Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Season 13 of my NFL picks!
When I started making picks back in 2013, things were different: The Browns hadn’t won a division title since 1989, the Cowboys hadn’t been to the Super Bowl since 1995 and the Jets were in the middle of a playoff drought, but all of those streaks are now over. Wait, nope. I stand corrected. The Browns still haven’t won a division title since 1989, the Cowboys still haven’t been to a Super Bowl since 1995 and the Jets are still in the middle of a playoff drought.
Time is a flat circle.
Bet NFL Week 1 games at DraftKings, where new users get $300 in bonus bets and over $200 off NFL Sunday Ticket. Click here to get started:
The good news for the Browns is that this surely is going to be the year where their drought ends and I’m basing my entire theory on the fact that a guy from Cleveland (Travis Kelce) just got engaged to the most famous singer on the planet (Taylor Swift).
Everything is coming up Cleveland this year.
Is this actually going to be the year of the Browns?
That’s a great question, and you can find the answer by clicking here to see my predictions for the entire 2025 NFL season. If you click over, you’ll see my final record prediction for all 32 teams plus who I’m picking to make the playoffs and who I’m taking to win the Super Bowl LX. Spoiler alert: I’m not taking the Browns.
For those you clicking over to read my predictions, we’ll wait here until you get back.
All right, welcome back. Let’s get to the Week 1 picks.
NFL Week 1 picks
Cowboys at Eagles
Thursday, 8:20 p.m. ET (NBC, Stream: Fubo, try for free)
If there’s one rule in the NFL that every team should always follow, it’s NEVER TRADE AWAY YOUR BEST DEFENSIVE PLAYER ONE WEEK BEFORE THE START OF THE SEASON. Jerry Jones broke that rule.
Great question, Micah. No one knows.
I’m not saying Jerry Jones is trying to run the team into the ground, but I’m also not not saying that. I would say that sending Parsons to Green Bay was the worst trade that anyone in Dallas has ever made, but that would be a lie because the Mavericks exist.
So how will the loss of Parsons impact this game? The Cowboys gave up the fourth-most rushing yards in the NFL last year and I can’t imagine that number is going to improve after the loss of Parsons. The first test for the Cowboys defense will be Saquon Barkley and an Eagles rushing attack that averaged 179.3 yards per game last season, which ranked first in the NFC and second in the NFL.
If the Eagles are smart, they’ll just give Barkley 49 carries in this game and call it a night. The only chance the Cowboys have to win is if Dak Prescott throws for 500 yards, which actually might happen. Not only will Dak be throwing to CeeDee Lamb, but the Cowboys also have George Pickens, who came to Dallas in a trade back in March (Someone in the Cowboys’ front office should have taken Jerry’s phone away after that trade so he couldn’t make any more deals).
The Eagles secondary is still a massive question mark, so Lamb and Pickens could both have big games.
One other thing working in the Cowboys’ advantage is the fact that Prescott is 4-1 in his past five starts against Eagles. On paper, the Eagles are definitely the better team heading into Thursday, but I stopped using paper three years ago, so I’m not going to pretend like the Cowboys can’t pull off the upset here.
The Eagles will be raising their Super Bowl banner on Thursday night and if the Cowboys somehow pull off the upset just seven days after Jerry gave away Micah Parsons, we will never hear the end of it. Jerry Jones will look like a genius and I’m not sure we’re ready to live in a world where Jerry looks like a genius. For the good of America, the Eagles need to take down America’s Team.
THE PICK: Eagles 34-24 over Cowboys | Odds via Caesars Sportsbook, where you can get 20 100% profit boosts with the promo code CBS20X. Get started here:
Friday, 8 p.m. ET (YouTube) in Sao Paulo, Brazil
This game will be shown on YouTube, marking the first time ever that the streaming platform will be exclusively showing an NFL game. I normally only watch cat videos and old episodes of “Saved by the Bell” on YouTube, so this will be a nice change of pace for me.
Anyway, the best part about the NFL now playing an annual game in Brazil is that I get to remind you every year about the fact that I played an extra in a movie that took place in Brazil. I was a train passenger in “Fast Five” and I was so good that the Academy actually thought about introducing a new category for “Best train passenger,” which I would have been a lock to win because no one has ever played a train passenger better, except maybe Brad Pitt in “Bullet Train.”
I’m not sure if being in that movie makes me an expert on all things Brazil, but I’m going to assume it does. And when it comes to NFL games in Brazil, I’m also en expert there: I’m 1-0 with my Brazilian picks.
