This podcast episode presents an engaging discourse centered around our audacious predictions for the inaugural week of the NFL season by Host Darin Hayes and Guest Ed Kleese.

We delve into a series of bold forecasts, each reflecting our insights and analyses of upcoming games and player performances. We explore the prospects of various teams and players, offering predictions that range from individual achievements to team outcomes, all with the intent of stimulating thoughtful dialogue among our listeners. As we embark on this season-long journey of predictions, we invite you to join us in evaluating the unfolding drama of professional football.

Join us at the Pigskin Dispatch website and the Sports Jersey Dispatch to see even more Positive football news! Sign up to get daily football history headlines in your email inbox @ Email-subscriber

Don't forget to check out and subscribe to the Pigskin Dispatch YouTube channel for additional content and the regular Football History Minute Shorts.

Miss our football by the day of the year podcasts, well don't, because they can still be found at the Pigskin Dispatch website.

The episode presents a riveting discourse as Darin and Ed embark on a journey through their bold predictions for the inaugural week of the NFL season. Their exchange is characterized by a blend of excitement and analytical rigor, as they prepare audiences for a season filled with potential surprises and noteworthy performances. Each host articulates a selection of audacious forecasts, demonstrating a keen awareness of team dynamics and player capabilities.

Throughout the dialogue, the hosts engage in a spirited back-and-forth, examining not only the predictions but also the underlying rationale that informs their choices. For instance, Ed's forecast of the Chargers' victory over the Chiefs is underscored by a nuanced understanding of the teams' strengths and weaknesses, particularly in light of the Chiefs' recent roster changes. This analytical lens is coupled with a candid acknowledgment of the unpredictability of the sport, as both hosts reflect on the myriad factors that could influence game results.

Moreover, the episode serves as a compelling reminder of the rich history of the NFL, as the hosts weave in references to past seasons and player performances, creating a context for their predictions. This holistic approach enriches the listening experience, allowing audiences to appreciate the depth of knowledge and passion that underpins the discussions. In essence, this episode is a celebration of football, filled with bold predictions and thoughtful analysis that invites listeners to engage with the sport in a meaningful way.

You're just in time as we prepare you for Week 1 of the NFL season with some big, bold predictions, something we're gonna do for the rest of the season.

It's all coming up with Ed Cleese in just a moment.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of.

American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the.

Memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren.

He's of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another visit with Ed Cleese, the historian who has some great ideas to talk about the football history of the National Football League in some really interesting ways.

Ed, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey, Darren, thanks for having me.

Yeah, Ed, this is another great idea you had that we're going to be doing here during the season and talking about upcoming games and putting some predictions out there.

And why don't you explain to the listeners what we're going to be doing today?

Sure.

I was trying to come up with a little bit of a prediction idea for the podcast that was a little bit different.

You know, not just going through and picking the games, but I came up with five bold predictions.

So every week I'll make five.

You make five, kind of rapid fire back and forth.

We can then keep a maybe a little.

Some of these are going to be pretty subjective, so it might be hard to decide who wins, but I think we can do a little bit of a tally each week to kind of see where we're in each week.

We can look better back at our predictions from the week prior and talk about the upcoming week.

And for me to qualify for this, it just needs to be bold.

So saying the Bills will beat the jets this week, to me, is certainly not a bold prediction.

Now, if you said the Bills are going to beat the jets, they're going to cover the spread and they're going to win the game by 17 or more points because of X, Y and Z.

That's a bold prediction.

So that's where we're at.

Bold predictions only.

And let's see how many points I can beat you by by the end of the season.

All right, we're going to tally these up and folks, we're going to do a Recap next week on Wednesday going to be released.

So the Wednesday after the Monday, the first week's Monday night game, we'll have it and have five new bold position predictions coming out for week two and tell you the results, how close we were on our things when and I tell Ed about all five of mine being right and all five of his being wrong and I'll go up five nothing for the year.

So.

So we're gonna see that in all fairness.

So you don't think that we're crazy.

We, we are recording this on August 24th.

We have some conflicts coming up as we get closer season.

We have a holiday weekend coming up and things like that.

