Week 2. Probably the week we learn the most about NFL teams. Either your offseason takes were justified or brutally shot down. Either way…the hope is that you learned.

My top takeaways after Week 1:

-Players need to play in the preseason. Crazy concept but, this helps you play actual football games.

-I’m not sure if Russell Wilson is cooked or needs more time to learn Sean Payton’s system. However, if he still looks like this by Week 4, it’s over.

-The Dallas Cowboys defense is really good and the Giants just had a bad day. Both can be true, they are not mutually exclusive.

-Don’t ever bet a rookie QB in their first game. It’s either fade or pass.

-The Chargers need to fire Brandon Staley. All offseason we heard about new OC, Kellen Moore. Well, the offense looked good. The defense, Staley’s “specialty” looked horrid. Maybe they should’ve just hired Payton.

-Don’t ever lay big numbers with a bad team. Washington is not good at football and should not have been laying 7 points to anyone. Even the worst team in the league.

-The Bears still stink. Their defense is awful. Yea, I get it, if Justin Fields just learns how to throw…It’s Year 3, still can’t throw.

-The Packers are a decent team. As long as their defense holds up, they should be in games. Their defense has historically been bad against the run. They play the Falcons this weekend…

-Mike Vrabel is a good coach. Hard to bet against.

-The Jets are still the worst franchise in American professional sports. Cursed.

POWER RANKINGS

If you are unfamiliar with the way power rankings work, here is a crash course. Power rankings are a way to show how strong or weak a team is from an “average” team. This is a system to derive my own point spreads. By having this system, I can say, “this line is off” due to my power rankings.

An easy way to explain this is using an example from the list below. The Eagles are currently my highest rated team and they are 8.5 points better than an average team. The average team is 0 points. So, from my power rankings if the Eagles played the Saints, I believe they should be 8 point favorites on neutral field. There are variables that are not inherent in this list, such as home-field advantages, injuries and other unknown intangibles. The list assumes point differential on a neutral field. If Philadelphia is playing the Saints in New Orleans, according to my Power Rankings, Philly should be about a 5.5 point favorite (accounting for a Saints 2.5-point home field advantage). Another example from the list below is the Patriots should be a 3 point favorite over the Carolina Panthers on a neutral field. If the game was in Carolina, the Patriots should be a 2 point favorite. If the game was in Foxborough, the Patriots should be a 5 point favorite, according to my power rankings.

It is important to keep in mind that all home field advantages are not the same. In theory, I think Green Bay’s homefield advantage is probably 3.5 points, while the Los Angeles Chargers are more like 1 or 1.5 points. Another caveat is to be mindful or intangible factors, such as motivation, coaching issues (firings / hirings), travel, etc.

The most important concept in handicapping sports is you should ONLY bet if you DISAGREE with the line. There is no value if you agree that the line given by the sportsbook is correct. Why would you bet and lay juice (-110) on something that you think is correct? Literally, the odds are not in your favor. If you want to bet any way, that is degeneracy. While I don’t encourage degeneracy, I do believe that as a handicapper, the goal is to benefit off of others’ degeneracy.