This feels like a game that’s going to come down to the play of each team’s left tackle. For the Chargers, they used to have one of the best left tackles in the NFL in Rashawn Slater, but he suffered a season-ending injury in August when he tore his Patellar tendon. So now, the Chargers will be moving their right tackle from last season, Joe Alt, over to left tackle. And to fill Alt’s spot, they’re moving their right guard from last season, Trey Pipkins, to right tackle.
As for the Chiefs, the last time we saw them on the field came in Super Bowl LIX in a game where Patrick Mahomes got destroyed. He was sacked six times and a big reason that happened is because the Chief offensive line couldn’t stop anyone. The Chiefs used four different left tackles last season, which isn’t ideal, because that’s not a position where you want to be using four different players. To fix the problem, the Chiefs used a first-round pick on Josh Simmons, who will be making the first start of his career on Friday.
I fully expect that both quarterbacks will be facing constant pressure in this game, and in that situation, I trust Mahomes slightly more than I trust Justin Herbert. OK, a lot more.
Every team that has ever won in Brazil has gone on to win the Super Bowl that year, so that seems like a good thing for the Chiefs.
THE PICK: Chiefs 23-20 over Chargers | Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook (where new users get $300 in bonus bets and over $200 off NFL Sunday Ticket):
4:25 p.m. ET (CBS, Stream on Paramount+)
For the first time in 25 years, the Packers are opening their season with a game on CBS. Does that make us the biggest winner of the Micah Parsons trade? Yes. I think you could say that because it means that we’ll be televising Micah Parsons’ first game with the Packers. But that’s only if he plays.
The weird thing about the Parsons trade is that I’m not sure Parsons is actually going to help the Packers his week. For one, he’s not in football shape because he hasn’t practiced in nearly three months. The only way to get into football shape is to play football and by the time this game rolls around, Parsons will only have four days of practice under his belt. Also, Parsons still has to learn Green Bay’s entire defensive playbook. And he has to do all that while battling a bad back.
Um, did Jerry Jones win this trade? I might have to take back everything about Jerry Jones earlier. Give that man the GM of the year award.
Based on Parsons’ back situation, I’ll be shocked if he’s on the field for even a quarter of the Packers’ defensive plays in this game, so basically, for at least this week, I don’t think Parsons is going to have a huge impact.
Last season, the Packers were either the best bad team or the worst good team. I’ve had nine months to think about it and I’m still not sure. They went 11-1 against teams that finished with 10 wins or less, but 0-6 against teams that won 11 games or more. They also went just 1-5 in the NFC North.
One problem for the Packers is that Matt LaFleur hasn’t been able to figure out how to beat the Lions with Detroit winning six of the past seven games in this series.
The Lions definitely have some question marks — they have to replace both coordinators, they have a rookie at right guard (Tate Ratledge) and their starting center retired — but they will have Aidan Hutchinson back and I feel like his return will push Detroit to the win.
The Lions have won three straight in Green Bay and if they win this game, they might as well change the name of the stadium to “Lionbeau field.” And yes, I’m already working to trademark that.
THE PICK: Lions 20-16 over Packers | Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook, where new users get $300 in bonus bets after a winning $5 wager:
4:25 p.m. ET (CBS, Stream on Paramount+)
Back in July, I was thinking about picking the Rams to win the Super Bowl this year, but then I found out that Matthew Stafford currently has the back of an 87-year-old man, which might actually be insulting to 87-year-old men. I feel like this game — and the Rams’ entire season — is going to come down to whether Matthew Stafford’s back can survive the beating it’s going to take.
What is wrong with Matthew Stafford’s back you ask? Everything. At least, that’s what it seems like. The Rams held their first practice of training camp on July 23, but Stafford wasn’t there due to his back. As a matter of fact, Stafford didn’t take part in a single practice with the team in training camp until Aug. 18. Not only that, but before he started practicing, he was spending half his time hanging out in a giant camper that was spotted at the Rams’ practice facility.
I’m not sure what you were told Matt, but that looks like a souped up Airstream trailer and I’ve slept in enough Airstream trailers to know that they won’t fix your back problems. If anything, they only make them worse.
So Stafford has a bad back and oh yea, he still hasn’t TAKEN A HIT this year, so we have no idea how his back is going to handle that.
If you have a bad back, the Texans are probably the last team you want to be facing in Week 1. There were only 11 players in the NFL last season who totaled 11 sacks or more and two of those guys are on Houston’s defense (Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter).