So if some injuries happen and our predictions are way off and you say, hey, this guy got hurt 10 days before the start of the season and the prediction, that's the reason why we're making these on August 24th.

Just to give total transparency what's going on here.

So, Ed, I'm going to let you go first with your first big bold prediction.

You bet.

So my first bold prediction is going to happen in Brazil on the opening Friday night of the season.

The Los Angeles Chargers are going to beat the Chiefs in Brazil and it will start.

It'll be the first win on their way to winning the division in the AFC west this year.

Really?

My, my.

So my bold prediction for the week is that the Chargers win this game outright.

And then my little side prediction will be that the Chiefs do not win the AFC west this year.

I having a hard time deciding between the Chargers or the Broncos, but this is a, this is a real Jim Harbaugh pick for me.

He may have a little bit of an expiration date on his effectiveness.

Maybe people grow a little weary of him.

Perhaps he grows a little weary of where he is and it's time to move on after a few years.

But there is no mistaking that there is an upward trajectory whenever he arrives somewhere.

This is year two in la.

He does have an immensely talented quarterback.

And I think the Chargers this year are going to ascend to greater heights than they had last year, which was a playoff team, a rough outing in the playoffs, but they're going to win in Brazil and they are going to be the first team to maybe really start to truly challenge the Chiefs in that division.

And.

And what's approaching quickly, almost a decade.

Wow.

Interesting.

Especially in light of them recently losing their starting left tackle for the season.

So they're scrambling in the trenches to protect, you know, that young, strong quarterback here in Jim Harbaugh's.

Potent offense, so missing the blind side to start, but you're predicting an upset and take having them take the division possibly.

So that's.

That's really interesting.

That's two bold predictions there.

Pretty bold.

Yeah.

Right, right.

Well, I'm going to start off with our number one draft pick, you know, Cam Ward of the Tennessee Titans.

I am going to predict that against the Denver Broncos he is going to score a rushing touchdown and not a passing touchdown.

So he's going to be scoring with his legs and not have a passing touchdown in that game against the Broncos.

Okay, fair enough.

I think that's a really, really tough environment for him to open up in the Broncos defense is excellent.

He's on the road.

That's going to be a very difficult defense to crack.

Not I don't envy him on to open his career that way, but he had pretty good preseason.

They have certainly nowhere to go but up in Tennessee and I wouldn't be completely shocked if he does find himself in the end zone.

All right, so who do you have for your or what do you have for your second big.

So my second bold prediction is that the Atlanta Falcons are going to beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on their way to winning the NFC south this year.

So a little bit of a duel there, but this is going to be.

I'm a big believer in Pinnocks.

I like him a lot.

I think Atlanta quietly addressed through the draft and some offseason moves a lot of their weaknesses on defense.

As an OU guy living down here in Oklahoma City close to Norman, I do really respect and appreciate Baker.

I think they're.

I don't think the Bucs are going to be bad, but I think Atlanta is going to be better.

I think they're going to prove it week one and this is going to be their first step towards taking control of the division this year.

Interesting.

So you think that the Atlanta's DBs are going to hold up against Mayfield's passing in that squad of elite receivers that he has getting that are getting back into health this year?

Remember, they were all hurting last year.

Not necessarily.

I don't think so.

I wouldn't be surprised if Atlanta were to win this game 34 to 31.

They.

They had a big, you know, shootout last year in the Dome and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw something similar to that.

But I do think that Penix is going to be game.

I think he's going to be an upgrade from Cousins and Atlanta has a lot of weapons, like a lot on offense and I think he's going to be able to find ways to get in the ball and I think they're just going to be a little bit of a better team on Sunday and a little bit of better team for the year.

Interesting pick.

Okay, we'll see how that one works out for you.

Well, I'm going to take one.

You know, you started off with an interdivisional rivalry or those rivalry games, especially when they happen week one, that really puts a good flavor in the mouth of NFL fans, especially when you really have no rooting interest in it in this next game.

I really don't have a rooting interest in it, but I love good football.

I love good football teams.

I'm going with the packers against the Lions and I'm going to project that the packers are going to beat the Lions, not just beat them by.

Beat them by two scores and in week one to take an early lead in the division.

