2026 NFL: Previewing Week 1

The 107th season of the National Football League kicks off next Wednesday night in Seattle, where the Seahawks raise their Super Bowl LX banner and host the team they beat to earn it, the New England Patriots.

The season will culminate with Super Bowl 61, February 14th, 2027 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood — meaning the preseason favorite is chasing a Lombardi in its own building.

We preview each of the 16 games on the opening slate, as all 32 teams will be in-action.

Our full season preview and initial Power Rankings can be found here.

Week 1 Games

All lines from FanDuel. All percentages from ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor.

Wednesday September 9th

New England at Seattle – A Super Bowl LX rematch to open the year, which the league does not get to script very often. Seattle won 14 games, lost three others by a combined nine points, and DVOA rated them the third-best champion it has ever measured. So why do we have them second and not first? Klint Kubiak left for Las Vegas, Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III left for Kansas City, and Brian Fleury has never called plays at any level of pro football. Zach Charbonnet was moved to the reserve/PUP list Sunday and will miss at least the first four games, Nick Emmanwori opened camp on PUP and is questionable, and the entire backfield has been banged up all summer. Seattle also signed Terrion Arnold after Detroit released him, though he isn’t expected to be available Wednesday. That’s a lot to put on Sam Darnold and Jaxon Smith-Njigba in Game 1. The defense should still travel — Macdonald was the unanimous No. 1 defensive play-caller in CBS’s poll, the only coach in either poll to be listed first on every ballot — though losing Boye Mafe to Cincinnati costs them something off the edge. New England is the more interesting evaluation to me. Drake Maye led the entire NFL in both EPA per dropback and completion percentage over expectation last year, and it wasn’t close on the second one. Then the postseason came and the offense got overwhelmed by a run of elite defenses. Was that the quarterback or the supporting cast? A.J. Brown was brought in to answer that, and the secondary — Christian Gonzalez, Carlton Davis, Craig Woodson, Kevin Byard — is still the best unit on the roster. New England also lost a long list of defensive contributors, and I’m not sure they’re deep enough up-front to hold up over 17 games. Seattle is a 3.5 point favorite with a total of 44.5, and given a 62.9% chance of winning.

Match-Up to Watch: A.J. Brown against Devon Witherspoon. New England traded for Brown to give Maye a receiver who wins without scheme help. Witherspoon grades a 9 and just signed for $132 million. Somebody’s offseason thesis takes a hit on Wednesday night.

Thursday September 10th

San Francisco vs LA Rams (East Melbourne, Australia) – The preseason favorite opens 10,000 miles from home. The Rams are the closest thing to a superteam the league has had in a while: Clay grades them with both the No. 1 offense and the No. 1 defense, the only team in his guide to lead both, and Les Snead got there by trading Jared Verse and three picks for the reigning Defensive Player of the Year. Matthew Stafford is the reigning MVP at 38. And on Sunday they added Aaron Donald, who unretired on a one-year, $20 million deal with incentives that can push it to $30 million. He hasn’t played since 2023, he’s 35, and he spent his first day back in a team meeting and individual drills while the staff ramps him up — so whether he’s on the field in Melbourne is a separate question from whether he’s on the roster. But pairing him with Garrett is the kind of thing that gets a team declared a champion in August, which is exactly when it means the least. The problem this week is who actually plays. Puka Nacua practiced Sunday and is questionable with a groin injury, which is better news than it looked a week ago, though the off-field questions are still attached. Alaric Jackson is questionable while managing his blood clot issue. Myles Garrett sat out Sunday’s practice with the knee and is also questionable. You can subtract enough pieces from a superteam that it stops looking like one, and an international opener is a strange place to find out. San Francisco won 12 games last year and a road playoff game in Philadelphia. In most divisions they’d be expected to host in January; in this one they’re penciled in third. The offense has real talent and real mileage — Mike Evans, Deebo Samuel, George Kittle and Kyle Juszczyk, with Trent Williams at 38 — and Christian Kirk went on injured reserve Sunday with a calf injury. Kittle is expected to practice this week as he pushes to play in Australia, which tells you how much this offense needs him, coming off an Achilles tear. Christian McCaffrey was excellent as a receiver out of the backfield but averaged 3.9 yards per carry as a runner, well below his norms. If Brock Purdy plays 17 games this is a contender. If he plays nine again, it isn’t. Watch 2026 second-rounder De’Zhaun Stribling, who has pushed for a role with a lot of targets vacated, though a shoulder injury kept him out of the preseason finale. The Rams are 3.5 point favorites with a total of 48.5, and given a 57.6% chance of winning.

