losing a competitive game to Buffalo shouldn't downgrade the Texans, and Cincinnati beating Tampa Bay because the Buccaneers couldn't stop giving away the football shouldn't upgrade the Bengals. Yet that's essentially what we're being offered. Take away even a couple of those Tampa turnovers and ask yourself what Cincinnati's opener looks like. Probably something you wouldn't want displayed prominently on the refrigerator.

We're not interested in Cincinnati's historical ATS record against Houston, its record against the AFC South or what happened in some game three years ago involving players who may currently be selling real estate. We're interested in these two teams right now, and Houston has the better defense, home field and a Week 1 performance that was far more impressive than the final result suggests. The Bengals aren't going to receive four turnovers every Sunday, and if they need another opponent to repeatedly step on a rake to survive, they're in trouble. Houston doesn't need any miracles here. Protect the football, make Cincinnati earn its points and let the vastly superior defense take over. We don't just like Houston. We think the Texans could knock the chili, spaghetti and shredded cheese right out of these impostors. Recommendation: Houston -2½

Cleveland +8½ vs. Tampa Bay

1:00 PM EST. Who in their right mind is betting Cleveland this week? Seriously. Imagine working 40 hours, getting your paycheck on Friday, paying the mortgage, buying the groceries, putting a little money aside and then walking into a sportsbook on Sunday and saying, "Give me the Cleveland Browns." Your family might stage an intervention. Cleveland was humiliated by Jacksonville in Week 1 and looked every bit like one of the worst teams in football. There isn't a recreational bettor anywhere waking up Sunday morning excited to get involved with the Browns. Nobody wants Cleveland. Nobody. And that is precisely why we're taking Cleveland +8½.

Here's the question that interests us: Why isn't this line higher? If Cleveland is as hopeless as everybody now believes, why isn't Tampa Bay -9½? Why not -10? Why not -10½? Hang double digits and watch the Tampa money pour through the windows. The Buccaneers have Baker Mayfield facing his former team, they're at home, and Cleveland just got its ass handed to it. You couldn't design a more attractive favorite for the betting public if you tried. Yet the oddsmakers aren't begging anyone to take Cleveland. They're dealing +8½ and apparently perfectly comfortable watching the entire world line up on the other side. That's far more interesting to us than anything that happened in Jacksonville last Sunday.

And then there are the teasers. Betting has become so mainstream that every television show, radio station, podcast and guy with a microphone is handing out parlays and teasers like Halloween candy. The six-point teaser has become particularly popular because it makes everything look so damn easy. Tampa Bay -8½? No problem, we'll just tease them down to -2½. Now the Buccaneers don't even have to cover a field goal. Beautiful, right? Don't you think the oddsmakers know that too? They have every piece of betting data imaginable. They know Tampa Bay -8½ is going to be stuffed into two-team and three-team six-point teasers all weekend. So why give bettors the perfect number? Why not make Tampa -9½ or -10, where six teaser points no longer get you below a field goal? Instead, they're practically putting a bow around Tampa -2½ and handing it to the teaser crowd. When the sportsbook makes something this obvious look this easy, our first reaction isn't thank you. It's what the fuck are they trying to tell us?

Tampa Bay turned it over four times against Cincinnati, including fumbling on three consecutive first-half possessions, and lost 33-27. Yet one week later, everybody wants Tampa while nobody would touch Cleveland with somebody else's money. That's our wager. Not Baker's revenge. Not some ridiculous ATS trend from 2019. Not what Cleveland "needs to do" Sunday. The market. This is exactly what a massive Week 1 overreaction looks like: one side is so ugly that betting it feels irresponsible, while the other side is being served up as the easiest favorite—and one of the easiest teaser legs—on the board. We'll take the team nobody wants. Recommendation: Cleveland +8½ 

Atlanta +1½ vs. Carolina

1:00 PM EST. Welcome to the NFC South, where apparently allowing 59 points at home is now enough to get you promoted to road favorite the following week. Carolina scored 37 against Chicago, Bryce Young threw for 361 yards and three touchdowns, and if you stopped watching sometime in the third quarter you might have thought the Panthers had themselves a pretty good afternoon. Unfortunately, their defense was still playing. Chicago ran for 291 yards and six touchdowns, and Carolina turned a 31-31 game into a 59-37 loss. We've seen better resistance from the automatic doors at Walmart.

