Three NFL Week 1 Upset Picks To Consider (2022)

These three NFL Week 1 upset picks stand out as potential value plays, based on algorithmic models, data angles, and/or recent player news.

September 7, 2022 - by Jason Lisk

Everybody loves an NFL upset pick, especially when you bet on them and they win.

We are back with our weekly NFL upset picks for 2022, where we pick underdogs against the moneyline odds. Last season, upset picks highlighted in this post went 22-25-1 straight up, good for +17.0 units of profit if you had flat-bet one unit on each pick.

(For example, a $10 bet on each pick last year would have netted you $170 in profit by the end of the season.)

You Can Lose, But Still Win

Note that our upset picks had a losing record overall last season, but because every win returns more than what you bet (and sometimes a lot more), that was still good enough to be strongly profitable.

Just keep in mind that we don’t expect to win most of these picks, and we do expect to see big swings from week to week, including losing all three picks in some weeks. We cover this concept in more detail below in Upset Pick Expectations.

To see our favorite betting picks of each week this football season, including spread, over/under, moneyline, props, and other picks, check out our weekly Staff Picks column. Here’s the Week 1 version.

New York Giants (at Tennessee)

Point Spread: +5.5

Moneyline: +210

Our Ensemble Forecast model has the Giants rated as the top value play against the moneyline in Week 1, when they face Tennessee.

Tennessee overachieved expectations a year ago, going 12-5 and getting the No. 1 seed in the AFC with a point differential more in line with a 10-7 team. Meanwhile, the Giants closed last year in terrible fashion. After QB Daniel Jones’ season-ending injury, they were dreadful, resulting in former head coach Joe Judge getting fired.

New York wasn’t great, but they were 4-7 with Jones, and went 0-6 without him, averaging only 9.3 points a game.

This year, though, there are some positive indicators for the Giants, a return of an injured QB, and what should be a coaching upgrade (former Bills OC Brian Daboll).

Tennessee, meanwhile, traded away A.J. Brown and has a host of new receivers in veteran Robert Woods (coming off a knee injury), rookie Treylon Burks, and tight end Austin Hooper. So there are plenty of question marks on how this Titans team will blend.

Add in that the Titans just lost DE Harold Landry (and his team-leading 12.0 sacks in 2021) to a season-ending knee injury in practice last week, and we see value on an upset pick here.

Pittsburgh Steelers (at Cincinnati)

Point Spread: +6.5

Moneyline: +232

Our Ensemble Forecast model also has this pick rated as a high-value moneyline play in Week 1.

The Pittsburgh-Cincinnati series is one that shows very little home field advantage, providing some potential edge on the visitor. Since the NFL went to the eight-division format and created the AFC North in 2002, against Cincinnati, Pittsburgh is 18-4 straight up, 15-6-1 ATS, and is 6-2 straight up as a road dog in Cincinnati over that time period.

The Steelers may have eked into the playoffs last year, but they were not a good offensive team with Ben Roethlisberger at QB. He averaged a paltry 6.2 yards per pass attempt and rarely pushed the ball downfield.

So while no one is going to mistake Pittsburgh Week 1 QB Mitch Trubisky for a star, it’s not even clear that he’s a downgrade over the play that Pittsburgh got a year ago. Trubisky has averaged 6.7 yards per attempt for his career, and will get to throw to a pretty talented young core of receivers in Diontae Johnson, Chase Claypool, and rookie George Pickens.

The Bengals are, of course, coming off their exciting and magical Super Bowl run, so for some added contrarianism here, we’ll take Pittsburgh to keep it close and maybe be able to pull the shocker, at a decent payoff.

Minnesota Vikings (vs. Green Bay)

Point Spread: +2

Moneyline: +105

We’ll close with a shorter underdog, but a team getting a few points in another division rivalry game. The Vikings get Green Bay at home in head coach Kevin O’Connell’s debut with Minnesota.

Minnesota may tend to struggle in Lambeau Field, but they’ve had success against Green Bay at home in the underdog role. Since 2002, they are 6-5 straight up and 8-3 against the spread when getting points at home against the Packers, including going 5-2 straight up as an underdog of three points or fewer.

Green Bay also has some offensive question marks that make this game more attractive for a potential upset. The Packers lost star WR Davante Adams this offseason to Las Vegas. Allen Lazard, one of the most likely candidates to try to fill those big shoes, missed practice again Wednesday after being stepped on in practice last week.

After Lazard, it’s either two dusty veterans (Sammy Watkins and Randall Cobb) or two rookies (Romeo Doubs and Christian Watson) who will get increased playing time.

Upset Pick Expectations

Whenever you read about upset picks from a betting perspective, it’s important to understand what that means. Individually, neither the betting markets nor our models give any of the three teams above better than a 50-50 chance to win its game.

If you bet an underdog on the point spread, that isn’t such a big deal to you. You’re just hoping for the pick to at least keep it close and cover the number.

If you bet an underdog on the moneyline, though, you need them to win the game outright. When that happens, you get an outsized return on your bet. In that context, you should expect to lose more bets than you win.

Depending on the payout odds, you can still turn a profit by winning, say, 30 or 35 out of every 100 underdog moneyline bets. However, you need to manage your bankroll carefully to weather what could be long losing streaks along the way.

Week 1 Betting Picks & Models

If you’d like to find your own trends and angles for NFL betting, check out our custom NFL betting trends tool.

If you’d like to see all of our model-based picks for NFL Week 1 (game winner, point spread, over/under, and moneyline value), you can visit our NFL picks page on TeamRankings.

And if you’d like to see a more curated list of betting picks that caught our attention, with the rationale behind each pick, check out our Staff Betting Picks for NFL Week 1.