NFL Week 2 Picks: Game-by-Game Over/Under Predictions

Week 2 of the NFL season should come with a tagline: Don't panic. 

After months and months of waiting for the season to arrive, it might be tempting to overanalyze every little thing that happened in the league's first official weekend. That's a bad move. 

Remember the Tennessee Titans opening up the 2014 season with a 26-10 win over the Chiefs? Yeah, neither does anyone else. They ended up with the No. 2 pick in the draft. That might be important to take into account to avoid putting too much stock into, say, the Titans' 42-14 win to open this season. 

Week 2 will provide the teams that won a chance to show it's a sign of things to come. The losers will get an opportunity to show it was just an aberration in what will be a successful season. 

Here's a look at the entire slate along with picks and over/under predictions. All spreads and over/unders come courtesy of Odds Shark. 

Matchup	Spread	Total	Predicted Winner	Over/Under
Denver at Kansas City	KC -3	42.5	KC 20-13	Under
Detroit at Minnesota	MIN -3	43	MIN 21-17	Under
Arizona at Chicago	ARI -2.5	45	CHI 20-13	Under
Tennessee at Cleveland	E	41.5	CLE 17-13	Under
New England at Buffalo	NE -1.5	45	BUF 23-21	Under
Houston at Carolina	CAR -3	40.5	CAR 24-20	Over
San Francisco at Pittsburgh	PIT -5.5	45	PIT 31-17	Over
San Diego at Cincinnati	CIN -3.5	45.5	CIN 38-35	Over
St. Louis at Washington	STL -3.5	41.5	STL 20-10	Under
Atlanta at N.Y. Giants	NYG -2.5	51	ATL 31-24	Over
Tampa Bay at New Orleans	NO -9.5	46.5	NO 38-14	Over
Baltimore at Oakland	n/a	n/a	BAL 28-10	n/a
Miami at Jacksonville	MIA -6	41.5	MIA 21-10	Under
Dallas at Philadelphia	PHI -5.5	55.5	PHI 28-20	Under
Seattle at Green Bay	GB -3	48.5	GB 28-24	Over
N.Y. Jets at Indianapolis	IND -7	46.5	IND 35-21	Over

Over/Under Picks

Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs: Under

Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

Both the Broncos and the Chiefs picked up wins to open the season. Now they'll each have four days to turn around for a big divisional rivalry game.

For a Broncos offense that scored only 19 points at home against the Baltimore Ravens, that's a quick turnaround. The Broncos—who were third in offensive DVOA, per Football Outsiders—struggled to get things going against the Ravens. 

Running back C.J. Anderson—who had one of his best games of the season in Kansas City last season—sustained an ankle injury. Peyton Manning looked nothing like the Peyton Manning who used to be the best quarterback in the league. He threw for just 175 yards on 40 attempts with an interception to his name. 

According to Andrew Mason of DenverBroncos.com, Gary Kubiak is confident Anderson will be fine. However, he didn't deny that making the turnaround from the Ravens game would be a tall order. 

"We're beat up. That was a physical game," Kubiak said, per Mason. "It's hard for guys to recover in this league. You don't practice for a couple days after you play and now we're playing very quickly. It's also something as a pro you've kind of got to get used to."

With the short turnaround time, it's hard to believe Anderson will be able to shoulder the load. The problem for the Broncos right now is that their receivers aren't doing much with the football in their hands. Scott Kacsmar of Football Outsiders highlighted the issue:

A hobbled running back and receivers who can't seem to make life easy for their aging quarterback don't necessarily scream offensive juggernaut. 

Expect a Chiefs defense that racked up five sacks against the Houston Texans to take a large role in this one. 

Tennessee Titans at Cleveland Browns: Under

Danny Wild-USA TODAY Sports

The Titans were the biggest winners of Week 1. The Cleveland Browns were probably the biggest losers of Week 1. 

So, why take the Browns in this Week 2 contest? 

Because this is where things are bound to even out a little bit. As mentioned previously, the Titans won their home opener big last season as well. However, the team still ended the season ranked 29th in both offensive and defensive DVOA, according to Football Outsiders. 

That's a lot of futility to clean up in one season. 

The Titans are a young team. In addition to having a rookie signal-caller in Marcus Mariota, they're a team that also leans on production from the likes of Bishop Sankey, Terrance West and Kendall Wright. With that kind of youth comes maddening inconsistency. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Browns' disastrous start might be a harbinger of things to come, but some regression to the mean is to be expected. At least defensively. The Browns finished the season 12th in DVOA last season, yet they started this year by giving up 31 points to the Jets. 

Offensively, the Browns' belly flop shouldn't have been a surprise. This is a team that averaged just 18.7 points per game last year, and not much has changed. Johnny Manziel took over as the starter in Week 1 after Josh McCown went down with a concussion. According to Mary Kay Cabot of the Northeast Ohio Media Group, Manziel will prepare as the starter this week. 

Theoretically, the Browns offense should improve knowing Manziel is the starter. It gives the coaching staff a week to develop a game plan with the young quarterback at the helm. However, as Rich Cimini of ESPN illustrates, the quarterback can't even complete the shortest passes with regularity:

The staff should be able to keep up with a run-centric plan that will keep the Browns in it. The Titans offense should see some regression against a Browns defense that should be better than it was last week. If you can watch another game, you should. This one won't offer much in the way of scoring. 

Arizona Cardinals at Chicago Bears: Under

According to Odds Shark, taking the under here is a major contrarian pick. With 96 percent of bettors taking the over, there's a strong sense that this is going to be a shootout. 

But when that many people agree, there's reason to take pause and consider the other side of the coin. 

Yes, the Cardinals are coming off a 31-point performance at home against the New Orleans Saints. Yes, the Bears gave up 31 points to the Green Bay Packers. Comparing those offenses to one another is apples and oranges, though. 

First, the Cardinals owe a lot of their success to the dynamic running of Andre Ellington. The young back piled up 69 yards on just 12 carries for a 5.75-yard average. As Adam Levitan notes, he went down in the fourth quarter and was replaced by veteran Chris Johnson. 

"

Andre Ellington went down with 11:42 left in the 4th quarter. After that, Chris Johnson got seven carries and David Johnson got zero.

— Adam Levitan (@adamlevitan) September 15, 2015"

Johnson went on to gain 37 yards on 10 carries in the game. Ellington is expected to be out two to three weeks with a PCL sprain, per Josina Anderson of ESPN. 

Without Ellington, the job of the Bears defense to slow down Carson Palmer and the passing game becomes a lot easier. 

On the other side of the ball, the Bears got off to a strong start offensively with 23 points against the Packers, but it was mostly thanks to Matt Forte. The running back gained 166 total yards on 29 touches. That feat will be hard to match against a defense that held the Saints to just 2.7 yards per carry on the ground. 

This one is going to get defensive, and it may be the home-field advantage that decides it.