Early NFL Week 1 picks: Best ATS, moneyline bets in KC-BAL, GB-PHI, NE-CIN (2024)

The long wait is finally behind us, as we have real, regular-season NFL football games to bet on. No more futures and no more preseason, we are on to important games.

So, with that said, here are our favorite NFL Week 1 bets to lock in that have some real value.

Kansas City Chiefs -2.5 (-120) Fanatics

Baltimore Ravens vs. Kansas City Chiefs, September 5, 8:20 p.m. ET

Of course, we had to have a play on the opening night of the NFL season, and luckily this is one of the best plays on the board, backing the back-to-back Super Bowl champs in the Chiefs.

The Ravens are definitely a team to fade in 2024. Not to take away anything from what they did last year, as they were legitimately awesome and probably the best team in the NFL before coming up short to the Chiefs. But a lot of their success in 2023 had to do with their defense, which was the best in the NFL, according to DVOA.

That defense lost some important pieces this offseason in terms of the players, but most importantly, Baltimore lost defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald, who was hired to become the head coach of the Seahawks.

It is truly remarkable how good the Ravens defense was last year, as it led the league in sacks, points allowed and takeaways. So, regression from that was already to be expected, and now you add in the fact that the Ravens lost their defensive coordinator, and they are primed to take a step back.

This D definitely still has talent, to be clear, and the argument here is not that the Ravens defense is going to be bad, but that it will not be as good as last year.

It is also hard to trust the Ravens offense against the vastly improved Chiefs defense. This is possibly putting too much emphasis on what happened in the 203 AFC Championship Game, but it is hard to get that image out of our heads.

In that game, the Ravens completely completely abandoned what made them great all season. They ditched the run game despite never being down more than 10 points, and Lamar Jackson ended up being too aggressive to end the game. Overall, the Ravens struggled to get anything going on offense in that 17-10 loss.

Looking toward 2024, the Ravens have major concerns along the offensive line, as they have to replace three starters from last year's team. That is a tough ask, and there are going to be growing pains along this O-line to start the season. For context, as of right now, PFF gives the Ravens the 25th-ranked OL in the NFL.

The Chiefs offense was definitely brutal at times last season, but the guess here is that ends up being a one-year blip considering this unit's track record as an elite offense since 2018. They have earned the benefit of the doubt that their offense, (No. 8 in DVOA a year ago, which is still surprisingly good considering how bad they looked at times), ends up being in the top-five this year.

Also, the Chiefs won the Super Bowl last year and still have Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid, so placing our trust in them is not a tough ask.

Green Bay Packers Moneyline (+132) FanDuel

Green Bay Packers vs. Philadelphia Eagles, September 6, 8:15 p.m. ET

For our second play of the article, let's ride with the underdog to win straight up in the Friday night football game being played in Brazil.

To be clear, despite how poorly the Eagles ended the 2023 season, this is more of a play backing a Packers team that we are high on as opposed to being down on the Eagles, who are tough to get a read on for 2024.

On one side of the coin, they are one of the most talented teams in the NFL up and down their roster. With that said, on the other side of the coin, that was also true last year, when Philadelphia completely collapsed after starting 10-1.

Now, this team is missing Eagles legend Jason Kelce at center. The Eagles also fired both their offensive and defensive coordinators in the offseason but kept their head coach, which is never a recipe for success.

So, they are a huge question mark, while the Packers are a team we have lot of confidence in his year. They ended last season on a 7-3 run, and who could forget them taking a blowtorch to the Cowboys in Dallas in the Wild Card round of the playoffs?

You could also make the case that they should have beaten the 49ers the following week, but missed field goals and two dropped interceptions on errant throws by Brock Purdy lost that game for them.

One could also make a reasonable argument that Jordan Love was the best QB in the NFL to end the season last year. Overall, Green Bay ended last season with the sixth-best offense in the NFL, according to DVOA, and the fourth-best passing offense.

Per PFF, from Week 8 through the end of the season last year, Love had an elite 90.4 passing grade, with 27 throws that were considered "big time" to only 10 turnover-worthy plays. Their receivers lack an alpha at this moment in time, but they have young talent with Jayden Reed, Dontayvion Wicks, Romeo Doubs and Christian Watson.

The Packers' biggest issue last year was defense, and they made a change at coordinator this offseason, bringing in Boston College head coach Jeff Hafley as DC. Hafley was thought of as a good hire when that move was announced. It is difficult to know how he is going to adjust to the NFL, but it is hard to be worse than the 27th-ranked defense (per DVOA) that Green Bay had last year.

So, all in all, the Packers are a team worth backing in Week 1 at the tempting price of +132 odds at FanDuel.

New England Patriots +9.5 (-110) FanDuel

New England Patriots vs. Cincinnati Bengals, September 8, 1 p.m. ET

This one definitely feels scary, but backing the Patriots and fading the Bengals is the way to go for Week 1 specifically. A lot of people are on the Patriots under win total 4.5, but all we are asking them to do here is not lose by double-digits.

The Bengals are another team that is tough to truly know how to project. They are getting Joe Burrow back from a wrist injury that ended his season last year, but we aren't sure how he is going to look after missing so much time.

Burrow really struggled to begin the season last year as he was nursing a calf injury, and the Bengals have been a slow-starting team for the past couple years (they started 2023 by going 1-3, and they went 0-2 in 2022).

Last year, in two of Cincinnati's first four games (a 24-3 loss to Cleveland in Week and a 27-3 loss to Tennessee in Week 4), they were held to a field goal.

In 2022, following a Super Bowl appearance, we saw something similar. That year, the Bengals started 0-2, losing to the Steelers in Week 1 and falling to the Cowboys without Dak Prescott in Week 2. The Bengals had five turnovers in that loss to the Steelers, and against the Cowboys, Burrow threw for less than 200 yards.

Looking at last year's stats for these teams might not be predictive for 2024 given the changes in both organizations over the offseason.

The Bengals lost offensive coordinator Brian Callahan, who is now the head coach of the Titans, so we do not know how they are going to look with a new OC.

On the other sideline, for the first time in two decades, the Patriots do not have Bill Belichick coaching the team.

The Patriots were brutal last year, of course, but it is not out of the question that they will be better than people think this year. Rookie Drake Maye looked great in the preseason, and he is expected to begin the season as the starting QB.

Defensively, the Patriots should be good, as they finished last season with the ninth-best defense, according to DVOA, and they retain most of their talent from that side of the ball, aside from LB Matthew Judon, who was recently traded to Atlanta.

To be clear, we are not saying that the Patriots are going to win outright or anything like that, but our guess is that they can keep this game close.

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