The NFL regular season is finally upon us. That means it's time for lazy Sundays, office pools and the league's unceasing ability to make our predictions look stupid.
The opening weeks of the season are the least predictable in the long slog toward Super Bowl 61. Teams are left to balance new arrivals against offseason departures. The salary cap and the parity it has brought means that almost every team has reasonable playoff hopes.
Some results will set the tone for the 17 weeks that follow. Others, like the Las Vegas Raiders' opening day win in New England, will simply be outliers to remind us anything can happen any given Sunday.
That makes this week's slate tough to predict. Foolish as we are, we tried anyway.
Welcome back to For The Win's straight-up,
moneyline NFL picks column. I ended 2023 as Pickwatch’s top expertin a field of hundreds. The two seasons that followed? Ehhhhh, we don't like to talk about that. But I'm back and hopeful I'll either be good enough to rejoin the top 25 or, barring that, be so destructively bad you're left with no choice but to fade my picks all the way to prosperity.
Joining me for 2026 is a seven-person panel ranging from FTW editors (Charles Curtis, Mary Clarke, Wajih AlBaroudi and Jeff Smith) to betting analysts (Prince Grimes) to NFL writers (Robert Zeglinski and Andrew Joseph). Here are our Week 1 picks.
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Since our editing software occasionally struggles to make these picks super clear, here they are in an easier to read (but impossible to cut and paste) pair of .jpgs:
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Let's break out three games to talk about in this dense opening week slate.
Survivor pick of the week: Las Vegas Raiders (-3.5) over the Miami Dolphins
You aren't going to get many chances to confidently roll with the Raiders in your survivor pool this year. A home game against an opponent with more than 45 percent of its 2026 salary cap currently being spent on guys who aren't on the roster? Yep, that qualifies.
Miami was a seller at last year's trade deadline and in the offseason. Las Vegas went in the opposite direction. The quarterback situation remains in flux thanks to an aging Kirk Cousins and an inexperienced Fernando Mendoza, but the baseline of talent has been increased. Factor in homefield advantage and an east coast team traveling west, and this is a risky, but rewarding, way to start the year.
Hardest favorite to back: Minnesota Vikings (-1.5) over the Green Bay Packers
We get to open up Week 1 with a classic NFC North rivalry, albeit one that's dimmed a bit. The Vikings have several questions to answer at quarterback. The Packers have to replace multiple key skill players on offense and won't have Micah Parsons in the lineup
Why I like this pick:
Minnesota wants nothing more than to throw extra defenders at your quarterback until he implodes. Jordan Love's blindside will be protected by Jordan Morgan, a 2024 first round pick who barely played as a rookie and spent most of 2025 at guard only to underwhelm there.
The Green Bay run game is led by MarShawn Lloyd, a two-year veteran with nine NFL carries to his name. Love will have his share of floaters that no-no-no-YES his way into windows downfield, but he may not have enough to pull off a road win in a hostile environment.
The Vikings offense should be better even if Kyler Murray is merely competent, because J.J. McCarthy certainly was not. Murray and his receiving corps have something to prove — oh, and that Justin Jefferson/Jordan Addison combination brought Jauan Jennings into the fold this offseason. That's a rough scene in which a rookie second round pick (Brandon Cisse) will make his NFL debut.
Why I don't like this pick:
The Packers have won both their season openers in North America under Jordan Love by double-digits — and those were against NFC North rivals as well (Bears in 2023, Lions last fall). Despite losing Romeo Doubs and Dontayvion Wicks in the offseason, Green Bay did little to backfill their slots, suggesting big leaps could be coming from Matthew Golden and Savion Williams. Murray hasn't played at a Pro Bowl level since 2021 and his final seasons as an Arizona Cardinal weremarked by declining average throw distances that could hint at an ineffective deep ball.
Upset pick of the week: Houston Texans (+1.5) over the Buffalo BIils
Why I like this pick:
I have eyes and saw Joe Brady's offensive play-calling last year.
Oh, right, you probably want more. Well! Buffalo's receiving corps remains limited and, despite Josh Allen being a football wildebeest, it's going to be tough to find yards against the league's top passing defense. Things are slightly better on the ground, where Houston ranks... third.
C.J. Stroud is on the precipice of an enormous crossroads and needs to prove he can be more than just an above-average presence for a team with Super Bowl talent. He's going up against a defense with a rebuilt pass rush that may not be able to maximize the discombobulation of the reconfigured offensive line ahead of him. And, even if he can't... you know, elite defense.
Houston has big aspirations and is playing at home. Expect Texans fans to show up in a tone-setting game.
Why I don't like this pick:
Betting against Josh Allen is always stupid (unless, deep sigh, it's the playoffs). Houston's receiving depth is limited — after Nico Collins and a newly arrived Kayshon Boutte, it gets rough — and the Bills have a hungry young secondary (and also C.J. Gardner-Johnson, who will sew chaos even though no one's quite sure which side it will benefit more). The Texans have lost at least the first two games of their season in two of the last three years.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: NFL straight-up picks Week 1: Little faith in the Packers, Chiefs
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