Atlanta wasn't any prettier, which is exactly why we're interested. The Falcons scored 13 points in Pittsburgh, Cooper Rush threw for 143 yards with two interceptions, T.J. Watt returned one of them for a touchdown, Nick Folk missed two field goals and Atlanta generally spent three hours making offensive football look like advanced calculus. Carolina scored 37. Atlanta scored 13. Carolina has Bryce Young coming off a huge statistical game. Atlanta has Cooper Rush coming off a game he'd probably prefer erased from the Internet. And now Carolina is the favorite. Beautiful. Guess which ticket everybody would rather have in their pocket?

We're not interested in Bryce Young's record against Atlanta, Carolina winning the last three meetings, Atlanta's record before Thursday games or anything else dug out of some database because somebody needed to fill another paragraph. We're interested in the price today. Carolina just surrendered 59 fucking points and is being asked to win on the road. Maybe we're old-fashioned, but when a defense allows six rushing touchdowns and nearly 300 yards on the ground, we're not rushing to the window seven days later because somebody on television told us Bryce Young looked fantastic. Atlanta's offense was awful in Pittsburgh, but its defense wasn't. The Steelers scored 20 points, and seven of those came directly from T.J. Watt's pick-six. There's a rather significant difference between that and allowing Chicago to hang 59 on your head.

This is another game where we're happy to take the side nobody is excited about. Carolina has the shiny offensive numbers from Week 1. Atlanta has 13 points, two interceptions, two missed field goals and all the appeal of a root canal. That's precisely how these early-season market distortions are created. One week of football gets treated like six months of evidence, and suddenly the team that just allowed 59 points is the attractive side. No thanks. We'll buy Atlanta while it's sitting in the clearance aisle. Carolina can keep the 361 passing yards, the revenge statistics, the historical trends and all the other bullshit. Recommendation: Atlanta +1½.

L.A Chargers -6½ vs. Las Vegas

4:05 PM EST. Yhere are football teams that lose games, and then there are the Chargers, who have spent roughly 40 years turning losing football games into an art form. San Diego, Los Angeles—it doesn't matter what city you put them in. If there is an impossible way to lose a football game, this organization will eventually discover it. Last week they added another chapter, losing outright to Arizona as a 9½-point favorite. For Survivor players, it was a mass funeral. Thousands of people spent months studying schedules, paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars to enter pools, carefully selected the Chargers in Week 1 and by Sunday evening were sitting on the rail wondering why they hadn't just set the money on fire.

And now we're going to spot 6½ with them. Perfect. Nobody wants the Chargers. Justin Herbert is getting shit on again. Jim Harbaugh is getting shit on. The offensive line is getting shit on. The receivers are getting shit on. Herbert has been surrounded by excuses for years—bad line, no running game, not enough weapons—and eventually people stop listening. He's supposed to be one of the great quarterbacks in football, but every season seems to end with somebody explaining why it wasn't really his fault. Fair or unfair doesn't matter to us. What matters is perception, and right now public confidence in this team could fit comfortably inside a shot glass.

Meanwhile, Las Vegas took care of Miami at home, so the Raiders arrive wearing the exact opposite costume. New season, new optimism, nice opening victory and suddenly they're the attractive dog against the team that just murdered everyone's Survivor ticket. Except we're putting almost no stock into beating Miami. The Dolphins couldn't hit a cow's ass with a shovel last week, and beating them in your own building doesn't suddenly transform Las Vegas into a team we're eager to back when it goes on the road. Look at the pricing instead. Los Angeles was -9½ against Arizona seven days ago. The Chargers lose that game, Las Vegas beats Miami at home, and now we're being offered Los Angeles at -6½ against the Raiders. That's what one Sunday has done to the market.