Match-Up to Watch: Myles Garrett against Trent Williams. The reigning Defensive Player of the Year, coming off a record 23 sacks and managing knee swelling all camp, against a 38-year-old left tackle with six straight 85-plus grades. Both of them are being asked to be what they were, and neither has anything left to prove except availability.

Sunday September 13th

Buffalo at Houston – Probably the best game on the early slate, and two teams we have in the AFC field. Joe Brady’s first game as a head coach comes against a defense that finished first in total defense and second in scoring last season after DeMeco Ryans handed play-calling to Matt Burke. Buffalo’s offense should be fine — Clay grades it second in the league, DJ Moore arrives from Chicago to join Khalil Shakir and Keon Coleman — both of whom are questionable, Coleman with a foot and toe issue — and James Cook is the reigning rushing champion. The question is the other side of the ball, and it’s the whole reason Sean McDermott isn’t there anymore. Buffalo finished first in the NFL in rushing offense by EPA and 31st in rushing defense, the widest split of any contender, and then turned it over four times in a divisional-round loss in Denver. Now Jim Leonhard installs a new scheme. Nineteen different defensive play-callers drew a vote in CBS’s poll — the widest spread of any category they surveyed — and Leonhard finished with exactly one point, from a single tenth-place ballot. Clay also grades the Buffalo linebacker corps a 3, the lowest mark of any contender at any position. Houston’s side is C.J. Stroud, who ranked seventh in EPA per dropback from October on behind a bad line and no run game, and then had a rough January. The entire offseason went into helping him: Braden Smith, Wyatt Teller, David Montgomery from Detroit. Smith was carted off the practice field in late August and is questionable, which is not what you want from the tackle you signed to fix the problem, and the receiver room already lost Jayden Higgins and Tank Dell. Montgomery giving this offense a real play-action game is the likeliest bridge between average Stroud and top-third Stroud. Buffalo is our AFC favorite. This is a genuine test of that. Buffalo is a 1.5 point road favorite with a total of 44.5, and given a 54.2% chance of winning — tied with Minnesota for the tightest number on the board, which feels about right.

Key to the Game: Early downs against David Montgomery. Buffalo finished 31st in rushing defense by EPA and is installing a new scheme under a coordinator who drew one point in CBS’s poll. Houston imported Montgomery specifically to make its play-action game work. If the Bills can’t get Houston into obvious passing downs, Rousseau and Chubb never get to rush.

Baltimore at Indianapolis – We will have a larger write-up on this game later. Baltimore is a 3.5 point favorite with a total of 48.5, and given a 61.4% chance of winning.

Match-Up to Watch: Lamar Jackson under center against Lou Anarumo’s pressure packages.

Tampa Bay at Cincinnati – Cincinnati finally spent on defense, and the first assignment is a good one. The Bengals sent the No. 10 overall pick to the Giants for Dexter Lawrence and added Jonathan Allen, Boye Mafe, Bryan Cook and Kyle Dugger, and now Lawrence lines up against Tristan Wirfs and Luke Goedeke, who allowed almost nothing between them last season. Here’s the thing about Cincinnati that keeps getting overstated: this defense doesn’t have to be good. It has to be average, which it hasn’t been since 2022. With Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, Clay’s No. 3 offense and the second-easiest schedule in the league, average defense probably gets them into the playoffs. Chase missed practice in late August with a knee issue and is questionable, which is the one thing that would change all of that. Burrow is also one of only four quarterbacks voted into Sando’s Tier 1, and everybody spent August discussing Lamar Jackson’s missed games while ignoring that Burrow has missed a comparable number over the same stretch. Tampa Bay arrives with terrible vibes and real talent. Baker Mayfield called the club’s reported two-year, $100-million-plus offer disrespectful and will play out his deal, Vita Vea has requested a trade and is holding in, Mike Evans left for San Francisco and Lavonte David retired. A healthy Mayfield with a chip on his shoulder is not the worst thing that can happen to an offense. Emeka Egbuka drew 127 targets as a rookie and is questionable with a toe injury that Todd Bowles expects him to play through. Zac Robinson is the new coordinator. Watch Bucky Irving, who averaged 5.4 yards a carry over 207 attempts as a rookie and 3.4 over 173 last year in an injury-shortened season. One of those is real. Cincinnati is a 3.5 point favorite with a total of 51.5, and given a 60.1% chance of winning. That total is the highest of the week, which tells you what the market thinks of both defenses.