And the Lions are going to have to claw their way back into this one, taking an early shot under the chin from the pack.

Well, this is awesome, Darren, because we are totally head to head on this because my next bold prediction, my third bold prediction is that people are overlooking the Detroit Lions and they're going to go into Green Bay and they're going to win that game.

I going to say by.

I'll say by six or more.

So the Lions are going to win that game.

It's not going to be terribly close.

It's not going to be a nail biter.

I think that my team took them out in the playoffs last year.

That defense was decimated with injuries.

I realize they've lost both coordinators.

I don't think that's going to matter quite as much as some people do.

Jameer Gibbs, I think is going to be the best running back in the NFL this year.

That offense is still very potent.

The defense is going to be way better with Hutchison back.

And I think Detroit's got a lot to prove.

I am not quite as high on Jordan Love as the rest of the world is.

And I think that Detroit goes into Green Bay, they win the game and it's not terribly difficult.

Okay, well that could be real easy.

A point sway either way.

If so, you have Lions winning by six or more for your pick.

I have the packers winning by two scores on my side.

Anything in the middle is a.

Is a null.

But on that game anyway.

So there.

There's a direct head to head in our big bold POS predictions for week one right off the Bat.

All right, well, I'm going to go in the division that I follow and I'm not going with my team.

None of my picks are going to be for for my Steelers here, but I'm going to go with Joe Burrow having a five touchdown toss day against the Brownies in week one.

Now, the Bengals have had slow starts the last few years.

They've been trying to do things to correct it.

They just had the starting offense, you know, Jamar, Chase and Burrow both playing in their third preseason games where most teams sat their starters.

Especially when you have, you know, two superstars like that.

They played because they do not want to start off slow and they're not going to burrow five touchdown passes against the Brownies.

That's a very, very bold prediction, Darren.

I'll even probably give that to you.

If he throws three and has a bunch of yards, I'll probably count that for you because I actually think that's going to be a pretty tight game.

It's not on my list, so I won't go too far into it.

But that is certainly a bold prediction.

Hey, that's what we're here for, right?

All right, so number four, maybe this isn't that bold.

So I don't even know how to describe this, but the quarterback situation in New Orleans is literally as bad as I can ever remember it for a team.

This is horrible.

And I think that on the opening week the Cardinals are going to humiliate whoever is at quarterback for the Saints.

So my prediction is that the Saints quarterback is going to be horrendous.

He's going to get smoked by the Cardinals.

The Cardinals are going to win that game very easily.

And the after the game everybody's going to understand exactly how putrid the Saints quarterback situation is and what kind of disastrous type year they're looking at offensively.

I do think their defense is maybe okay enough to maybe keep them in some games.

Maybe they won't continually get blown out, but they are going to have a terrible time moving the ball because their quarterback situation with pick your poison on whatever three of the three of them, whoever you're going to choose, it's going to be very bad and this is going to be a foreshadowing of a long season that down on the Big Easy.

So, so what's your prediction?

What are we.

What are we.

The prediction is it's going to be bad.

That that's going to be bad there.

It is going to be super ugly.

There'll be.

This is the, you know, it when you see it.

Prediction.

You're going to have to give me a little leeway on this because I don't know exactly what that means.

It means an X number of interceptions.

There'll be something statistical from their quarterbacks that is eye poppingly bad.

Whether it's ridiculously low yardage, whether it's five interceptions.

It's going to be something where you go, wow, the Saints lost this game in chief reason.

The chief reason they lost this game is because their quarterback was terrible.

All right, well, you and I are thinking along the same wavelengths because my next selection also affects that game.

Also is talking about the Saints having bad quarterback and a bad offensive play, except for Alvin Kamara and, and you know, some of the wide receivers down there.

But the quarterback play is what's going to make the difference here.

My big bold prediction is that the Cardinals are going to have two defensive sl team scores in this game against the Saints.

So whether it be pick sixes, scoop and score safety, there's going to be two of them that happen in this game.

That's my bold prediction for week one.

All right, I got.

Well, they kind of go hand in hand with each other, so we might both wind up being right.

If I'm right, there's a good chance you're going to be right.

So we'll look at it that way.

That's, that's true.

Very true.

