Angles hits inboxes on Thursday mornings throughout the regular season; you can also find Angles in The Scroll on Thursday afternoons.
How lucky are we?! Football is back. And for the first time in a short 227 days, we get football tonight between two teams other than the Patriots and Seahawks — in a morning game from the Land Down Under. How straightforward!
But seriously, how lucky are we?! A new season of NFL football. A new season of NFL DFS. A clean slate (pun intended). Last I checked, first-place finishes are still available and still ahead of us.
If you’re new here in 2026, you made a great choice. We put strict parameters on not spamming your inboxes, but every week during the season we drop Angles on Thursday mornings to prime us for the upcoming week of games, with a focus on Sunday’s main slate.
We know next week’s analysis technically starts when the previous week’s games end, but in the rhythm of the week and the content schedule OWS commits to, we hope you use this every week as a macro view of what to expect, what the public is thinking, and the real purpose…some natural ways we can exploit those views to think differently.
That’s the OWS way. Not aimlessly giving you lineups. Not “play this guy because of XYZ.” But rather getting you, the user, to think the way you prefer to think. To build according to your expected game outcomes. To win in your unique style, while we simply hope to give you all the right primers along the way.
The 2026 season here at OWS will look a little different, shaped by one goal this offseason: improving the user experience for each and every member, period.
As you’ve likely heard, new features, functions, and tools abound — from the introduction of Cascading Projections to One Week Stats to Inner Circle Lite, and of course all the reliable content you know and love. But before I get to the upcoming weekend of games, a quick reminder…
OWS is FREE in Week 1!
As is tradition, the entire OWS site is free in Week 1. Try it and get hooked. Or try it and decide we’re not for you. We support you either way. Week 1 is the best week (in my opinion) to give a content site a strong run, because every site is cold-projecting what will happen. There’s more randomness in outcomes simply due to a lack of near-term data (only 2025 or older), so finding voices that sync with you and your thinking is really the name of the game. We hope OWS is that site for you in 2026.
NFL Props!
Ho-hum, no big deal; just three straight years of profitable NFL Props betting.
Join us for the season (or just for the week). Week 1 bets are live!
Correlated Projections; A First Of Its Kind!
What happens in Bucs at Bengals if you assert that Ja’Marr Chase scores 37 points?
What happens to the Lions if Jahmyr Gibbs hits his 85th percentile?
What happens to Bijan Robinson if you assert that the Falcons score 31 points, but that Drake London hits his 10th percentile outcome in that situation?
Cascading projections answers these questions. (Free Week 1. Included in Inner Circle and Inner Circle Lite!)
Week 1 :: We’ve Seen This Before
My father-in-law once told me something profound. You know, in the way that people who are older than you typically do. But he was spot on. He said, “it’s not that older people are smarter than you, it’s just that they’ve seen this before.” We could also say that as we get older, we’ve seen it all before (whatever “it” is), and we learn from those experiences. Well, this is going to be one of my guiding forces in Week 1 this season.
All around the industry, you are going to get the “we don’t know what to expect” in Week 1, in its guise as “analysis.” “Remember the Raiders and Patriots in Week 1 last year?” … “What about the great Jets (Justin Fields) v. Steelers (Aaron Rodgers) shootout?” … “Dude, Allen Lazard was optimal in Week 1 2024” … and so on. There are only so many hits, but it is provocative and it gets the people going.
Ah, but not so fast, my friends. So you’re describing outlier outcomes? That happens every week. We’ve seen this before, and in 2026, especially prior to Week 1, that’s a motto.
Onto The Games
Now, I know this won’t be the first time you’re getting a glance at the Week 1 games (you looked in July, fellow sicko!), but surprise, surprise, there are some things we know and some things we don’t. Let’s unpack the knowns across the 12-game main slate first, and then take a sideways glance ahead.
Chargers lead all teams in implied points at 28.5 (vs. ARI).
Lions are also carrying a 28-point implied total (vs. NO), while Cincinnati sits at 27 (vs. TB).
Ravens (vs. IND), Eagles (vs. WAS), Bears (vs. CAR), and Jags (vs. CLE) are the other teams expected to clear 24 points.