That's the wager. We're not asking anyone to fall in love with the Chargers. God forbid. Falling in love with the Chargers is how people end up in therapy. We're betting that one horrific Sunday has created an adjustment in perception that is considerably larger than the adjustment in actual ability. Las Vegas gets rewarded for beating a Miami team we're not buying, while Los Angeles gets punished for producing the latest installment of How the Fuck Did the Chargers Lose That One? Fine with us. Everyone who got bounced from Survivor can swear they'll never bet this team again. Everyone else can grab the Raiders and the points. We'll take the most hated team in America this week and lay the points. Just keep the defibrillator nearby. Recommendation: Los Angeles Chargers -6½.

Jacksonville +2½ vs. Denver

4:05 PM EST. We might be the last outfit on earth willing to make a judgment based on one football game. Week 1 produces more bullshit conclusions than an election-year focus group. Somebody wins by 20 and they're going to the Super Bowl. Somebody loses by 20 and they're drafting first overall. We want no part of that nonsense. But Denver's 31-10 loss at Kansas City bothered us for reasons that go well beyond the final score. The Broncos produced 176 yards, nine first downs and went 2-for-12 on third down. Bo Nix threw for 131 yards, turned it over twice and looked exactly like the quarterback we've never understood the fascination with. Bo Nix is rat shit. We said it last week and we're saying it again.

Then there's Sean Payton. Denver was down multiple scores with time becoming increasingly valuable, and Payton's offense was operating as though it had dinner reservations and wanted to make sure the game didn't end too early. The Broncos were bleeding the play clock before snapping the football while trailing. Apparently nobody informed Sean and Bo that when you're losing by two touchdowns, the clock is not your friend. Payton called the loss a "slap in the face." Fine. We watched it too. The problem wasn't that Kansas City delivered the slap. The problem was Denver standing there for three hours asking for another one. Maybe we're missing something, but we haven't seen a reason to suddenly start trusting either Sean Payton or Bo Nix. 

And here comes everybody's favorite Week 2 narrative: Denver will bounce back. Of course they will. They're home, they're angry, Sean Payton probably yelled at somebody during practice, and every television expert can spend five minutes explaining how embarrassed football teams magically become better seven days later. Fuck all that. The market is already forgiving Denver. We're not. Kansas City didn't even look particularly sharp and still beat the Broncos by three touchdowns. Meanwhile, Jacksonville beat Cleveland 34-10. Big fucking deal. We're not taking Jacksonville because it beat Cleveland. Beating Cleveland isn't going on anybody's Hall of Fame résumé. We're taking Jacksonville because its a rock-solid football team being priced beneath a Denver team carrying far more reputation than substance.

Frankly, we've never been card-carrying members of the Trevor Lawrence fan club. But this number isn't asking us to crown him. It's asking us whether Jacksonville deserves to be an underdog against this Denver team. We don't trust it does. Forget Sean Payton's revenge angles. Forget Denver's record after playing Kansas City. Forget Jacksonville's record in whatever ridiculous situation somebody excavated from a database at three in the morning. That's all noise. Denver came into the season with plenty of hype, and apparently one ass-kicking wasn't enough to remove it from the price. We'll take the better football team and let everyone else wait for the great Denver bounce-back. Recommendation: Jacksonville +2½. 

Miami +13½ vs. San Francisco

4:25 PM EST. 4:25 PM EST. Ah yes, the sandwich game. One of the oldest handicapping concepts in football, and occasionally one of the most useful because human beings haven't suddenly stopped being human beings. San Francisco just went overseas for an emotionally charged rivalry game against the Rams, a team everybody spent the offseason crowning while the 49ers were being shoved toward the back of the NFC line. San Francisco heard all of it, arrived completely dialed in and kicked the Rams' ass. Now the 49ers fly home, unpack their suitcases and find the Miami Dolphins waiting for them. Then next Sunday night it's Denver in prime time. Rams on one side. Denver on the other. Miami is the slice of bologna nobody ordered in the middle.

Now look at what the market has done. San Francisco was a 4½-point underdog against Los Angeles and seven days later is a 13½-point favorite against Miami. That's an 18-point change in point-spread position in one week. Eighteen! Did the 49ers sign Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Ronnie Lott on the flight home? We understand opponents and circumstances change, so we're not pretending those 18 points represent a literal power-rating adjustment. But the contrast tells you everything about perception. Last week San Francisco was the supposedly vulnerable team trying to survive the mighty Rams. This week the same 49ers are apparently expected to dispose of Miami before the second commercial break.

