THE 4 MOST INTRIGUING GAMES ON THE 2023 WEEK 1 NFL SCHEDULE

BY ADAM GREENE

After zeroing in on the worst games on the NFL’s Week One schedule that was released a little over a week ago, it’s time to look at what I like to think are the most interesting match ups.

Sure, we can all see the “best” games. They jump off schedule. Certainly, the Detroit Lions at the Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs to open the season on Thursday Night should be an exciting one. The last time Jared Goff faced off against Patrick Mahomes they combined to throw for 892 yards and 10 touchdowns between them in a 54-51 Los Angeles Rams victory in 2018. It was legitimately one of the greatest games played or televised and certainly the greatest performance of Jared Goff’s career. So, yeah. I don’t hate that one.

Then you’ve got the Cincinnati Bengals at the Cleveland Browns with both teams, hopefully, at full strength, though Deshaun Watson might have a Charlie horse or two that can’t get worked on properly before the first snap.

The Philadelphia Eagles are the last team to beat Bill Belichick in a Super Bowl, so we get that match up when the Birds travel to the New England Patriots in Week 1. It’s a game, I like to think, sets the stage for the second consecutive losing Patriots’ season and an appearance on HBO’s Hard Knocks next year, barring any Roger Goodell-ian shenanigans. It would be the ultimate smack across the Super Genius’ face and I am all for it.

Miami Dolphins at the Los Angeles Chargers, the Dallas Cowboys at the New York Giants on Sunday Night Football and then Aaron Rodgers, making his official regular season New York Jets debut on Monday Night Football when they host the Buffalo Bills, all look like phenomenal contests.

It’s an outstanding slate and one that’s easy to write about. But I don’t care for easy. Well, I do, but it’s boring and I’m not feeling it right now.

I’ve been a hater already, but now it’s time to pull out my Sherlock Holmes-ian deerstalker hat and calabash pipe, peruse the schedule and deduce which are the most intriguing match ups of the NFL Week 1 schedule.

It is, of course, all elementary, my dear Watson. Specifically, Emma Watson. My DMs, as always, are open.

CAROLINA PANTHERS AT ATLANTA FALCONS (-3, O/U: 43.5)

If you’d seen this game pop up on last year’s schedule at any time, your first thought was going to be, “I’m sorry Scott Hanson, host of NFL Red Zone, even the best job in the world comes with a downside.” But, hey, not this year. No, right out of the gate this seemingly forgettable 1 p.m. kick off contest looks downright interesting.

First, take a look at the Carolina Panthers, who pushed all their chips to the center of the table to trade up and select quarterback Bryce Young out of Alabama in a trade with the Chicago Bears. New head coach Frank Reich and freshly minted general manager Scott Fitterer didn’t depend on just that move in the draft. They added Miles Sanders at running back in free agency fresh off the NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles along with Hayden Hurts, plucked from the AFC runners up, the Cincinnati Bengals. Adam Thielan will be a reliable target for Young to go with the bigger play abilities of DJ Chark, Terrance Marshall, Jr. and the overlooked Laviska Shenault, Jr., who finally might live up to his potential in a Reich run offense.

As for the Falcons, while they exited any potential Lamar Jackson trade talks early (which they shouldn’t have), they too made their team better via the draft and free agency. They added Bijan Robinson in the first round, a three-down back that can take the pressure of Desmond Ridder, who went 2-2 as a starter las t season, completed 63.5 percent of his passes and, most importantly, has yet to throw an interception as a professional football player. He didn’t light up the stat sheet, but Ridder also didn’t make any stupid rookie mistakes. He’d apparently watched Marcus Mariota, an eight-year veteran, make enough of those for the franchise in the 13 games before Ridder was tossed the keys.

Last season, both of these teams finished 7-10 and were alive for a playoff spot, via the NFC South title, all the way up until the end of the season. For a division that really saw no serious marked improvement for any team from a year ago, and certainly a marked talent loss with Tom Brady’s retirement in Tampa Bay, this game could not only be a fun watch in Week 1, but the final result could matter all season long when it comes to who will eventually barely make the playoffs, grab that fourth seed, and immediately be knocked out by a far superior fifth-seeded NFC Wild Card team.

