The National Football League has played 119 games this season. If I was to give you the final scores on 118 of those games and ask you, with all that information, what the 119th score was in a game played in the first week of the campaign I’m betting you would get it wrong.
I know I would.
The missing score is from the opening game of the season when the Las Vegas Raiders visited the New England Patriots. We know now, and you have in this exercise access to all the finals except that one, that after eight weeks of action the Patriots sit atop the AFC East Division standings and the Raiders are buried in the AFC West. Since opening day, the Patriots have only lost one game, the Raiders have only won one.
The two teams that met in Foxboro on September 7th were both squads under the direction of new head coaches. Pete Carroll was leading the Silver and Black after serving in the same role with the New York Jets (1994), New England Patriots (1997-1999) and Seattle Seahawks (2010-2023). Patriots Head Coach Mike Vrabel had been the head coach of the Tennessee Titans for six seasons beginning in 2018.
Okay, that is all the information you have to pick the opening game between Las Vegas and New England.
Who you like?
For the record, 56% of the wagers on that game on that day were backing the homestanding Patriots who went off as a 2½ point favorite. What is of special note is that the line had opened with Vrabel’s team favored by 3½ points and despite wagering on New England the closing line was shaved a point. In other words, the books were inviting more money on the Patriots.
Now, if you were one of the people who wagered on the Patriots that day giving less than a field goal on the spread, I would now cry foul louder than MAGA followers did for four years after their candidate lost the 2020 election. Because what we know now is that the Patriots are a very good team, their 6-2 mark is as good as any team in the league in win total except the Indianapolis Colts. And the Raiders, well their two wins this season is only better than the New York Jets, Tennessee Titans and New Orleans Saints, who all have won only once in 2025.
So, our missing score from the 119 games played this season was the Raiders over the Patriots by a 20-13 count. Now we have a new question, given we know the final scores in all 119 games played this season, what is going to happen in the Patriots ninth game of the year?
Here is a clue, they play the Atlanta Falcons at Gillette Stadium, and the Falcons arrive carrying a two game losing streak. Like the Patriots, Atlanta beat the Buffalo Bills this season, that is why New England currently holds an edge over the Bills in their division standings. But since winning that game three weeks ago, the Falcons have lost to the San Francisco 49ers on the road and, wait for it, the Miami Dolphins at home.
Good enough to beat the Bills and bad enough to get blown out on your home field, 34-10, by the Dolphins!?
A Jekyll and Hyde resume is clear for both these teams.
The Patriots good enough to win six of eight decisions and yet lose at home to the Raiders, and the Falcons good enough to beat the Minnesota Vikings, Washington Commanders and Buffalo Bills but lose by 24 points at Mercedes-Benz Stadium to the Dolphins.
In the world of any team can win on any given Sunday, these two organizations have lived that expression.
But all that matters now is what is next. So, who do you got on Sunday?
The Patriots looking for their seventh win at home against the struggling Falcons, or the Falcons to rebound from a pair of disappointing losses?
Okay.
Not me.
Qoxhi Picks: Atlanta Falcons (+5½) over New England Patriots