And Miami? Good luck finding anybody who wants them. The Dolphins are being treated like the complimentary mint on San Francisco's pillow. They're not the rival. They're not the prime-time opponent. They're not the game anyone circled when the schedule came out. They're just the crappy team catching nearly two touchdowns between two considerably more interesting games. That's exactly where we want them. The classic sandwich spot isn't some magical formula that guarantees an upset. It's about identifying circumstances where the favorite's emotional investment and the market's enthusiasm are traveling in completely different directions. San Francisco emptied the chamber for Los Angeles. Denver is waiting under the lights next week. Miami is sitting in between catching 13½ fucking points.

Nobody is asking Miami to be good. Nobody is asking the Dolphins to win. And we're certainly not going to write a paragraph about how they "need to establish the run, avoid turnovers and keep San Francisco's offense off the field." Fuck all that. We're betting a number and a situation. San Francisco went from the hunter in a huge rivalry game to a massive favorite against an opponent nobody respects, with another showcase game sitting directly behind it. That's about as obvious a C-game alert as we're going to find. Let everyone else tease San Francisco down, throw them into moneyline parlays and treat Miami like a scheduled bye. We'll take the forgotten piece of bologna in the sandwich and the nearly two touchdowns that come with it. Recommendation: Miami +13½.

Seattle -4½ vs. Arizona

4:25 PM EST. 4:25 PM EST. Apparently all it takes to become America's newest sweetheart is to beat the Chargers. Arizona knocked off Los Angeles as a 9½-point underdog last week and suddenly the Cardinals have gone from afterthought to one of those teams everybody wants to tell you is "better than people think." Maybe they are. Or maybe they just beat the Chargers, an organization that has been finding creative ways to ruin people's Sundays since half the country was watching television with rabbit ears. Beating the Chargers is nice. Building an entire new opinion of Arizona because of it is something else altogether.

Seattle didn't generate nearly the same excitement with its 13-10 victory over New England. The Seahawks weren't particularly impressive, trailed 10-0 and benefited from some ugly New England mistakes. Nobody came away from that game rushing to upgrade Seattle. Fine with us. The defending champions won an ugly football game while Arizona produced the result everyone noticed. One team's stock barely moved. The other's went from a penny stock to Nvidia before the postgame show ended. That's the discrepancy we're interested in.

This is what Week 2 does to bettors. We spend an entire offseason forming opinions, watching roster moves, reading previews and listening to every expert with a microphone—and then 60 minutes of football arrives and apparently everything we believed gets thrown directly into the garbage. Arizona beat the Chargers, therefore Arizona is good. Seattle struggled with New England, therefore Seattle is vulnerable. Case closed. Except bookmakers have been taking money from people reacting to last week's scoreboard since approximately the invention of the point spread. We're not interested in buying Arizona after the price tag has been changed. If anything, we're happy to sell while everyone is still admiring the shiny new packaging.

Arizona had its moment. Good for them. Frame the box score, sell commemorative T-shirts and maybe invite the Chargers back every week. This Sunday they're dealing with the defending champions, and we're laying a number that hasn't been inflated by Seattle looking spectacular in Week 1 because Seattle didn't look spectacular. That's the beauty of it. We're selling the Cardinals at the exact moment everybody wants to buy them and buying Seattle at the exact moment nobody is particularly impressed. Recommendation: Seattle -4½.

Dallas -3½ vs. Washington

4:25 PM EST. There is losing a football game, and then there is losing a football game in prime time when the entire country is sitting on the couch watching you fuck up their bet. Dallas accomplished the latter last week, and that's important because perception doesn't get created equally. If the Cowboys had played like garbage at 1:00 PM buried among eight other games, half the betting public would have forgotten about it by Tuesday. Instead, everybody got the full Dallas experience. National television. No place to hide. If you laid money on the Cowboys and watched that mess unfold, chances are you're not racing back to the window seven days later asking for another serving.