Expected points are not everything, but going one click further, here’s more of what we know about the game environments for these top teams…
:: Arizona is expected to be a bottom-dweller, but we know they have offensive talent. While a paltry 18-point implied total for the Cardinals doesn’t scream “multiple position players on one roster or game stack,” the offense can likely put up a fight. We also know that the Chargers have a new offensive coordinator in Mike McDaniel and a QB in Justin Herbert who likes to spread the ball around. And though they got their offensive line back healthy, they already lost their starting center to a season-ending injury.
:: Lions are playing in a dome, check. They let their 1B running back go to free agency (Montgomery), and the new backup is hurt (Pacheco). The prices are high, but we know where the ball is going. On the defensive side, both starting safeties are not playing in this one, against a frisky late-2025 Saints team that drafted a WR in the top 10 only to lose him to injury in training camp. That said, each side is condensed enough that there’s a clearer path to a shootout here at first glance.
:: Cincinnati is everybody’s darling when Joe Burrow is healthy, as is the case in Week 1. Even better, it may have taken HC Zac Taylor seven years to use the preseason to get his star players ready for the regular season. We’ll see how that changes the Bengals’ approach here against Tampa Bay, but cold starts are in their DNA. Baker Mayfield and Vita Vea‘s contracts should improve the locker room, but unpacking the RB and WR usage on the Bucs seems to fit more in the unknown category at the moment.
:: Lamar Jackson has a new HC and OC, but the personnel around him is consistent outside of a few rookie pass catchers. Daniel Jones returns on the other side in a “we’d like to run the ball with Jonathan Taylor” offense, if I’ve ever seen one.
:: Philadelphia and Washington are both deploying new, first-year play-callers on the offensive side. The early season usually lends itself to more defensive breakdowns than offensive breakthroughs, but there will likely be at least some growing pains here in terms of scoring.
:: Chicago lost D.J. Moore, but if you listened to talk out of a grueling training camp, Luther Burden is the second coming of Jerry Rice, and Caleb Williams is ready to take a step forward. A game against an already beat-up Panthers defense could spark a back-and-forth.
:: Jacksonville gets a check mark for camaraderie, as only Travis Etienne really departed and their GM decided to do next to nothing in the offseason. HC Liam Coen is coming off a divisional title and has real swagger now. A matchup with a Cleveland Browns team with Deshaun Watson and without Myles Garrett sounds like a wish they would’ve asked a genie back in April, so we’ll have to see how this one plays out.
But, because we’ve seen this before, we know there are plenty of unknowns…and that’s cool too. So let’s build for it. Let me get you started!
:: Any player with a phantom injury (ahem, Brock Bowers). Remember, unless you work for the organization, you don’t know that any player is healthy, and it’s reckless to assume so.
:: What game could produce the most unexpected fireworks? Saints at Lions, Bucs at Bengals, and Cardinals at Chargers seem to be the expected ones. But what about Bears at Panthers? Or Packers at Vikings? It’s a divisional matchup in a dome. Enough said.
:: Players in unexpected roles? Only about half the league fits the mold where we know who the primary running backs and primary pass catchers are. Many others don’t declare it, for “competitive advantage” (sure thing, John Harbaugh). Have fun projecting WR rotations in Jacksonville, Chicago, Las Vegas, Arizona, LA Chargers, etc., or RB usage in Houston, Minnesota, LA Chargers, etc. But enjoy the fruits of this labor when you can be a week early.
:: We also don’t know what the outcomes of some games will be, especially when a long touchdown, defensive return, or the weather skews the game environment. Hence, Cascading Projections! Get out there.
The point is, embrace the unknowns. Also, we’ve had months and months to project, digest, and analyze what we expect from these teams in 2026. Don’t let some fantasy analyst steer you away because of a Best Ball exposure or a season-long bet bias.
Lean into what you’ve seen before and build like nobody is watching. Find the voices that matter to you. Use the advanced stats, the game theory, the deep analysis, and the exploitative leverage that you get nowhere else. Use the tools we’re putting out there to build your best lineups, and come win with us.
With that, we’re out of here. See you on Sunday night at the top of the leaderboards.
Let’s go!!!
~Larejo
