Last night was the big night! NFL Schedules are out. Also, the Nuggets absolutely crushed the Suns. The Nuggets had 81 points in the first half, meanwhile the 76ers had 86 points in their entire game. Meanwhile, the Royals have been .500 in their last 10 games and have doubled their wins for the year and tripled their wins at home. Amazingly, no matter how bad the Cardinals are the Royals are managing to continue to still be the worst team in Missouri as the Cards still have a better record. But no one cares about any of that because the NFL Schedule is out. So let’s dive in.

The Non-Release, Release night:

The NFL really tries to make this a big deal but they are about as good at keeping secrets as the gossip queen is at your high school (you know who you are). The girl you would tell something to if you wanted the word to get out but didn’t want to go to the trouble to tell everyone yourself, you remember her? First, they announce half the games during the week anyway and then all the leaks start. There are one off’s like leaking that we are opening up against the Lions for some reason (more on that in a minute). But there were also bigger leaks, like the entire Green Bay Packers schedule. By the time 8 pm eastern rolls around, you already know pretty much everything. Also, they just release them all at once. They should do it March Madness style only announce one week at a time instead of one region at a time. You know we would all sit there waiting to see who your favorite team plays in week 7. I got the entire Broncos schedule read to me on the radio on my way home at 6 pm Mountain time. Good news for you Broncos fans, the radio guys say you are going to start 4-0 pretty easily. So after 4 weeks you will have 80% of the wins you had all of last year. And the radio guys have never been wrong about predicting the success of your team. Except for last year. And the year before. And the year before that. And the year before that year. And they were wrong about 2018. But before that, I am sure they were right. I’m not sure because I didn’t live here yet. But they seem like a pretty unbiased group so I am sure they nailed it.

We are playing who for the opener???

The first game is always supposed to be this big marquee match up. After winning the super bowl a few years back we opened up with the Texans which made sense because we had just beaten them in one of the craziest playoff games ever. The following year the Bucs hosted the Cowboys. As much as I don’t like the Cowboys, they are well known and popular and bring great viewership. Last year the Rams hosted the Bills. The Bills are a super bowl contender and were perhaps 13 seconds away from playing the Rams in the super bowl. So I get it. But the Lions? Really? The Lions had a very good year for them last year when they won a whopping 9 games. Now they are ready to win the division apparently. Everyone is high on them but the media is high on a lot of dumb things. Everyone is high on the Bears for instance because of Justin Fields. Guys, Justin Fields is good at fantasy football, not real football. He isn’t accurate and doesn’t win games. He just runs around a lot and get hurt. But the media likes what they like without a lot of rhyme or reason. Look, the Lions no longer suck and they haven’t played at arrowhead for like 20 years for some odd reason so sure, lets play the Lions. Honestly, though I think the NFL knows our secret. We would watch anyone play in this first game. We don’t care, we just want football at this point. So they threw the Lions in there and saved what would have been much better match ups with the Eagles, Bengals, and Bills later in the season. And Mahomes is going to get people to watch no matter who is playing.

Rough Stretch for Danielle (my wife):

Being a Broncos fan has been hard enough the last 8 years. But imagine being a broncos fan and having your spouse’s favorite team go to the super bowl 3 times in the last 4 years and win 2. Imagine that same team has beaten your team 15 times in a row. You have a couple of kids but neither of them are on your side because they also cheer for winning teams in the Packers and Eagles. But yet, she is a trooper and sits on the couch every week with us and watches her team lose in between games of our teams winning.

Well over an 18 day stretch in October, she has to suffer through 2 Chiefs games and a battle against the Packers. So she will have to suffer through Walker and I’s shenanigans 3 weeks in a row. She said I should take Walker to the Packers game and I said sure. I said you don’t want to go? She just looked at me. Then she said that Savannah could go. And I said, I’ll take Savannah to the Chiefs game and she said no because I would be gone two full Sundays in a row because the games last all day. Walker said they don’t last all day, it is like 4 hours long. We were both given that look that says, don’t argue with your mother/wife. The schedule just got released and we are already fighting. The joy of football.