That's exactly why Dallas interests us. The Cowboys were roughly a three-point road favorite last week and now return home laying only 3½ to Washington. Forget whether Dallas "needs to bounce back." Forget urgency. Forget motivational speeches. Look at the fucking number. Dallas just delivered the kind of nationally televised performance that makes bettors swear off a team, and all we're being asked to lay at home is 3½ against another 0-1 team. If the Cowboys are suddenly as bad as everyone decided they were before going to bed Sunday night, why are they still favored by more than a field goal?

And what exactly did Washington do to earn everybody's confidence? The Commanders lost too. They produced some respectable numbers against Philadelphia and made things interesting late, but we're not handing out trophies for respectable box scores. Washington didn't win. Dallas didn't win. The difference is that Dallas embarrassed itself with everybody watching, and that carries considerably more weight in the marketplace than an ordinary Week 1 loss. The Cowboys are one of the most watched, discussed, bet and hated teams in professional sports. When they shit the bed under the lights, the reaction isn't subtle. ESPN talks about it. Sports radio talks about it. Podcasts talk about it. Your barber talks about it. By Wednesday, you'd think Jerry Jones had announced the Cowboys were joining the Canadian Football League.

So we'll happily take the unpopular side of the conversation. We're not interested in Dak Prescott's career record against Washington, Dan Quinn's record against Dallas, double revenge, division home chalk or whatever other statistical archaeology somebody dug up to justify a wager. This is about price and perception. Dallas looked horrible when everybody was watching, Washington didn't do anything that suddenly makes us want the Commanders, and yet we're getting the Cowboys at home for only 3½. Everyone who got burned last Sunday night can say, "Never again." We understand. We've said it ourselves about 400 times. We'll lay the 3½ and see if Dallas can knock the cherry blossoms out of Washington. Recommendation: Dallas -3½.

Indianapolis +6½ vs. Kansas City

8:20 PM EST. Welcome to the NFL zigzag, one of the easiest ways to donate money to bookmakers while convincing yourself you're making an adjustment. Last week everybody loved Denver. The Broncos had offseason hype, Kansas City had spent months being questioned, and Patrick Mahomes and company weren't exactly entering the season surrounded by their usual aura of invincibility. Then Monday night happened. Kansas City beat Denver 31-10 in front of the entire country, and now everyone who lost money betting against the Chiefs has learned his lesson. Never bet against Mahomes. Kansas City is back. Where do I sign? That's the zigzag, my friends. Lose with Denver against Kansas City on Monday and come right back Sunday night betting Kansas City against Indianapolis.

Except Kansas City wasn't nearly as dominant offensively as that final score suggests. Mahomes threw for only 172 yards. The Chiefs didn't suddenly rediscover some unstoppable passing attack. They ran for 220 yards, played excellent defense and benefited from Denver being absolutely fucking dreadful. That's an important distinction. Kansas City deserves credit for taking care of business, but we're not upgrading the Chiefs into an offensive juggernaut because Sean Payton and Bo Nix showed up looking like they had met each other in the parking lot before kickoff. The final score was spectacular. The performance underneath it was considerably less frightening.

Now flip the television to Indianapolis. If you bet the Colts last week, congratulations—you probably don't want to hear the word Indianapolis again until basketball season. Baltimore destroyed them 41-23, and that's exactly what makes this number so appealing. Nobody gets his ass handed to him, tears up the ticket and immediately says, "You know what I need next Sunday? More Colts." Human nature says the opposite. Fade the team that just burned you and bet the team that just made somebody else look stupid. Kansas City looked great on the scoreboard. Indianapolis looked terrible. Put them together in prime time and the betting public doesn't need a handicapper. The decision practically makes itself. Chiefs.

We'll take the other side, and we'll gladly take +6½, one of our favorite numbers when backing an NFL underdog. Kansas City can win by three, four, five or six and we'll still be standing there with a winning ticket. We're not asking Indianapolis to erase last week, "establish the run," "control the clock" or perform any of that handicapping Mad Libs bullshit. We're betting the market. One nationally televised result has restored everyone's faith in Kansas City, while one blowout has made Indianapolis radioactive. Now the two meet under the lights, where that perception gets magnified even further. Let everyone else zigzag from last week's loser to last week's winner. We'll grab the ugly Colts and 6½ and see if Indianapolis can knock the barbecue sauce off Kansas City..Recommendation: Indianapolis +6½.