Match-Up to Watch: Dexter Lawrence against Tampa Bay’s interior. Cincinnati gave up the No. 10 overall pick for exactly this — a player who can wreck a game from the inside — and Tampa’s line was the reason we put them fourth in our offensive line rankings. The Bengals’ entire season rests on the defense being average. This is the first data point.

Cleveland at Jacksonville – Todd Monken finally landed a top job, a hire that drove respected DC Jim Schwartz out of the building, and he has settled a four-way quarterback competition by naming Deshaun Watson the Week 1 starter, over Shedeur Sanders and rookie Taylen Green — Dillon Gabriel went on injured reserve with a back injury Monken says isn’t serious. None of the four had a good August, and Watson ranked 31st of 35 in Sando’s tiers with some of the harshest commentary in the entire survey. Which makes the real question whether this is a competition or an audition for the 2027 draft — and if Sanders is starting by the second half of the season and looking like he can hold the job in 2027, that’s a productive year for Cleveland regardless of the record. Here’s the odd part: the Browns defense is legitimately good. Cleveland finished first in the NFL in passing defense by EPA per dropback last season, the 2025 draft delivered Defensive Rookie of the Year Carson Schwesinger plus Quinshon Judkins and Harold Fannin Jr., and Jared Verse arrived in the Garrett trade as a cost-controlled young edge who actually fits the timeline. The offense finished 32nd in that same metric — dead last, and not close. Jacksonville is the popular sleeper of the summer on the strength of not losing from Week 11 through Week 18. I’m out on it. There’s a turnover-luck component to that closing kick nobody should ignore, they lost Travis Etienne and All-Pro linebacker Devin Lloyd, and there was no cap space and no draft capital to replace either after the Travis Hunter trade. Their only premium pick went to a rotational blocking tight end. It comes down to how you evaluate Trevor Lawrence, who ranked fourth in the NFL in total EPA and success rate from November on and drew MVP votes, but still finished 27th in completion percentage over expectation on the full year. Hunter as a full-time corner on a defense that ranked first in EPA per play down the stretch is the fun part. Quinn Ewers came over from Miami to back up. Jacksonville is a 7.5 point favorite with a total of 40.5, and given a 67% chance of winning. That’s a lot of respect for a team we have going 9-8, and not much for a Cleveland defense that finished first in the league against the pass — though a 40.5 total says the market does believe in that defense, just not in anything the Browns do with the ball.

Match-Up to Watch: Joshua Hines-Allen against Cleveland’s tackles. Hines-Allen grades a 9 on a defense that ranked first in EPA per play from Week 11 on. Watson has not held up under pressure in years, and Monken’s protection plan is the most interesting thing about a game that could otherwise be unwatchable.

