NFL week 2 predictions

Week 1 of the 2012 NFL season was the highest scoring opening weekend since records began as both offenses and defenses adapted to new schemes, coaches and officiating (don’t get me started). Some teams backed up what we all thought, while some shocked and surprised us. After opening up with a quite frankly disappointing 8-8 record, let’s see if I can do a little bit better this time…

Friday 1:20am

Chicago Bears 33-31 Green Bay Packers

The Packers got a real seeing to by the 49’ers on Sunday night, especially on defense, and it could be just what they needed before this matchup with a seemingly revitalised Bears team who looked relatively solid on defense and a lot more expansive on offense with two big receivers in Brandon Marshall and rookie Alshon Jeffrey. As one of the biggest rivalries in the league, both teams will be up for this one and I was impressed with the new-look Chicago against Indy last Sunday. But it seems that their weakness on offense is their line, while the Pack’s pass rush is as dangerous as ever with Clay Matthews, and the Bears will have to pay special attention to him. The probable absence of Packers’ WR Greg Jennings could be the deciding factor here, and I’m going for a shock on the first Thursday Night Football of the year, but it’ll be close, and I can see a lot of points being scored.

Sunday 6:00pm

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20-26 New York Giants

Tampa Bay’s opening win against Cam Newton’s Panthers showed a lot of grit and defensive strength, and they will need all of that and more if they are to beat Eli and the reigning Superbowl Champions at home. Dallas played some great defense to beat them last week, but their offense looks more potent than the Bucs’, even though Doug Martin looks a superstar and Vincent Jackson has given Josh Freeman a viable number one target. The G-Men have injuries in their secondary, but one thing is for sure when you have Tom Coughlin as coach: there will be a plan. And this week, I think that plan will help the Giants to a win.

Oakland Raiders 13-9 Miami Dolphins

Both of these teams have surprisingly decent defenses. Oakland shot themselves in the foot on special teams and let San Diego beat them on Monday night, while the Dolphins defense had to defend multiple short-fields after their offense kept throwing the ball away. However, when your offense is as terrible as Miami’s (Brian Hartline is no.1 receiver), it doesn’t matter how good your defense is, you can’t win games. Oakland have a lot of youth, pace and potential in their offense, especially at receiver, but Carson Palmer is not a west-coast QB, so RB Darren McFadden has to carry this team, and that should be enough in Miami.

Houston Texans 34-13 Jacksonville Jaguars

While Blaine Gabbert stepped up to a level that was more expected of him last season, he is going to have to reach whole new levels to give the Jags a chance to win this game. It took a quarter before Maurice Jones Drew took over once again from Rashad Jennings at running back, and he looked straight back to the level we expect of him, and he will once again be the focal point of this offense. The Texans running game is almost unstoppable on its day, and the Jags will have their hands full with Arian Foster running downhill this early in the year, not forgetting Andre Johnson on the outside helping the offense to balance itself. A comfortable win for Houston.

Cleveland Browns 19-33 Cincinnati Bengals

Brandon Weeden is going to struggle until he gets dropped. That is what happens when you have no-one to throw to. Trent Richardson will have to carry this offense, and as a rookie, it will not be easy, as we saw last week against a strong Eagles defense. However, the Bengals will probably give Richardson an opportunity to do a little better this week, even though it will probably still be in a losing effort. The loss of CB Joe Haden for Cleveland is absolutely huge, and I would expect AJ Green to have a massive day as a result, leading Cincinnati to a bounce-back win after they were handled by Baltimore last week.

Kansas City Chiefs 24-20 Buffalo Bills

I think everyone was surprised by how badly the Bills seemed to play last week, but I’m sure it can’t be that bad again, especially with the exciting CJ Spiller now first choice running back after Fred Jackson’s injury. But I think the key for Buffalo is at QB, Ryan Fitzpatrick may be incredibly intelligent, but he just does not have the talent to make his team a good one, especially with WR Stevie Johnson his only legitimate target on the outside. The Chiefs got pounded by the Falcons last week, but that is something that could happen to a lot of teams this year, the positives were on offense, where Jamaal Charles looked back to 100% and Matt Cassel threw some nice passes without getting Dwayne Bowe too involved. If the Bills struggle to get their pass-rush going again, I can see the Chiefs nicking this one in Buffalo.

Baltimore Ravens 20-17 Philadelphia Eagles

Baltimore were impressive last week, especially on offense, where their first play of the game was a 50 yard bomb from Joe Flacco to Torrey Smith, but they will face a much stouter defense in Philadelphia come Sunday. The Eagles’ worries were surprisingly on offense, where Michael Vick looked out of sorts in throwing 4 picks. But LeSean McCoy looked in great form, racking up another 100 yard game for his team, and DeSean Jackson made a few catches down the sideline, showing that he was definitely back in the fold and concentrating on his game. Despite both sides wanting to throw the ball, I think this game could become a ‘ground-and-pound’ type affair with Ray Rice and McCoy playing starring roles. But the game will rest on the shoulders of Vick, mistakes of the like of last week will lose Philly this one, and he just looks short of confidence at the moment.

New Orleans Saints 34-27 Carolina Panthers

Another encounter with a young, athletic QB for the Saints, and if they deal with Cam Newton the way they dealt with RG3, they could be staring down the barrel of a second straight defeat. But one thing is always the same with New Orleans, as long as Drew Brees is throwing the ball around, they have a more than average chance of winning games. Although they didn’t use him much last week, Mark Ingram could be the x-factor in this one, as Carolina’s problems against the run don’t seem to have been fixed, ad if the Saints can balance their offense a little better, it won’t matter how many problems Cam presents their defense.