HOUSTON TEXANS AT BALTIMORE RAVENS (-9.5, O/U: 44.5)

Like the Panthers, the Houston Texans made a big splash in the past draft, not only grabbing the class’ top quarterback prospect, in my rankings, in Ohio State’s CJ Stroud, but its best edge rusher in Alabama’s Will Anderson, Jr. Also, like Carolina, Houston didn’t just count up its draft picks, but worked on building an offense, signing wide receiver Robert Woods and adding Devin Singletary from the Buffalo Bills to a backfield that already had Dameon Pierce. Pierce, as a rookie, rushed for 939 yards and four touchdowns in 2022. Add the return (and first NFL action) for John Metchie III, who missed all of last season after a cancer diagnosis, and Stoud should have some weapons with which to work.

But it’s new Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans who will make this game especially interesting. His pedigree is strong and the defense he ran with the San Francisco 49ers over the last two seasons was one of the league’s best. It took the team to the NFC Championship in consecutive years.

As for the Ravens, this will be our first chance to see Lamar Jackson run an actual competent NFL offense, as Pop Warner All-Star Greg Roman was replaced this offseason by Todd Monken, fresh from two national titles running the University of Georgia offensive attack. Because they’ll be calling real professional-level football plays, they needed a professional-level football wide receiver and signed one of the prizes of free agency in Odell Beckham, Jr. and drafted Zay Flowers out of Boston College in the first round. The defense, that’s always amongst the top half of the league, remains mostly intact.

So, you’ll have a new offense for Jackson, who I think will excel in it, but it will be his first chance really running it live outside of a few reps in the preseason. And Ryans, who has made a career, out of shutting own every high-powered offense he’s faced as a defensive coordinator, might be a real problem for Jackson and Co. Plus, you have a Houston offense that could actually be dangerous. This game will be closer than people think and an upset would not shock me. That doesn’t mean I’m down on Jackson or the Ravens at all. I think there’s an argument they’re the fourth, and most certainly fifth, best team in the AFC and will absolutely make the playoffs. I don’t think Houston will.

But how many times have you seen a game like this, were a team like Houston comes out and shocks the league to open the season? I’ll remind you, for the last two years it’s been these Texans, who beat down the Urban Meyer (less impressive now, mind you) Jacksonville Jaguars 37-21 in opening week of 2021, a year that Houston should have gone 0-17. Last year, they began the season with a 20-20 tie against the heavily favored Indianapolis Colts, a team a lot of people (including me) thought would win the AFC South. And that was with David Culley (2021) and Lovie Smith (2022) as the head coaches. Not Ryans.

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS AT PITTSBURGH STEELERS (+3, O/U: 41)

While plenty of punditry are going ahead and setting up an NFC Championship rematch with the San Francisco 49ers and Philadelphia Eagles, let me put the breaks on that. Under the most realistically optimistic returns for Brock Purdy, who injured his throwing arm in the NFC Championship game, he’ll be back sometime in the first quarter of the season. And if you think Trey Lance will be ready to play, you might want to think again. He’s still coming back from an injury of his own and will have to beat out Sam Darnold in camp for the starting job. Lance did not have to compete with anyone to be named the starter last season, his rookie year, and looked like complete garbage in the single game he completed.

And, hey, laugh at Darnold all you want, but he looked pretty good at the end of last season and has never, for so much as a second, even sniffed the kind of elite offensive coaching he’s currently receiving from Kyle Shanahan. Darnold is more physically gifted than both Brock Purdy and Jimmy Garoppolo, QBs that Shanahan took to three NFC Championships in four seasons and one Super Bowl. He’s not as gifted as Lance, but he’s got pro experience, was one of the top-rated quarterbacks of his own draft class, and with Purdy waiting in the wings, Shanahan’s not going to grade this preseason QB competition on a curve. I fully expect Sam Darnold to start this game, regardless of Lance’s health status. And if Darnold wins and keeps winning, then Purdy’s story might be over before barely began.