Atlanta at Pittsburgh – Aaron Rodgers turns 43 in December and has announced this is the last one. Mike McCarthy inherits a franchise that never had a losing season in 20 years under Mike Tomlin, and he inherits a quarterback whose arm is fine and whose legs are gone. In 2025 Rodgers posted both the lowest average time to throw and the lowest average depth of target in the NFL, finished 23rd in EPA per dropback and 33rd in success rate, and has basically stopped working the middle of the field. Expect defenses to crowd the line and dare him to get it out immediately, over and over, and expect Pittsburgh to lose more of these than the front office wants to admit if he can’t. The supporting cast is better than people realize — Michael Pittman Jr. and Rico Dowdle join DK Metcalf, Jaylen Warren and Pat Freiermuth, with first-round tackle Max Iheanachor added. Pittman (hamstring) and Metcalf are both expected to play, and Jalen Ramsey has been activated off PUP. And Clay grades this the No. 3 defense in football, with the best edge group in the league in T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith, Nick Herbig and a 37-year-old Cameron Heyward who still grades a 9. Which is a rough draw for Atlanta, who as of this writing still haven’t named a starter. Michael Penix Jr. sat out the preseason finale but has said he believes he’ll be available here, so the assumption that this was Tua Tagovailoa’s job by default no longer holds — and given both of their injury histories, Kevin Stefanski may end up using both before October. Atlanta also traded for Gervon Dexter Sr. on Sunday to shore up the interior, though he arrives with a hamstring issue. Right tackle is a limiting issue on a roster where both quarterbacks are left-handed and Jawaan Taylor is protecting the blind side. Kevin Stefanski’s job here is to keep whoever plays upright and turnover-free. Bijan Robinson, Drake London and Kyle Pitts can handle a fair amount of the rest. People forget Pittsburgh won this division at 10-7. They are not an afterthought. Pittsburgh is a 3 point favorite with a total of 42.5, and given a 58.1% chance of winning.

Match-Up to Watch: T.J. Watt against Jawaan Taylor. Both Atlanta quarterbacks are left-handed, which makes right tackle the blind side, and right tackle was already the weak point on this roster. Watt has spent a decade making that a problem for people. If Tagovailoa gets hit early, this is over quickly.

New Orleans at Detroit – Detroit has the easiest schedule in football by both models, which is why Clay projects 12 wins and the NFL’s second-best record, and this is a soft start to it. The catch is that the Lions are the banged-up team. Cade Mays, signed specifically to fix the interior line, is out 8-10 weeks with a wrist injury. Terrion Arnold was released after criminal charges and has signed in Seattle. Both starting safeties are now on the reserve/PUP list — Kerby Joseph with a knee, Brian Branch with an Achilles — meaning neither is eligible until Week 5, and Sharp had already dropped Detroit three spots on the secondary before that. Backup center Seth McLaughlin is in concussion protocol, so the interior is thin behind the thin. Taylor Decker requested his release, which moves Penei Sewell to left tackle. There’s plenty here still — Amon-Ra St. Brown, Aidan Hutchinson and Jack Campbell all grade 9, Sam LaPorta an 8, and Jared Goff keeps posting numbers. He’s another quarterback who isn’t elite and is unquestionably good enough to win with. Jahmyr Gibbs no longer has David Montgomery to share the load, and whether Isiah Pacheco has anything left is a real question — he’s questionable with a back injury on top of the knee. New Orleans was the under-the-radar team that nearly became our NFC South pick. The Saints went 5-4 in games Tyler Shough started and 1-7 otherwise, added Travis Etienne and guard David Edwards, drafted Jordyn Tyson eighth overall and paid Chris Olave up to $132 million. Tyson is on injured reserve with a hamstring and out roughly two months. The backfield is worse off than that: Alvin Kamara sprained an MCL and is out at least a month, and Devin Neal and Ty Chandler are both on IR, so Etienne is carrying it alone. Kellen Moore is in Year 2 with a defined starter and Brandon Staley runs the defense. The problem: Shough had the league’s worst pressure-to-sack ratio and a bottom-ten off-target rate, and the Saints have no depth in the trenches with Bryan Bresee lost for the year. Hutchinson against that line is the matchup. Detroit is a 7 point favorite with a total of 49.5, and given a 73.5% chance of winning — the largest number of the early window.

Match-Up to Watch: Aidan Hutchinson against a Saints line with no depth. Tyler Shough had the worst pressure-to-sack ratio in the NFL last season, and Bryan Bresee is already lost for the year. Hutchinson grades a 9 and was playing at a Defensive Player of the Year level before his 2024 injury. This is the mismatch of the early window.

