Each week, Coach Kevin Kelley will give a coach's perspective and provide analysis for a few games against the spread throughout the 2022 NFL season.
Already looking forward to Sunday with those awesome games we had Week 1 being more than the awesome we could have hoped for in the NFL.
The Tampa Bay Bucs, Tom Brady, and Julio Jones march into the New Orleans Saints, Michael Thomas, and Jameis Winston territory in the early games this week. Just sounds weird to say Julio and MT after neither playing last year.
The Seattle Seahawks, DK Metcalf, and Geno Smith come into the house of the San Francisco 49ers, Trey Lance, and Deebo Samuel for a game of 1-0 vs 0-1. I think everyone would have thought the records would be reversed after last week in this one.
Let’s recap last week. I was dead on in the Vikings vs Packers preview. I was dead wrong in the Seahawks vs Broncos. Okay, I wasn’t dead wrong but I certainly didn’t anticipate 12 penalties, two goal line offensive fumbles, and one of the dumbest decisions the CEO (Nathaniel Hackett) ever made in a crucial situation for a four billion dollar organization (Denver Broncos).
I read the 64-yard field goal had a 4% chance to win the game. YES FOUR! And like everyone has said all week, you bring in Russell Wilson for those kinds of moments. Then you run like 40 seconds off the clock and kick one of the longest field goals in NFL history. Not many CEOs can cost a company one-seventeenth of their yearly chances for a contract (wins) and make it out of the week. But they can in the NFL. I know I have to move on but dang!
TAMPA Bay Buccaneers (-2.5) AT NEW ORLEANS Saints
I am putting my mind in South Louisiana and Sunday when TB12 gets the ball on offense. First, I know that the offensive line didn’t look great against Dallas. But then again, Dallas had Micah Parsons switching sides and taking on replacements and he is a freak show. He sacked Tom Brady twice and caused problems several other times.
Then the play calling changed because Tampa knew Dallas couldn’t score. Dallas kicked a field goal on their first drive and not again. Tampa would have done better on offense had they needed to, I really believe.
Very quietly, they did something that will help that offensive line. They ran for 152 yards with Leonard Fournette running for 127 himself and finished No. 5 in Yards Over Expected per attempt this week. If not for a Brady rushing loss and a Brett Perriman mishap, they are over 160 which will win a ton of games.
What was lost on me was that they were ready for Chris Godwin, who is their most important player in my mind besides Brady, and he played early, caught three quick passes, and had to leave the game. He is expected to play. Julio Jones looked really good and again, they decided to stray away from the pass game or I think he and Mike Evans both go over 100 yards.
Now add in this, New Orleans pass rush is NOT the Dallas Cowboys! They did not record a sack against Marcus Mariota and allowed Cordaralle Patterson to run for 120 yards. The blueprints on offense look similar, except I will take Brady over Mariota, sub in Fournette for Patterson, and throw in those Bucs receivers and think I can hang a lot more points on New Orleans than the Atlanta Falcons did.
That front-7 of the Saints only ranked No. 16 in Sharp Football preseason rankings. Watching them last week, that looks about right. Tampa’s offensive line will get better and better and Brady will also. He was mad after the game. He knows he can play better.
I literally know Tom Brady and have watched him in person for several years. The way he takes in meetings, acquires knowledge, strives for perfection in practice and takes every snap seriously, added onto the fact that he knows each year now truly may be his last, and he will correct himself, get better on his presnap determinations, and will come ready to play. Julio will be a week better and Fournette is back home in Louisiana where played for LSU.
Sure it’s an intangible, but those mean something. Add in that Sharp Football Analysis had the Bucs as the No. 8 best receiving corp and the Saints at No. 13 in secondary personnel coming in and I don’t think that lends itself to either playing outside those rankings.
The Saints have traditionally played very good defense against the Bucs but the coaching has changed, a few key spots have changed, and I think the Bucs put on a little bit of an offensive show this week IF THEY NEED TO DO SO.
They may not need to as the Bucs defense made what was supposed to be a decent Dallas Cowboy offense look really bad. I know Dak Prescott got hurt but he was in the game into the fourth quarter. Dak was 14/29 for 134 yards, threw a pick, was sacked twice, and struggled many other times against that defense.
The only weakness of Tampa was the run defense, sort of, and Taysom Hill had almost half the Saints’ yards on one play in the run game. Alvin Kamara doesn’t look like himself and I don’t like the way they are using him anyway.
