6 Projections to believe and 6 projections to ignore from week 1 of NFL action

#6 Believe: Ties are just terrible

Lions and Cardinals played out a 27-27 draw in week 1

There’s not much to add to this point. You sit there and watch a game for over four hours, especially since the major part of the audience waited for Kyler Murray to do anything for two-and-a-half quarters, and then there is no winner. I just hoped the Cardinals would go for it on fourth and seven inside Lions territory. And Tramaine Brock had a potential interception to set up a field goal go right off his facemask.

I won't act like I have the perfect solution, but if you have teams punting away chances to win the game, there has to be a better option. Maybe a combination of giving each team an opportunity to score and then come back to the college format or go to that type of sudden death situation after a specific time could work. Either way, having a four-hour game end up in a tie is simply disappointing

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#6 Ignore: The Raiders are back

Jon Gruden

I was completely off on that Broncos-Raiders game. I had Denver penciled in and had their defense losing me my matchups in multiple fantasy leagues. A Raiders offense that had everything set up for Antonio Brown being featured heavily, as Jon Gruden has always done with his number one receivers, combined with a defense that was largely underwhelming last season seemed to not have a chance against what I thought could be an underrated Broncos team. However, I did not consider how all this drama would fuel that team and the energy that was inside that building.

Josh Jacobs looked like an absolute stud running back, Tyrell Williams made his case for being a WR1, Derek Carr could not miss and the Raiders are on pace to almost triple their sack total from 2018. With all that being said, I do not expect this team to make a playoff push. The most surprising thing in that matchup to me was the dominance at both sides of the line, which I think is the basis of a strong team.

Looking at their personnel, I just don’t see why this trend would continue, especially when it comes to their guard spots with two backups and the lack of true edge rushers. Now they lost their first-round safety Johnathan Abram, who was bringing all that energy on defense and set the tone, and while I’m extremely happy to know Gareon Conley’s injury wasn’t too serious, he could be out for a couple of weeks. I might have underrated Oakland, but I would be shocked to see them contend for a wildcard spot down the road.