Chicago at Carolina – Two 2025 division winners, and two teams we’re projecting to come back to the pack. Chicago forced a league-leading 33 turnovers, which papered over a defense that was ordinary down to down, and then the offseason went sideways: Drew Dalman surprise-retired, DJ Moore was traded to Buffalo, Luther Burden III missed the preseason with a groin injury but was running routes last week, and the secondary took two real hits: Kyler Gordon went to the reserve/PUP list Sunday and can’t play until Week 5, while Coby Bryant isn’t expected back until January. Jaylon Johnson is questionable with an arm injury on top of that. Sharp ranks the schedule third-hardest. I still believe in Ben Johnson — he fixed the sack problem in one offseason and Chicago graded fifth in both PFF pass blocking and run blocking — but Caleb Williams completed 58.1 percent of his throws last season, nowhere near Johnson’s stated 70 percent goal, and ranked 34th in completion percentage over expectation while setting the franchise passing record and winning Chicago’s first playoff game since 2011. The gap between the highlight throws and the routine ones is the entire Year 3 question. Watch Colston Loveland; Johnson built his Detroit offenses around tight end usage and this is the first year he has the personnel. Carolina won the division on a three-way 8-9 tiebreaker, then had the best offseason in the South — Jaelan Phillips, Devin Lloyd, Rasheed Walker, first-round tackle Monroe Freeling — and has been bitten harder by injuries than any team in football. Nic Scourton and rookie receiver Chris Brazzell are out for the year. Both starting tackles are out too — Taylor Moton with a blood clot and Ikem Ekwonu with a knee — and neither is expected back before late October. We took the over on Clay’s 5.9-win projection anyway, mostly on Derrick Brown, Lloyd and Tetairoa McMillan — though Brown, Lloyd and Jaelan Phillips are all carrying questionable tags into the opener, which is a lot of the reason we liked them. Chicago is a 2.5 point road favorite with a total of 47.5, and given a 61.7% chance of winning. Two division champions, and the market has the road team laying points.

Match-Up to Watch: Derrick Brown against Chicago’s replacement for Drew Dalman. Dalman’s retirement in August dropped the Bears from a top-three line to eighth in our rankings, and Brown grades a 9 as the one Carolina defender who can win a game by himself. Ben Johnson’s line schemes are the tell on this offense. First test is a hard one.

New York Jets at Tennessee – Two teams nobody will watch, and both are more interesting than the records will be. New York did not record a single interception in 2025. Not one. They also finished 32nd in passing defense by EPA per dropback, and responded by rebuilding most of the defensive starting lineup and having Aaron Glenn take over play-calling himself. Clay now grades the Jets’ linebackers eighth-best in the league and the defense 10th, with Minkah Fitzpatrick at safety and T’Vondre Sweat, Harrison Phillips and David Onyemata inside, plus a draft class of David Bailey, Kenyon Sadiq, Omar Cooper Jr. and D’Angelo Ponds. The offense is the problem: Geno Smith is back where his career started, coming off a league-high 17 interceptions and a 34th-place finish in EPA per dropback, and Clay projects 14 more picks. Tennessee gives Cam Ward the most credible staff the franchise has put together in a decade — Robert Saleh, Gus Bradley on defense, Brian Daboll on offense — plus Carnell Tate at No. 4 overall to go with Wan’Dale Robinson and Calvin Ridley. Ward finished 33rd of 33 qualifying quarterbacks in EPA per dropback, success rate and yards per dropback as a rookie, and improved in all three over the back half of the year while nearly halving his sack rate after Brian Callahan was fired. Jeffery Simmons grades a 9 and projects for a league-leading 9.3 sacks among interior linemen. Cedric Gray, fifth in the NFL with 160 tackles as a first-time starter, is the centerpiece of the new zone scheme. Six wins isn’t a playoff team. It’s a real step. Tennessee is a 2.5 point favorite with a total of 39.5, and given a 61.8% chance of winning. That’s the lowest total on the board, and nobody should be surprised.

Match-Up to Watch: Jeffery Simmons against the Jets’ interior. Simmons projects for a league-leading 9.3 sacks among interior linemen, and Geno Smith threw 17 picks last season while being asked to hold the ball. Interior pressure is how you turn that into turnovers, which is the one thing this Jets defense could not generate at all in 2025.