All right, so my last bold prediction for the week is I don't know if either of these are crazy bold, but they have to happen in conjunction.

So both of these things have to happen in this game in order for me to be right.

I'm going to say that the Carolina Panthers are going to win a very close game in Jacksonville, which is a little bit of an upset, but that Travis Hunter is going to make some sort of splash play for the Jaguars in this game.

It's going to be a pick six.

It's going to be a long interception return.

It's going to be a fumble.

Pick a scoop and score.

He'll do something on offense.

He will make a splash play in this game on his way to the defensive rookie of the year award this year.

And the Panther.

But the Panthers will win.

Bryce Young's going to have a much better year this year.

They're going to be a little bit, a little bit of a surprise team, maybe a sneaky wild card contender.

A little preview there.

And Panthers are going to win.

Travis Hunter makes a big splash play for the Jags.

Wow.

So what I'm hearing is you have the Falcons and the Panthers going to be up at the top of that NFC south is what it sounds like.

You heard it here first.

Wow.

Okay.

Some week one predictions and some long term playoff predictions going here.

Wow.

That's, that's, that's something.

That's, that's, that is a bold prediction there, I believe.

But I'm going to go with one a little bit bigger than that.

I'm going to go with the silver and black on this one.

And I am not a Raiders fan, but I am a Pete Carroll fan and I think what he does is something special and he knows how to motivate his players.

I think he knows how to motivate his team and I think they are going to be ready against the Patriots this week because my prediction is that Geno Smith is going to have the first time in his career a 400 yard passing game, week one against the Patriots and the Raiders are going to win that game.

Wow.

So I'm going to give that to you.

Probably whether both of mine had to come true in order for me to win the last one.

I think if all one of yours comes true, I think you're probably going to get that.

I actually am kind of on the same wavelength with you there.

Looking at potential Week one upsets, I'm taking a long look at the Raiders.

The Patriots are definitely a darling this year.

They are a pretty popular surprise team for a lot of people.

I've seen a lot of predictions with them in the playoffs, so I think a lot of people are chalking this up most likely as a win for them.

So I do think this is a pretty bold prediction.

400 yards for Gino, that's beyond bold.

So, you know, if we get close, we can look at it next week and I think I might be able to tip my cap to you there.

But those are, those are pretty bold.

But I'm saying he's going to go over the, the milestone.

He's hitting that 400 yard mark.

All right.

So bold it is.

All right, well, I'm going to throw some bonuses out there because when Gino does that, he is going to win the AFC Offensive Player of the Week award with that performance he's going to have.

And I'm also going to give another bonus pick.

I'm going to say that Josh Sweat of the Cardinals in that torrential prediction that we've said of the Cardinals whitewashing the Saints, Josh Sweat is going to be the player week with three sacks in that game with his new team because he's going to torment the Saints offense all in our quarterbacks and he'll probably have multiple quarterbacks out there for one's going to get tired of getting chased around or be pulled out of the game.

But Josh Sweat's going to stay in there and he's going to have a big day.

I like those, Darren.

And that's probably a good way to wrap it up because I think we've probably already talked way too much about the Cardinals Saints game coming up in Week one.

So yeah, that's probably all.

That's pretty probably all anybody wants to hear about that one.

All right, well, we will have you everybody tune back and next Wednesday morning we're going to have the results come back from our predictions that we just said.

And we're going to present new big bold predictions for week two next Wednesday right here.

Pigskin dispatch on a YouTube channel and a podcast with Ed Cleese.

Once again, Ed, thanks a lot for the great idea and for the great predictions and good luck this weekend.

Had fun.

We'll see you next week.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.

We invite you to check out our.

Website, pigskindispatch.com not only to see the daily football history, but to experience positive football with our many articles on the good people of the game as well as our own football comic strip, cleat marks comics.

Pigskinspatch.com is also on social media media outlets, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and don't forget the Big Skin Dispatch YouTube channel to get all of your positive football news and history.

Special thanks to the talents of Mike and Gene Monroe, as well as Jason Neff for letting us use their music during our podcast.

This podcast is part of the Sports History Network, your headquarters for the yesteryear.

Of your favorite sport.

You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com.