But that’s not the only thing that makes this match up intriguing. The Pittsburgh Steelers, under Mike Tomlin, have never finished with a losing record in 16 seasons. Last year, they went 9-8 and barely missed the playoffs while starting rookie Kenny Pickett. Well, Pickett’s not a rookie anymore and he’s got the best offensive skill positions surrounding him in Pittsburgh in probably more than a decade. Plus, they have their regular elite defense, the best edge rusher in the game in TJ Watt and, I suspect, one of the best defensive backfields by season’s end. Plus, Tomlin has a way of consistently embarrassing heavily favored “contenders” on opening day. In 2021, they knocked off the Buffalo Bills 23-16 in Buffalo in Week 1 with the desiccated remains of Ben Roethlisberger running the team. Last year, they embarrassed the defending AFC Champion Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 with Mitchell Trubisky at the helm.

Pittsburgh won its last four games, six of its last seven and went 7-2 after their bye in Week Nine. This game will be played at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh. None of us, not a single person, will have any excuse to be shocked by the home team “upsetting” the 49ers here. Any of us would pick the Bills to beat the 49ers in this game. We’d all pick the Bengals to beat them too. Well, the Steelers beat both those teams to open their last two campaigns.

And, oof, if Lance does start, play and stinks it up or Darnold does the same and Lance isn’t ready to come off the bench, there could be some major, end of the season, playoff implications from this one loss for the Niners on Opening Day.

LOS ANGELES RAMS AT SEATTLE SEAHAWKS (-5.5, O/U: 46)

Of all 16 quarterbacks that will take the field on opening day in the NFC, only one has started and won a Super Bowl and that guy is Matthew Stafford. And it’ll remain that way all season unless some NFC team adds Nick Foles to their roster, as he is currently a free agent (though he could just retire). This idea that the Rams are going to stink this year is, frankly, flabbergasting and it almost makes me believe there’s some sort of vendetta pushing it. Conspiracies like that don’t matter, but this idea that the Rams would like to tank 2023 is a farce, considering they have Stafford, Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald all still on the team. No team is tanking with three of the best players at their respective positions still in or near their primes.

Last year, LA was hit with every conceivable injury you could imagine, including losing those three key players for the vast majority of the season. They started 14 different offensive line sets in 17 games, the most in NFL history and still, if they had gotten better back up quarterback play (once Stafford went down), they probably would have won nine games and made the playoffs. This team is significantly better than everyone expects it to be and you can see it in every single press conference that Sean McVay and the players, especially Aaron Donald, give. The Rams didn’t tank last season, they were tanked by fate. But, that same fickle finger handed them a Vince Lombardi the year before so it was all worth it. Any team on the planet would trade a losing season for a guaranteed Super Bowl Championship and every franchise that says they wouldn’t, is either lying or not doing everything they can to win one.

Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane even said, without naming the Rams specifically, that “he didn’t want to run his team that way.” Which is obvious, because the Bills have never won a Super Bowl.

All the things that went against the Rams, the offensive injuries, forcing players, especially on the offensive line, to step up and play more reps, will pay off this season. I expect Van Jefferson to be a solid WR2 and for Tutu Atwell, rookie Puka Nacua and Ben Skowronek all to be solid slot and third guys to go with Cooper Kupp, who will retake his spot amongst the best wide receivers in football. He was still there last season before he got hurt.

As for Seattle, some team had to benefit from the Rams’ team-wide injury devastation and the Seahawks were it. Even then, a blown call in the season finale matchup between the two squads sent Seattle to the postseason and forced the Detroit Lions to watch at home, an officiating mistake that the NFL admitted changed the outcome of the game and was the “worst officiated game of the year.”

I don’t expect Geno Smith to fall back to Earth or be complete garbage, but this Seahawks team significantly overperformed their roster a year ago thanks to a decimated Rams and an Arizona Cardinals team that all but fell off the edge of the world. Both victories over LA a season ago were by four points and three points respectively, facing off against not even the Rams’ B-team, but more like their C-team. And, again, that Week 18 debacle should have been a Seattle loss. All it did was send them to the playoffs to get absolutely murdered by the 49ers in the Wild Card Round.

As they always sit starters in the preseason and certainly will this time, with the injury issues they suffered a year ago, Los Angeles will start slow and the game will be close for a half, but I’m guessing they’ll win this one, but the time the final whistle blows, by double digits and those Week 1 Rams and Seahawks overreactions are going to be strong.         

Follow Adam Greene on Twitter @TheFirstMan.

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