Washington at Philadelphia – A division game in Week 1 with real stakes for both. Philadelphia won 11 games and a division title and spent the entire offseason unhappy about it. A.J. Brown is gone, Kevin Patullo was fired, and Sean Mannion — who nobody can evaluate yet — installs the Shanahan-McVay system. Fangio is still there, and the defense is the reason to believe: Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean in the secondary, Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis up front, Saquon Barkley and Zack Baun both grading 9. The safety group grades a 3 and Jonathan Greenard’s pectoral injury has him listed out for this one, so it isn’t airtight. Cooper DeJean is questionable as well. On Jalen Hurts, the criticism has gotten excessive. He’s been to two Super Bowls, won one, was its MVP, and has three Pro Bowls. Ruiz’s film read is that the 2025 efficiency decline traced to a bad scheme rather than to any decline in Hurts, and Patullo lost his job over it. Washington went from the NFC Championship Game to 5-12 and dead last in the NFL in yards allowed, and now Laremy Tunsil is out with a torn triceps. Jer’Zhan Newton tore a pectoral and isn’t expected back until November, which thins an already bad front. Dan Quinn replaced both coordinators — David Blough on offense, Daronte Jones on defense — and there’s a heavy Maryland flavor to the additions, with former Terps Stefon Diggs and Chigoziem Okonkwo both likely to help immediately and Nick Cross joining the secondary. Former Raven Odafe Oweh gets a chance to build on what he did in Los Angeles. Jayden Daniels grades a 7 and is an MVP-caliber player when upright. Behind a line missing Tunsil, against Fangio, on the road, is not the opener you’d draw up for him. Philadelphia is a 4.5 point favorite with a total of 45.5, and given a 65.5% chance of winning.

Key to the Game: Whether Washington can protect Jayden Daniels without Laremy Tunsil. Daniels is an MVP-caliber player when upright, and he is walking into Fangio’s defense with Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis inside and his left tackle on injured reserve. Everything else about Washington’s season is downstream of him staying on the field.

Green Bay at Minnesota – Green Bay was 9-3-1 on December 7 and top-five in several defensive categories. Then Micah Parsons tore his ACL, they lost four straight, and they blew a 21-3 lead to Chicago in the wild card. Parsons was moved to the reserve/PUP list Sunday and will miss the first four games, so this is the version without him. Josh Jacobs was placed on the Commissioner’s Exempt List the same day and is also out, which leaves MarShawn Lloyd — the former DeMatha standout who had six carries in 2024 and missed 2025 entirely — carrying the backfield. Sharp has the Packers fourth on the strength of Jordan Love ranking sixth in EPA per dropback over three seasons. We can’t get there with this much rehab on the roster. Love has enormous ability and it falls to him to elevate a receiver group in Christian Watson, Jayden Reed and Matthew Golden that all has talent and all has questions; a healthy Tucker Kraft is a top-tier tight end and probably the swing piece, and he’s expected to be full go here. Minnesota is the strangest situation in football. Kyler Murray won the job outright and J.J. McCarthy’s camp was described by one veteran beat writer as the football yips, which is why Clay grades the quarterback room a 4. Murray has started multiple seasons hot enough to draw MVP chatter by Week 6 and has never sustained it, with the usual explanation being that he wears down over a full year. The skill talent around him here is better than anything he’s had, starting with Justin Jefferson. And Brian Flores is the best coordinator alive at extracting production from a unit without stars — his defense finished third in the NFL in passing EPA allowed while the offense finished 29th. Jonathan Greenard’s departure for Philadelphia will be felt. Minnesota is a 1.5 point home favorite with a total of 45.5, but Green Bay is given a 57.4% chance of winning. The market and the model disagree here, which is usually a sign the number is being set on Kyler Murray rather than on the rosters.

Match-Up to Watch: Kyler Murray against a Green Bay secondary that has to cover without Micah Parsons. Jonathan Gannon’s corners were the acknowledged weak spot last season and were being propped up by pressure. Parsons isn’t back until Week 6. Murray is at his best early in seasons and against defenses that let him extend plays.