Arizona Cardinals 17-34 New England Patriots

John Skelton is not the answer at QB for Arizona, and neither is Kevin Kolb. The Arizona team is a decent all round team apart from at QB, a pretty important position to be sub-standard at. However, Kolb did enough to guide his team to a victory against the Seahawks last week, and that has to go down as a big plus point for the Cards, along with the fact that Larry Fitzgerald will catch even poorly thrown balls when they fly his way. The Patriots showed the Titans that they were a different team on defense especially, a quicker, nastier team in the front 7 than they were last year, and if they can stop the run again, then making Kolb throw will yield turnovers. Adding those turnovers to the already prolific Pats offense is a recipe for disaster for the Cardinals.

Minnesota Vikings 27-30 Indianapolis Colts

This is another game for the Vikings that they would have looked at before the season began and thought that they had a chance of putting a W on the board. However, Indianapolis under Andrew Luck looks a far more fluent offensive unit than many expected. The defense on the other hand is predictably not great, and it’s a toss-up between these two teams who has the worse defense. The Vikings have Adrian Peterson and Percy Harvin to torment that Indy D, two players who look straight back to mid-season form, while Reggie Wayne looks reborn this year. This will be a tight one, and could well be a shootout, so I’ll go with the best QB, and he’s at Indy.

Sunday 9:05pm

Washington Redskins 23-13 St Louis Rams

RG3 absolutely dominated the game against New Orleans last week, and you would fully expect him to do the same against the Rams. But the Rams do have a pair of shutdown corners that will help any defense in Cortland Finnegan and Janoris Jenkins, the rookie who I lauded all draft week. They made it hard work for the Lions last week, and without number one target Pierre Garcon, I think they could do the same for Griffin and the Redskins. However, Washington’s defense is no weak link itself, and Sam Bradford will struggle to open it up, so I will sway this game on RG3’s ability to make plays seemingly out of nothing, but the Rams won’t be disgraced.

Dallas Cowboys 27-20 Seattle Seahawks

Tony Romo looked like the QB Jerry Jones needs him to be for Dallas to win something when he dismantled the Giants last Wednesday night. DeMarco Murray is also a bona-fide star in the NFL, that 40+ yard run where he shook of tackles, smashed into a linebacker and ran up the sideline was quite frankly brilliant. However, the Seahawks are a young, enthusiastic defense and will cause the Cowboys problems. Whether that will be enough for Russell Wilson to make a dent in the newly solid Dallas defense is doubtful, but the game will hinge on Seattle’s defensive play.

Sunday 9:25pm

New York Jets 20-30 Pittsburgh Steelers

I don’t think I was the only one surprised when I saw the Jets scoring 40+ points last weekend, but don’t worry everyone, I can’t see it happening again. The Steelers’ D may be ageing, but it still has enough nous to confuse and annoy Mark Sanchez. The Jets were able to run the ball effectively on the Bills, but that won’t happen so easily this week, whereas if the Jets allow the Steelers the same amount of room they allowed CJ Spiller, they will be destroyed. Pittsburgh’s offense is a threatening entity, with three young, exciting wide receivers, and it will be key for the game as to where Darelle Revis is deployed. Will it be to counter the home-run threat of Mike Wallace? Or will it be to stop Antonio Brown from moving the chains? At the end of the day I don’t think it will make enough difference for the Jets no matter where they play Revis, because Sanchez can’t play well 2 weeks in a row, it can’t happen.

Tennessee Titans 23-20 San Diego Chargers

The Titans surprised me last week, simply because they weren’t solid on defense. They have a lot of excellent pieces, and I’m not sure why they didn’t fit, maybe it was just because they were up against Tom Brady. It could be a slightly easier task this week against the Chargers, who seem to be struggling for a running game even though their passing game is still good, but the Titans will still have to play better on offense under Jake Locker, who looked to freeze a little under more pressure than he expected against the Pats. This is a flip of a coin on this one, and the return of Kenny Britt for the Titans weights that coin, even if he only plays 20 snaps, he could catch 100 yards worth of balls, and this threat could help Chris Johnson to run the ball more effectively, something that could take the game away from San Diego.

Monday 1:20am

Detroit Lions 20-33 San Francisco 49’ers

The 49’ers can put a real marker down by beating two offensive powerhouses from the NFC North in 2 weeks, and Matt Stafford’s shaky performance against the Rams wouldn’t fill me with confidence if I were a Lions fan. San Francisco on the other hand looked the most complete team in the league after week 1, they had it all, a nasty D, a good passing game and Frank Gore running all over the place. It really looks like that this may well be the best opportunity for glory that the 49’ers have had in quite a while, and I wouldn’t want to be a team in their way.

Tuesday 1:30am

Denver Broncos 27-36 Atlanta Falcons

This has all the makings of a big-time shootout. A hall-of-fame QB in Peyton Manning, and another QB in Matt Ryan, who seems to have had the training wheels removed from his passing bike, and has been unleashed with his new best friend Julio Jones. Atlanta’s defense seemed to tighten their grip on the Chiefs in the second half of last week’s game, and if they can stay solid against the run, making Manning force throws, then they should come away with a win. But this is Peyton Manning, a man who you can never rule out, even if he is throwing to Demayrius Thomas and Eric Decker. Whichever D can stand up to an aerial bombardment best will give their offense a huge chance to win this game, and the firepower of Atlanta’s offense may just overwhelm the Denver defense.