I will say Winston threw the ball better than I thought he would. I know he is so good at times and so bad at others, but after taking four sacks, he still was No. 2 this week among all quarterbacks for Completion Percentage Above Expected which might be my favorite QB stat because it brings in so much more than almost anyone realizes.
But again, he is Jameis, and he will throw two picks this week. Michael Thomas had flashes and Jarvis Landry is solid but receiving group against Tampa Bay’s defensive backs doesn’t scare me when they really couldn’t do much with a bottom tier group like the Falcons.
Back to why I think that even though the underdog has covered four straight in this series. Everyone is talking about the visual look of the end of last week when it looked like Brady struggled, but I think they score at least 30 this week on the Saints. Checking into NFL Next Gen Stats, TB12 still finished No. 8 in Completion Percentage Above Expected.
TAMPA COVERS THIS ONE for my favorite game on the board.
» Bet Buccaneers vs Saints Now
Seattle SEAHAWKS (+8) At San Francisco 49ERS
That one might be over early enough for me to see the beginning of the Seahawks at the 49ers even though the NFL has two games kicking off at 3:05 Central this week. Last week all were at 3:25 Central and it was awesome! That’s for another discussion though.
Let’s talk about Geno Smith and the Seahawks first. He wasn’t terrible. He was efficient, did not turn the ball over, and didn’t force the ball to DK Metcalf like I thought he might try to do. Rashaad Penny finished in the top half of Yards Over Expected in his rushing attempts as usual, and they spread the ball around very well in the passing game and there were times I kind of liked what I saw on the defense side.
Smith finished No. 2, yes No. 2 in Completion Percentage Over Expected. The 49ers’ secondary isn’t going to make the passing game any worse and with only 36 yards from Metcalf, and 28 yards from Tyler Lockett last week, I would actually expect a better game IF they can block that San Francisco front-7.
Those guys are good but they can’t make up for that backend against two really good wide receivers, in my opinion. I do hope the Seahawks learned a little bit of a lesson and use Lockett and Metcalf a little better this week in their scheme. That was part of the problem last week. I know it probably is hard to trust Smith early but now he has a decent game so let's let him start throwing more of those intermediate passes off play-action and stress those linebackers!
Now, the Seahawks lost Jamal Adams, which is brutal but I am a believer in that NEXT game right after a guy goes down, that someone makes up for him and the team seems to play better.
Maybe they all know they have to or maybe the defensive coordinator grinds a little more and changes the plan because of it and the offense doesn’t know what it will look like. But it happens a lot.
The real problem for the 49ers is the quarterback spot. Trey Lance was absolutely awful. I know, I know, rain, wet balls, etc. It wasn’t that. He is just not accurate. When you have a guy in the NFL wide open, you have to hit him and preferably where he can continue to run after the catch and doesn’t have to fall down or go down to catch it. He missed a wide open receiver in the first half that would have changed the game.
What I am about to tell you I cannot stress enough on how poor this is and how much it matters in the game. He was dead last in Completion Percentage Over Expected. HE WAS UNDER by more than 21%. Geno Smith was OVER by 11% to show the comparison. That means for every three passes they threw, one more of Geno’s was on target and one of Tray Lance’s was not catchable.
I don’t care how good the run offense is by Shanahan but if your quarterback can’t hit the wide open guys, you are going to really struggle. Now the 49ers did run for 176 yards which is good, but the Seahawks held the Broncos to 106 on the ground so that number might come down some. The fact that the secondary of the Seahawks doesn’t concern me that much because Trey Lance might not be able to hit them even if they rushed all 11.
The line on this game is Seattle +8 and I think they may actually win the game. 2-0 and 0-2 would be the exact opposite of what everyone would have guessed to start it all off. They may not win, but they will cover the game.
EXTRA EXTRA
Last week on my Twitter @coachkelley1 I threw out my “weird line of the day” which was the Giants plus 5 and a half at Tennessee. Easy winner.
I also had my two underdogs that actually might win straight up in the Steelers over the Bengals (won straight up) and the Falcons over the Saints (covered but choked at the end to not quite win straight up) for a nice overall betting day of 4-1 counting Minnesota and Denver (I am still mad about how poorly the fumbles and penalties were.) Have a great football week.