Jets vs. Panthers NFL Week 1 Picks and Predictions

With the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers both starting new quarterbacks, the Under looks good for Sunday’s Week 1 NFL picks.

New York Jets vs. Carolina Panthers

Sunday, September 12, 2021 - 1:00 PM ET at Bank of America Stadium

It’s a special day here at the home office: FiveThirtyEight have just released their projections for the 2021 NFL regular season. They’ve got some new bells and whistles, too, including a Quality Index for each matchup. Sadly, Sunday’s game between the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers earns just 12 out of 100 in that department. But hey, at least it’s not the Houston Texans hosting the Jacksonville Jaguars (0/100).

More importantly, Nate Silver’s crew have the Panthers beating New York by 4.5 points. That naturally makes us lean towards the Jets for our NFL picks as 5.5-point road dogs. But we pride ourselves on both science and journalism, which means we need to consult more sources. Over at The USA Today, Jeff Sagarin projects Carolina to win by 6.87 points; the other (paid) projections I’m looking at but not quoting in this space are similarly torn between the two sides of that 5.5-point divide. Harrumph.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_xYvIjdVTM

New And Improved(?)

Not a problem. We wouldn’t have recommended a serious spread bet on either side anyway, given how close the projections are to the actual NFL lines, but the Under should have some legs in this Week 1 matchup. There was a time when the Under was a moral imperative for season-openers; between 2005 and 2015, it went 95-79-2 for a profitable 54.5-percent success rate. Alas, the Over is 41-38 ever since, with scoring up across the board and quarterbacks hogging all the spotlight.

Quarterbacks are why we’re grinding the Under for a small sum this week. The Jets have a rookie making his debut in Zach Wilson, whom they took from BYU with the second pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. They also have a new head coach in Robert Saleh, the former defensive co-ordinator with the San Francisco 49ers. Both gentlemen come highly rated, but we heard (and occasionally echoed) the same praise for those other high draft picks and new coaches the Jets cycled through over the years.

Zach Wilson #2 of the New York Jets throws a pass against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on August 21, 2021. Patrick McDermott/Getty Images/AFP

Below Replacement

That includes Carolina’s new starter. Sam Darnold went third overall to the Jets in 2018, after a short but successful career with the USC Trojans, and his time as a pro has been eminently forgettable. Darnold finished in the bottom five of qualifying quarterbacks in passing DYAR (Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement) in each of his three seasons in the Big Apple. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

At least Darnold has a promising mind to work with in second-year head coach Matt Rhule, who successfully rebuilt the college programs at Temple and Baylor before landing this gig. The Under went 9-7 in Rhule’s first season on the job, thanks to improvements on defense that should continue into 2021. There’s a 45-point total on the NFL odds board at Heritage Sports, with the early consensus reports showing 100-percent support for the Under. Who are we to argue?

NFL Pick: (visit our Sportsbook Review)

*The pick reflects the line at the moment the writer made the play, the odds at the beginning of this article show the live line movement. Since the lines might vary, don’t forget to refer back to our live odds.