The Texans also have one of the few secondaries in the NFL that should be able to go toe-to-toe with Davante Adams and Puka Nacua, so even if Stafford’s back holds up, don’t expect him to put up big numbers. The other thing to like about the Texans is that head coach DeMeco Ryans is very familar with Sean McVay’s offense. Ryans spent two seasons as the 49ers’ defensive coordinator and during those two years, the 49ers had a 4-0 regular-season record against the Rams while holding McVay’s offense to just 14.25 points per game.
THE PICK: Texans 19-17 over Rams | Odds via BetMGM, where you can get up to $1,500 back in bonus bets if your first football wager loses:
8:20 p.m. ET (NBC, Stream: Fubo, try for free)
I love both of these teams this year and I don’t want to pick this game because I don’t want to be forced to pick either one of them to lose. If you read my season preview, you’ll notice that I’m very high on both of these teams:
- I have the Bills finishing with the best record in the AFC
- I have Baltimore’s Mike Green winning Defensive Rookie of the Year
- I have one of these teams in the Super Bowl
Did I mention all of that just so I could plug me season preview again? No. OK, to be honest, yes I did. If you haven’t checked out my season preview, you can do that here.
The last time we saw these two teams on the field together came in January in the divisional round of the playoffs in a game that Buffalo ended up winning because Mark Andrews forgot how to catch a football.
Ouch. That’s painful. Sorry I made you watch that again Ravens’ fans.
Now, even if Andrews had caught that pass, the Bills still would have had 1:33 to drive down for a game-winning field goal, so there’s no guarantee that Baltimore would have won, so let’s not blame Andrews for the loss. Instead, I’m going to credit Bills’ coach Sean McDermott for the win.
Before taking the Bills’ head coaching job, McDermott spent eight years as an NFL defensive coordinator and it certainly shows whenever the Bills face Lamar Jackson. Over the past five years, Jackson has gone 1-3 against the Bills. In those four games, he’s turned the ball over a total of six times (four interceptions, two lost fumbles) while averaging just 179 yards passing per game (He’s also rushed for an average of 50 yards per game).
In the Bills’ three wins, the Ravens have averaged just 16 points per game. There is no stopping Lamar Jackson, but McDermott has certainly figured out how to slow him down. On the flip side, the Ravens have also done a good job of slowing down Josh Allen. The Bills QB had one of his worst games of the season last year in a 35-10 regular-season loss to the Ravens, but that game was in Baltimore.
The one thing about Allen, who’s the reigning NFL MVP, is that he’s been nearly unbeatable in Buffalo: He’s won 11 straight home starts in the regular season and I feel like he’s going to push that streak to 12 on Sunday night.
THE PICK: Bills 30-23 over Ravens | Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
NFL Week 1 picks: All the rest
Buccaneers 27-24 over Falcons
Bengals 20-17 over Browns
Colts 19-16 over Dolphins
Patriots 23-16 over Raiders
Cardinals 31-13 over Saints
Steelers 24-13 over Jets
Commanders 26-23 over Giants
Jaguars 27-20 over Panthers
Broncos 30-10 over Titans
49ers 24-16 over Seahawks
Bears 22-19 over Vikings
Last Week
Best pick: If you just read through all of my picks and you’re now thinking, “Wow, I wish I could read this guy every day,” you’re in luck, because you can! I write the NFL newsletter here at CBSSports.com and you can subscribe by clicking here and entering your email address. And don’t be selfish, feel free to sign up everyone you know. You can also follow me on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter here. By the way, this is usually the part where I brag to you about my best pick from the preceding week, but since there weren’t any regular-season games last week, that means there’s no best pick for this section.
Worst pick: Although I’ll have plenty of “worst picks” for this section starting next week, I have nothing for you this week. Actually, I did make one interesting decision this offseason. The Browns’ are using unclaimed funds from the state of Ohio to build their new stadium and I had $32 in unclaimed funds, so I let the people decide whether I should claim the money or donate it to the Browns’ stadium.
By a vote of 74.1% to 25.9%, the people said, “DON’T GIVE ANY MONEY TO THE BROWNS.” Sorry, Browns. Maybe everything isn’t coming up Cleveland after all.
Final 2024 picks record (including playoffs)
Straight up: 189-96
Against the spread: 145-133-6
Final 2023 picks record (including playoffs)
Straight-up: 170-115
Against the spread: 146-129-10
You can find John Breech on Facebook or Twitter, and if he’s not doing one of those things, he’s probably looking to see if he has any unclaimed funds in any other states so he can then use the money buy a copy of Fast Five as a wedding gift for Travis and Taylor.