Arizona at LA Chargers – Mike McDaniel’s first game calling plays since leaving Miami, and the reason we have the Chargers eighth while NFL.com has them 17th. Los Angeles won 11 games without Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater for most of the season. Both are back, though Slater has been limited and carries a questionable tag. Justin Herbert took 54 sacks behind the league’s highest pressure rate last year, playing through a broken hand that needed midseason surgery, in front of a line that shuffled through nearly three dozen starting combinations — and still set a career high in scramble rate and averaged nine yards per dropback outside of structure. He checked in sixth in Sando’s tiers. The skill group is the deepest of his career: Ladd McConkey, Omarion Hampton, Oronde Gadsden II, David Njoku, Charlie Kolar, with Kimani Vidal and Keaton Mitchell behind Hampton. The interior line was already the worry and it got worse when Tyler Biadasz tore his ACL and was lost for the year, then worse again when guard Branson Taylor went to injured reserve on Sunday. Losing Jesse Minter to Baltimore should matter, and as Ravens fans we’d like to think it will, but Harbaugh always finds a path and always builds physical teams. Arizona draws the hardest schedule in the league by both models with a quarterback room Clay grades a 3 — Jacoby Brissett starting, Gardner Minshew behind him, third-rounder Carson Beck lurking. There are weapons: Trey McBride grades a 9, No. 3 overall pick Jeremiyah Love an 8 though he’s questionable with an ankle and is now the entire backfield after James Conner and Trey Benson both landed on injured reserve, plus Marvin Harrison Jr., Michael Wilson, Paris Johnson Jr. and Isaac Seumalo. Mike LaFleur’s first job is getting Harrison back on track after two years of offensive dysfunction. No excuse for the Chargers to lose this one at home. The Chargers are 10.5 point favorites with a total of 46.5, and given an 81.1% chance of winning — the biggest number of the week by a wide margin.

Match-Up to Watch: The Chargers’ interior line against Walter Nolen and Josh Sweat. Los Angeles is elite at tackle with Alt and Slater back and completely unproven inside, and it got worse when Tyler Biadasz tore his ACL. Arizona’s front is the one part of that roster with real juice. A 10.5-point favorite has one plausible way to lose this.

Miami at Las Vegas – The two lowest-graded rosters in Clay’s guide, and it isn’t especially close. Miami projects for 2.4 wins with the 32nd-ranked offense, the 32nd-ranked defense and roughly $180 million in dead cap after cutting Tyreek Hill and moving Tua Tagovailoa, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Jaylen Waddle and Bradley Chubb. Malik Willis gets his first Week 1 start with no receiver on the roster grading above a 3. Worth remembering: this was a 7-10 team a year ago. The collapse is one offseason old, not chronic, and De’Von Achane, Zach Sieler and Jordyn Brooks are real players. Las Vegas is the more interesting situation. Klint Kubiak asked for a veteran quarterback so he wouldn’t have to throw the No. 1 overall pick into the fire, and got Kirk Cousins. Mendoza looked sharp in August, which means the question isn’t whether he plays this year but when. Tyler Linderbaum arrives from Baltimore to fix the center spot, Nakobe Dean and Quay Walker rebuild the linebacker room, and Maxx Crosby (projected for 10.9 sacks) and Brock Bowers both grade a 9, with Ashton Jeanty in Year 2 and an ankle the staff says it’s counting on him to play through. Same core problem as Miami, though: no receiver above a 5. Las Vegas is a 3.5 point favorite with a total of 40.5, and given a 59% chance of winning. That is a surprisingly small number against a team projected for 2.4 wins, and it says as much about the Raiders as it does about Miami.

Match-Up to Watch: Maxx Crosby against Miami’s tackles. Crosby grades a 9 and projects for 10.9 sacks, and Malik Willis is making his first Week 1 start with no receiver on the roster grading above a 3. If Miami can’t run with Achane, this becomes a very long afternoon in the desert.

