Tramel: NFL picks for Week 1 in a very strange season

Tom Brady is with Tampa Bay. Adrian Peterson is with Detroit. Cam Newton is with New England. Philip Rivers is with Indianapolis. COVID is with us all.

What a strange NFL season 2020 promises to be.

Will games be postponed or canceled? Will homefield mean less with limited or no fans? Will the expanded playoffs, seven teams per conference, water down the postseason? Will we even get to a postseason?

All great questions. What we know is this. Enjoy pro football while you can. Nothing is promised, other than the games will be great. Quality control is an NFL hallmark, and not even a pandemic should challenge that.

Let’s get to the Week 1 predictions:

Texans at Chiefs: Kansas City 31-23. It’s easy to forget that Houston led KC 24-0 in the AFC semifinals last January. Well, easy to forget if you’re not from Houston.

Seahawks at Falcons: Seattle 23-19. In February 2017, Atlanta led New England 28-3 in Super Bowl 51. Since then, the Falcons are 25-26. Meanwhile, Seattle ranks with the Patriots as the NFL’s most consistently-good franchises.

Jetropolitans at Bills: Buffalo 18-10. We often think of Buffalo’s long stretch of mediocrity. But at least we think about the Bills. Why does no one outside Greater Gotham contemplate the Jets’ half-a-century of bad football. One winning season and no playoff appearance in the last nine years. Ten playoff wins since Joe Namath and Super Bowl 3.

Bears at Lions: Detroit 24-16. Chicago picked Mitch Trubisky as the starting quarterback over Nick Foles, and I think that’s genius. Foles clearly is better coming off the bench, and nobody needs a quarterback coming off the bench like a team with Trubisky as the starter.

Packers at Vikings: Minnesota 27-19. The Vikes need Kirk Cousins to play well, but he mostly has for a few years now. This is a Super Bowl-caliber team.

Dolphins at Patriots: New England 26-20. I don’t understand all the Patriot pessimism, or the Miami optimism. New England lost Brady to free agency and a batch of quality defenders to the pandemic. Yet the Patriots still have a better quarterback (Newton over Ryan Fitzpatrick) and a better defense than does Miami.

Eagles at Washingtons: Philadelphia 30-14. Washington doesn’t have a nickname. Owner Daniel Snyder is a textbook example of how ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away.

Raiders at Panthers: Las Vegas 27-17. You should be proud of me. The first year the Chargers were back in Los Angeles, I probably typed “San Diego” two dozen times. But I got Vegas on my first reference to the 2020 Raiders.

Colts at Jaguars: Indianapolis 34-3. Here’s how great the NFL’s quality control is. Teams that try to tank usually can’t. But Jacksonville will test that theory.

Browns at Ravens: Baltimore 27-20. The 2016 and 2017 Heisman Trophy winners (Lamar Jackson, Baker Mayfield) square off, a day after their college coaches (Lincoln Riley, Bobby Petrino) square off in Norman.

Chargers at Bengals: Los Angeles 28-18. Very few NFL rookie quarterbacks start in Week 1. Even fewer are the better quarterback in that start. But it likely will happen Sunday, with Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow against the Chargers’ Tyrod Taylor.

Buccaneers at Saints: New Orleans 31-21. The 41-year-old Drew Brees vs. the 43-year-old Brady. Funny, neither plays like they’re a day over 38.

Cardinals at 49ers: San Francisco 27-24. Kyler Murray is coming. Arizona won’t beat the 49ers, but Murray is coming.

Cowboys at Rams: Dallas 27-23. Great matchup for the inaugural game in SoFi Stadium, which some say will become the planet’s greatest football coliseum. I’ll have to see it to believe it.

Steelers at Giants: Pittsburgh 27-11. How did New York fall this far? The Giants were so regal for so long.

Titans at Broncos: Tennessee 19-14. The Titans play old-fashioned football. I wouldn’t want it for 16 games every week, but it’s cool that some team is keeping the flame alive.

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