NFL Week 1 picks: Media predicts Chiefs will roll over Texans

The NFL season is going to be underway on Thursday night with the Chiefs kicking off against the Texans. Who does the media expect to win? We discuss.

The Chiefs are entering the season as defending Super Bowl champions for the first time since 1970. Kansas City’s road to defending their title begins with a home game against the Houston Texans.

While it seems pretty clear that the Chiefs will be one of the AFC’s finest this season, Houston’s potential appears to be more of a question mark. After the Texans crashed and burned at the end of last season when they coughed up a 24 point lead over the Chiefs in the divisional round, their future looks shaky. While the team sured up a contract with Deshaun Watson, they shipped off DeAndre Hopkins for pennies on the dollar and defensively are not getting any younger.

The Texans were once expected to be at the top of the AFC, but now find themselves in a fierce battle to top their divisional opponents. Bill O’Brien has a lot to prove if he hopes to retain his position as the Texans head coach. That being said, Week 1 will be all about revenge for the Texans.

Watson vs Mahomes is always “must watch” television. Whether it will be a close game or even competitive, no one knows for sure. The national media, however, is expecting the Kansas City Chiefs to pick up right where they left off on their Super Bowl run of last season. Here is what the pundits have to say about the first week of Kansas City’s season.

CBS: 

At the time of writing this, 100% of the CBS panel has picked Kansas City to hold off the Houston Texans for the victory in week one. While CBS is not necessarily where Chiefs fans will choose to find their Chiefs takes due to past quarrels with Jason La Canfora and Pete Prisco, they are certainly an interesting panel.

John Breech of CBS references the blown playoff lead in the divisional round last season en route to explaining his reasoning for believing the Chiefs victory. Calling it his “lock of the week,” Breech explained:

"To commemorate Mahomes’ new $503 million contract, I was going to pick the Chiefs to win by 503 million points, but my editor told me that’s not realistic, so I’ll take out that first zero in 503 million and go with 53."

Sporting News:

While we will not reference sporting news too frequently as they do not have a panel, they have put out their picks for week one. Looking at their pick for week one, it looks about the same as the rest of the media for week one regarding the Chiefs game. Here is what Tadd Haislop had to say about the matchup:

"The Chiefs lost almost nothing from their Super Bowl-winning roster, and while the Texans remain competive on the strength of Deshaun Watson’s brilliance, they still don’t stack up. There’s a reason we like Patrick Mahomes‘ crew to repeat as champions."

Haislop predicted the Chiefs to top the Texans 30-17.

College Football News:

The entire panel at College Football News is predicting that the Chiefs will start the season 1-0. While they expect the Texans to be competitive, they wrote:

"DeAndre Hopkins might be gone, but Watson will bomb away deep over and over and over again with Kenny Stills and Will Fuller stretching the field just enough to keep the Texans in it. But the Chiefs will pick up where they left off, Edwards-Helaire will have a huge game, and they’ll have an answer for every Texan big play."

Overview:

At the time of writing this, 100% of the pundits expect Kansas City to roll. Literally, 100%. According to nflpickwatch.com, there is not a single notable “expert” that has picked the Texans to upset Kansas City in the NFL season opener.

It is too early to talk about a “trap” game, but there is already a lot of expectation from the national media for the Chiefs to work their way back to another Super Bowl.