Final (for now) Power Ratings

It's tidied up and left me wanting to just scrape more stats so that I don’t have to start looking at more matchups within the game. I need an intern, a developer, and 28 hours in a day.

I cleaned up a few things, and while I haven’t made all of my adjustments yet, this is pretty close.

FAQ: “Hey Andy, you’re way off market for a couple of these”

I know, I usually stray on a few to start the season where I disagree with the market. If I were just on market, it wouldn’t be any fun and would have been a lot of work just to end up not betting anything.

I have started with fairly low numbers for all the rookie quarterbacks and will be a little below the market for those three teams to start. I think all three playing somewhat “middle-of-the-pack” defenses this week behooves us as it may be a bit easier to get a feel for where they are to start their NFL careers. It leads to too many questions and not enough answers if a rookie passer goes up against a bottom-five (or top-five) defense and you end up with predictable results.

I went over the lines that stuck out for me, but I won’t be blindly betting where my numbers show value. Situation, matchups, positional matchups, rest, travel, injury concerns, coaching, etc. all play into things. Otherwise, I’d just be betting against New England for like 10% of my bankroll.

As always, feel free to yell at me on Twitter, yell at me in the listener’s Discord, or leave a mean comment on the YouTube videos.

The full week one podcast is out this morning, with Drew and I going over each and every game this weekend. Time stamps in there if you want to skip to a specific game.

Market

It's funny looking at these lines that have been up at major shops since May, but for the most part, this side has stuck near a “cheap -3” for KC for a while now. Some action this morning on Baltimore finally knocked it down to a -2.5.

The total has seen some two-way action but has stayed in a tight band, bouncing between 46.5 and 47. Currently testing going a bit higher.

Injuries

Marquise “Hollywood” Brown will indeed miss his first game as a Chief. Otherwise, both teams are coming in fairly healthy. Clyde Edwards-Helaire was placed on the NFI list and will miss at least four weeks as he works through his fight with PTSD. Carson Steele and Samaje Perine will back up Pachecho.

Baltimore has a couple of guys making the reports, but LB Adisa Isaac (OUT) and RB Rasheen Ali (Doubtful) are both buried in the depth charts.

Matchup

We played this game not that long ago, and it did not turn out anything like we thought it would.

Some things I’m watching for:

• How does the new Ravens offensive line look? Baltimore lost 3,083 offensive lineman snaps from last year’s contributors. Center Tyler Linderbaum is good, but he’ll be flanked by inexperience in Daniel Faalele and Andrew Vorhees. I wouldn’t be pumped about making my first start against Chris Jones.

• What sort of usage is Henry getting and what does the run scheme look like? Todd Monken is a good coordinator; the run scheme in Baltimore works; obviously, Derrick Henry is a beast. The fly in the ointment is the type of scheme used in Baltimore in the past isn’t exactly what Henry is used to, or what he excels in. You want him hitting holes at full speed in blocking matchups where the first person he meets is smaller than him. I don’t want him getting the ball on an RPO where he slows down at the mesh point. I’ll be very curious to see how things look tonight.

• Brought it up on the podcast, but I’ll be watching for what adjustments the KC offense makes coming out of half vs a inexperienced new defensive coordinator Zach Orr. He’s highly spoke of and inherits a very solid defense, but it’s still his first game making the calls against 60 minutes of live offense. Baptism by fire having to start with Pat/Andy coming at you.

• Lots of questions to answer in the Chiefs receiving room. How is Kelce looking at his age? We saw some signs of slowing down a bit last year. I’m also buying stock in Rashee Rice just being very good and likely elevating quickly to the WR1 if he stays on the field. This is a very good Baltimore secondary and the matchups here could end up being the biggest factor in deciding the game.

• Finally, the KC secondary with Sneed is now in Tennessee. Trent McDuffie is very good and this LB crew is solid, but will they be able to just physically bully WRs at the line of scrimmage like last year? It’s tougher with the turnover and I wonder if they’ll play back a little more as they work in the next wave of young DBs.

Betting

My numbers are saying these are pretty fair prices, and as much as it pains me, I’ll be staying off the side and total here. I already have eight other games that I’m involved with or will be before I even get into props, alts, and derivatives. Sometimes, the best bet you make is the one you don’t.

I’ll be tailing some first TD scorer props and almost certainly betting the second half in this one.

Final note:

I will be back tomorrow with Brazilian notes on the Packers/Eagles game, the week one teaser rankings, and maybe some props. If you wanna hang, we’ll be doing a live stream at halftime tonight.