Undervalued/Overvalued:

One of my favorite things about this time year is that every fan base is listing a bunch of reasons why they are going to make the playoffs. It’s the time of paper champions. But guess what, if you have to justify why you are going to make the playoffs…you probably aren’t going to make the playoffs. But it is fun to pretend like you are this time of year, so I get it. So here are 3 overvalued and undervalued teams:

Undervalued

1. Packers: I don’t understand why everyone thinks they are going to be a dumpster fire all of the sudden. This is a team that has been competitive pretty much every year since I was in high school. They still have good players, a good defense and good coaches. Their division isn’t that impressive or tough and they also get to play the dumpster fire NFC South. They get the Rams, Steelers and Giants as their 3 extra games which isn’t exactly a gauntlet. They have the 9th easiest schedule in the league. You combine this with a competent organization and I think you have a winning formula. Also, maybe the departure of their high maintenance quarterback is exactly what they need.
2. Bills: I know it is odd seeing them on here but everyone is swooning over the Dolphins and especially the Jets. And I have to stop and ask why? The Bills still have the best coach and quarterback in the division. They also are the toughest place to play. Everyone is ready to crown the Jets and put the Dolphins as the Bills equal. But I think at the end of the year we will be looking at the standings with the Bills still on top.
3. Jaguars: I wrote at the end of the year that there are 4 great teams in the AFC, one in each division and I meant it. The Jags are good. But people are putting teams like the Ravens, Lions and Dolphins ahead of them. The Jags started slow but took off the second half of the season. They are never out of a game and I think they will be much improved this season. They are the real deal. Mark it down.

Overvalued

1. Jets: look I get that Rodgers is a huge improvement over everyone else they had at QB last year. But people are getting a little crazy when it comes to these predictions. First of all, Rodgers did not look good last year. Sure he is showing up with this new improved positive attitude and appears like he might actually want to play football and try. But you know what else it looks a little like? Russell Wilson last year. Heck, the same guy is even going to be calling plays. So why are we all sure that this is going to be a slam dunk. Even if they are good the schedule is rough, especially at the beginning. It’s not out of the question that they could be 2-4 after their first 6 games as they face the Bills, Cowboys, Chiefs and Eagles during that stretch not to mention two strong defenses in New England and Denver. The schedule gets easier from there but not easy. And if things start bad, does Rodgers get disinterested and check out? Look they could be really good and I know their defense is really solid. But I’d like to see them actually play before we crown them AFC champs.
2. Bears: As I mentioned earlier, I don’t get the obsession with the Bears. Yes, they got better in free agency and the draft…but they literally couldn’t have gotten worse. They were the worst team in the league last year. Unless you are the 49ers, this league is all driven by quarterbacks. The Bears have an inaccurate, injury prone one. The obsession of Fields based upon fantasy football numbers reminds me a lot of the hype around Kyler Murray and we all know how that turned out. To be fair to the Bears, the hype is that they will be competitive and a border line wild card contender as opposed to a super bowl contender. But I still don’t believe it. 5-12 here they come.
3. Ravens: Speaking of inaccurate, injury prone quarterbacks. Lamar got paid and now even though he isn’t a stat guy, he wants to throw for 6,000 yards because it has never been done before. Even if I thought Lamar was going to play 17 games, which I don’t, I wouldn’t rank the Ravens too high. They just added more injury prone players to an already injury prone team. They are the 49ers of the east only not as good. And they are changing their offense. Well Lamar is only good in the offense they created around him but that same offense got him hurt. So now what? I have a strong suspicion that the Ravens are going to regret signing that check.

Arrowhead invitational #6 here we come:

There are no easy games in the NFL but the Chiefs schedule on paper is easier than last year when we opened with 8 straight games against playoff teams from the year before. It is hard to really judge the strength of schedule until we start playing games. But the Chiefs usually start off strong, get a little sluggish in the middle and then finish strong. Well this year, the middle of the year is probably the easiest part. We get the Eagles, Bengals and Bills at home. We get the Jets early. Even if the Jets are good, my guess it takes them a little while to put it together. And two upstart teams in the Lions and Jaguars we play early on and can catch them before they get started. All is good news when we look at hosting yet another AFC Championship game. I’ll do week by week prediction later but I don’t see why 13-4 or 14-3 isn’t possible yet again. I think you probably need to win at least 13 to get the number one seed. While that’s not a sure thing by any means, if you look at the schedule and where and when games land, I think we are in a good spot. I am sure if we win the Super Bowl again, Skip Bayless will still say Mahomes sucks because he’s never won a road playoff game. But Skip also said Baker Mayfield was going to be a bigger thing in Cleveland than LeBron so I think we can all go ahead and assume anything that comes out of Skip’s mouth is nonsense.

More football talk to soon, but for now, thanks for reading and have a great weekend!