BY ADAM GREENE<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve all gone a little stir crazy during the COVID-19 lockdown, but the NFL has offered a little hope for a return to normalcy. A week ago, the league released its full slate for the 2020-21 season with the idea that they will play games as scheduled come September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Will that happen? We\u2019ll have to wait and see<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is hope in the post apocalypse that we\u2019ll once again watch large men charge into each other at car crash speeds for our viewing and wagering enjoyment. But the NFL is a league still full of \u201chaves\u201d and \u201chave nots\u201d and while we can look at that NFL Week 1 docket<\/a> and see plenty of exciting match ups, there are some real garbage fires too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are the five worst week 1 match ups on the NFL schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. NEW YORK JETS AT BUFFALO BILLS (-5.5)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n With Tom Brady exiting the New England Patriots organization after, presumably, Bill Belichick insulted almonds and\/or strawberry seeds, the Buffalo Bills are the presumptive favorites to take the AFC East crown. The New York Jets are dealing with no such lofty expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So here we are, opening the season with another classic Sam Darnold vs Josh Allen quarterback duel. One for the ages that will be worth its own Last Dance<\/em> style documentary approach someday, with the only difference being it\u2019s the fans in the Buffalo stands having the cocaine orgies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The only people excited about the Jets this year are people betting against the Jets. The Bills are a potential playoff team almost by default. Somebody\u2019s got to win the AFC East and we, as a civilization, just really don\u2019t want it to be the Patriots again. We\u2019re dealing with enough right now with a global pandemic and frankly could use the break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. CHICAGO BEARS AT DETROIT LIONS (-1.5)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s got to be tough as a fanbase to see your team surrender its season before it began. At least for the Bears they waited until March to do it, trading for Nick Foles<\/a> while Cam Newton sits at home bedazzling a Papakha and waiting for someone to slide into his DMs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To only further toss in the towel, the Bears didn\u2019t select quarterback Mitchell Trubisky\u2019s fifth-year option, meaning he\u2019ll be a free agent at the end of the 2020-21. In spite of the evidence of his eyes and the team\u2019s wallet, general manager Ryan Pace says he still believes<\/a> in Trubisky. As do I. He exists. He walks the Earth. This isn\u2019t like the Loch Ness Monster or Sasquatch, though I\u2019m pretty sure Bigfoot could toss more than 17 touchdown passes in a season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At least the Bears waited until the offseason to give up. The Lions slid away from the table without tipping the dealer back in December when they announced they would not be firing head coach<\/a> Matt Patricia. The ensuing Patricia celebration that closed down the local Golden Corral luckily happened before the coronavirus outbreak or we\u2019d all be dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Continued in Part 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Follow our BetOnline Twitter account<\/a> for the latest sports news and betting odds, and stay tuned on the Instagram feed<\/a> for more good information too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY ADAM GREENE We\u2019ve all gone a little stir crazy during the COVID-19 lockdown, but the NFL has offered a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":11147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11148,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11142\/revisions\/11148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}