Week 1 of the 2021 NFL season is going to pop. The league's schedule makers delivered five games between teams that made the playoffs last season, which the Elias Sports Bureau tells us is tied for the most in an opening week in NFL history. So what we're about to experience is basically the best weekend of our lives.
Steelers-Bills. Seahawks-Colts. Browns-Chiefs. Packers-Saints. Bears-Rams. They're all coming at you. Our NFL experts have predicted winners for each game and gone inside the matchups. Our fantasy experts have told you whom to put in your lineup. There is, after all, a lot of information to process.
All told, 15 teams are projected to use a different starting quarterback from their 2020 season opener, tied for the second-most year-over-year quarterback change in the NFL's Super Bowl era, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. And five games will feature matchups between quarterbacks making their first Week 1 start for their respective teams, the first time that has happened in NFL history, according to Elias data.
Amid the noise, what follows is the first installment of a weekly predictions column designed to round out your preparation for the weekend, culminating with a bold call. Let's get to it.
Mahomes has historically come out of the gate at his absolute best, powered in part by the annual schematic innovations that Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid springs on opponents. Here's how ridiculous it has been: Mahomes has a 10-0 career record in September, including 34 touchdown passes and zero -- yes, zero -- interceptions. He has averaged 330 passing yards per game over the season's first month, and he's the only quarterback in NFL history to throw at least three touchdown passes in each of his first three season-opening starts.
The Cleveland Browns made some important personnel changes to address a pass defense that allowed 10.7 yards per completion last season, including signing free-agent pass-rusher Jadeveon Clowney and safety John Johnson III. But they'll be no match for early-season Mahomes.
There will be a bunch of high rollers at Allegiant Stadium
The Raiders will play their first game in Las Vegas in front of fans after COVID-19 protocols mandated an empty stadium for all eight home games in 2020. According to Vivid Seats, Monday night's game against the Baltimore Ravens has been the second-most in-demand ticket on the NFL's entire secondary market, behind only Tom Brady's return to New England when his Tampa Bay Buccaneers play the New England Patriots in Week 4. The price for a single ticket was approaching $1,000 earlier this summer, and the average price is now $865.
Vegas has been waiting for years for this party. It's going to be wild.
Holding penalties will rise
Last season, the league office made a major decision to reinterpret offensive holding penalties. No one knew it until Week 1, however, when officials called the foul only 18 times in 16 games -- a drop of 78% from Week 1 in 2019 and 58.6% from the five-year average from 2014 to 2018. By the end of the season, officials had called fewer offensive holding penalties than in any season in recent memory, significantly changing the way the game was played and particularly angering teams that had built their defenses around expensive pass-rushers.
The game got a short-term aesthetic boost -- most fans prefer fewer flags to disrupt the game -- but ESPN officiating analyst John Parry is among those who think the league will course-correct a bit in 2021, starting in Week 1. "There are teams that built their defenses based on incredible pass-rushers that were held all season, without it being called," Parry said recently. "I think the league will look for more balance to make it more fair this season."
In 2020, the Buffalo Bills led the league in hold calls with 27, while the Atlanta Falcons had the fewest (eight). The Dallas Cowboys and Tampa Bay Buccaneers combined for six on Thursday night in the 2021 season opener.
Trevor Lawrence is going to make (recent) history
Since 2004, the NFL has seen 12 No. 1 overall picks start at quarterback in Week 1 as rookies. All of them have lost.
The most recent No. 1 overall pick to win his Week 1 start at quarterback was David Carr, for the Houston Texans in 2002. Lawrence will be the next, thanks in part to the lackluster team the Texans are expected to field against him Sunday. Lawrence's Jacksonville Jaguars are three-point favorites in Houston.
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Ryan Clark explains why No. 11 pick Justin Fields has what it takes to be the standout player from the 2021 draft class.
This is not to say Lawrence is going to put up big numbers. He won't need to in order to beat the Texans, who are bizarrely constructed with one of the NFL's oldest rosters as they move clearly into the beginning stage of a rebuilding process. They're using a roster spot on a quarterback (Deshaun Watson) whom they don't plan to play, and the Texans have inspired no confidence that they are ready to compete this season.
Aaron Rodgers will have the best game -- in Florida -- of his life
It took only one sentence, tucked into a column published on Nola.com, to ensure this certainty. Writing about the New Orleans Saints' decision to play their Week 1 game against the Green Bay Packers in Jacksonville, Florida, following Hurricane Ida, Nola columnist Jeff Duncan noted: "Aaron Rodgers' career 3-4 record and pedestrian 78.1 passer rating in the state did not go unnoticed."
Rodgers dismissed the idea as "useless information," but you can count on him carrying that perceived slight all the way through Sunday's matchup at TIAA Bank Field. The Saints' pass defense is so unsettled that they traded this week for Texans cornerback Bradley Roby. He isn't eligible to play this week, however. Rodgers has never thrown for more than 325 yards in a game in Florida, and only once has he thrown for more than two touchdowns. Take the over on this one.
Ja'Marr Chase is going to be fine ... probably
Chase, a wide receiver who was the Cincinnati Bengals' No. 1 draft choice, had a case of the dropsies this preseason. Sometimes that happens, especially for young players, and it isn't altogether unsurprising given Chase's decision to opt out of the 2020 college season. So before you get worried about this becoming a debilitating problem, you should understand what an actual debilitating problem in this regard is.
In 2005, the Minnesota Vikings used the No. 7 overall pick on receiver Troy Williamson. Soon they were horrified to see not only way too many drops but also balls literally bouncing off his face mask and chest without ever touching his hands. The team sent him for an eye exam and learned Williamson had issues with depth perception. He began working on eye exercises, and the Vikings even changed the lighting in their practice facility to accommodate. Nothing worked, however, and he was traded in 2007. Moral of the story: Don't worry about Chase until you start hearing about facility upgrades and trips to the eye doctor.
Until then, count on Chase settling down and quite possibly being a factor for the Bengals in Week 1 against, yes, the Vikings.
Bold prediction of the week: The Giants will show Sunday why they should be the NFC East favorites
It's pretty wild to think that the New York Giants are three-point underdogs to the Denver Broncos at home. It looks like the Giants are about to get tailback Saquon Barkley back on the field, and if that's the case, we should be able to project a pretty decent performance from quarterback Daniel Jones. In 11 career games alongside Barkley, Jones had thrown 23 touchdown passes against nine interceptions.
Stranger things have happened, but if the Giants have a balanced offense to go along with a defense that limited opponents to a 51 Total QBR in the second half of last season, they should have all they need to beat the Broncos -- and change the arc of conversation around their division.
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