Dallas at New York Giants – John Harbaugh’s first game in something other than purple, and the schedule handed him a division game in prime time. New York’s front seven is the reason to watch: Brian Burns, Abdul Carter and Kayvon Thibodeaux is Clay’s second-best edge room, with rookie Arvell Reese and Tremaine Edmunds behind them under new coordinator Dennard Wilson. Carter had 72 pressures as a rookie, including a league-best 48 in under 2.5 seconds, and only four sacks. The finishing is coming. The problem is that Paulson Adebo, Dru Phillips and Greg Newsome II are all questionable and Malik Nabers is questionable with a knee, which is a bad combination against this offense. Isaiah Likely and Patrick Ricard followed Harbaugh from Baltimore and should both be productive, and Odell Beckham Jr. is back in a Giants uniform. Jaxson Dart debuted atop Sando’s Tier 3, has obvious talent, and has a playing style that doesn’t inspire much confidence about his availability. Dallas had the league’s second-best offense last season — two 1,000-yard receivers in CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens, the NFL’s third-rated passer in Dak Prescott, a quietly productive year from Javonte Williams — and finished 7-9-1 because they couldn’t stop anybody, ranking 31st in passing defense and 30th in rushing defense by EPA. So they threw everything at that side of the ball: Rashan Gary, Von Miller, Dee Winters, Otito Ogbonnia, Jalen Thompson, Cobie Durant, first-round picks on Caleb Downs and Malachi Lawrence, Christian Parker hired from Philadelphia, and Broderick Jones from Pittsburgh up front. If that defense can be merely average, Dallas is a playoff team. They’re our first team out of the NFC field at 9-8. Dallas is a 2.5 point favorite with a total of 48.5, and given a 55.1% chance of winning.

Match-Up to Watch: CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens against a Giants corner room carrying three questionable starters. Dallas had the league’s second-best offense last season and Prescott was the NFL’s third-rated passer. John Harbaugh’s debut is going to be decided by whether that front seven can get home before the coverage breaks.

Monday September 14th

Denver at Kansas City – Best possible way to end the weekend. Kansas City enters ninth in FPI, its worst preseason ranking since 2018, coming off a six-win season in which it went 1-9 in one-score games and lost Patrick Mahomes to a torn ACL in December. He was cleared to practice fully when camp opened. The real question isn’t whether he plays, it’s what he looks like scrambling on a repaired knee and whether he starts getting the ball out quicker. Kenneth Walker III gives Andy Reid and a returning Eric Bieniemy the downhill run game and play-action threat they haven’t had in three years, though he’s questionable with ankle swelling the club expects him to play through. Mahomes, for his part, is reported to be on track to start. Two first-round picks and a second went into the defense, and Spagnuolo’s units almost always look better in December than September; the rebuilt secondary leaning on rookie Mansoor Delane is the actual worry. Denver returns 20 of 22 starters from an AFC Championship Game roster, sent first-, third- and fourth-round picks to Miami for Jaylen Waddle, has the best offensive line in football, and led the NFL with 68 sacks, eleven clear of the field and four short of the 1984 Bears’ record. That last number needs an asterisk this week: Jonathon Cooper was placed on the Commissioner’s Exempt List on Sunday, so one of the pieces that produced it isn’t available. We have them regressing from 14 wins to 10, but let’s be precise about why: that’s an 11-2 record in one-score games and a record 12 comeback wins evening out, not a verdict on the roster. Bo Nix finished fourth in the NFL in red-zone QBR and led the league outright in winning drives with seven. He also finished 26th in completion percentage over expectation and attempted only 40 passes between the hashmarks all season against 234 outside the numbers. Davis Webb spent the offseason working on getting him off his first read faster; opposing coordinators spent it making him look at the middle of the field. Five of Denver’s first six opponents made the 2025 playoffs, and it starts here. We have all three AFC West contenders at 10-7. This is the head-to-head that will look enormous in January. Kansas City is a 2.5 point favorite with a total of 43, and given a 59.4% chance of winning. A 43 total for a Broncos-Chiefs opener is its own commentary on where these two offenses are.

Match-Up to Watch: Denver’s pass rush against Patrick Mahomes’ knee. The Broncos led the NFL with 68 sacks, eleven clear of the field, with Nik Bonitto coming off a 14-sack season — and they’ll do it without Jonathon Cooper, who landed on the Commissioner’s Exempt List on Sunday. Mahomes was cleared to practice fully at the start of camp but has not taken a live hit since tearing his ACL in December. How he responds the first time Bonitto gets there is the most important thing that happens in Week 1.