Football expert Phil Steele is the owner and publisher of Phil Steele’s College Football Preview, regarded as the college football bible. Get in-depth coverage of college and pro football 24/7/365 at PhilSteele.com.
Buccaneers (+2 ½) over FALCONS: The Bucs head to Atlanta following a season sweep of the Falcons in 2015 with a new head coach in Dirk Koetter, who was the offensive coordinator under Lovie Smith. Key here could be the strong right arm of second-year quarterback Jameis Winston who will be counted on heavily by the Bucs (they threw an average of 41 times in the preseason). The Falcons failed to cover 10 of their last 12 games last year. An outright upset could be brewing.
CHIEFS (-6 ½) over Chargers: San Diego has been dominated by KC the past two seasons by a 21-8 average margin. I’ll call for that trend to continue this weekend as the Chiefs look to add on to a 10-game winning streak that helped close out the 2015 regular season (15 ppg average margin of victory). The Chiefs will be in the mix to claim the AFC West title away from Denver, while the Chargers could be in for another double-digit loss campaign.
2015 record (NFL): 24-17