NFL Week 1 ATS Picks & Early Lines to Target

• NFL Week 1 starts with Cowboys/Eagles on TNF and culminates with Vikings/Bears on Monday
• The NFL Week 1 odds have already moved significantly, but there is more line movement to come
• See my favorite NFL Week 1 ATS picks and early lines to target

NFL bettors have almost made it through the long dark of the offseason. The 2025 regular season is just 72 hours away and Week 1 will include four days of games, including a Chiefs/Chargers Friday night affair from Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Week 1 is always unique; lines have been out for over a month and early betting action has already move the number in every single game. There is bound to be more line movement in the Week 1 NFL odds as the weekend approaches, though, which means it’s imperative to bet certainly games earlier in the week (depending on which side you’re on).

NFL Week 1 ATS Picks

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Week 1 ATS Pick #1: Lions +3.5 at Packers

I get it. The Packers are on both sides of the ball, Jordan Love is still improving as a signal caller, and they just added Micah Parsons, the favorite in the NFL DPOY odds, to the mix. Green Bay finished last season third overall in DVOA. They are a top-five favorite in the Super Bowl odds and I have a hard time arguing against that status.

But the line moved a full point in Green Bay’s direction after the Parsons trade and Detroit is now being undervalued here. The reigning NFC #1 seed, the Lions are coming off a 14-2 season and an NFL-best +222 point differential, which was 62 points better than any other team. That’s almost as big as the gap between second-best Philadelphia (+160) and ninth-best Washington (+94).

Detroit posted those otherworldly numbers largely without star edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson, who is a narrow second-favorite to Parsons in the DPOY odds. Hutchinson is fully recovered from the broken leg that sidelined him early last season and figures to terrorize a mediocre Green Bay O-line.

The Lions allowed just a 59% completion percentage and one passing touchdown to Love and the Packers in two victories last season. Green Bay did almost nothing to improve its pass catchers in the offseason and head into the new year ranked 21st out of 32 teams in PFF’s receiving-corps rankings.

Detroit +3.5 is as short as -164 at other sites, but DraftKings will allow bettors to bypass the key number of three for a modest increase in juice to -145. I expect sharps are waiting to see if this line jumps to a field goal due to public overreaction to the Parsons trade before hammering the Lions. But I do fully expect buy-back on Detroit, so I wouldn’t hesitate to get them at +3.5 (-145) early in the week.

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Week 1 ATS Pick #2: Bills ML vs Ravens

The Bills aren’t favored at home? Suspect.

Buffalo was a perfect 10-0 at home last season, including playoffs, and is 18-2 in Orchard Park dating back to 2023. The Bills earned a lopsided 31-20 victory over Kansas City in the 2024 regular season and were dominating the Ravens (21-10) at halftime in the AFC divisional round before a second-half Baltimore comeback fell short in a narrow 27-25 Buffalo win.

Reigning MVP Josh Allen is still at the peak of his powers and Buffalo GM Brandon Beane made a concerted effort to improve the front seven/pass rush, adding Joey Bosa in free agency and spending second, third, and fourth-round picks on the D-line. Altogether, Beane used his first five picks in the draft on the defensive side of the ball, drastically improving (at least on paper) a unit that ranked a mediocre 11th in D-DVOA in 2024.

The Ravens were just 6-4 in road games last year (including playoffs), and just 2-3 straight-up in road games against teams that made the postseason. Derrick Henry (1,921 yards) showed no signs of slowing down in his first season with the Ravens, which was also his first NFL campaign on the wrong side of 30, but it’s not reasonable to expect another year close to 2,000 yards from the 31-year-old, who’s amassed 954 high-impact carries over the last three seasons alone.

Week 1 ATS Pick #3: Vikings ML at Bears

We can all agree that the Vikings overperformed last season, when they went 14-3, missing out on the NFC’s lone bye by a single game, and there are bound to be some growing pains for first-year starter JJ McCarthy, who missed all of his rookie season due to injury.

But these teams were also separated by 160 points over the course of 2024, which is a massive gap. Minnesota finished with a +100 point differential, one of nine teams to finish in positive triple-digits. The Bears were a subpar -60, tied for tenth-worst.

I’m not fully buying into Ben Johnson as a panacea for an inconsistent and mistake-prone Caleb Williams, who only threw six INTs on 562 pass attempts but also put the ball on the ground six times as a runner.

Williams’ 87.8 passer rating in his rookie season was just 24th in the NFL, and his receivers ranked an ugly 27th overall at PFF in 2024. GM Ryan Poles made minor upgrades to the receiver room (Luther Burden III and Colston Loveland) but Williams is still working with an average-at-best group on the outside.

Minnesota’s defense ranked second in the league in D-DVOA last year and figures to be among the top units once again. The Vikings limited Williams to a 64.1 completion percentage and a sub-90 passer rating in their two matchups last season while generating five sacks. Reigning NFL Coach of the Year Kevin O’Connell has had months to game-plan for a QB he already knows very well. (O’Connell is a longshot in the 2025 NFL Coach of the Year odds, but that’s purely a product of repeating being nearly impossible; Joe Gibbs was the last repeat winner in 1982 and 1983.)

Minnesota went 2-0 against Chicago last year and I expect the Vikings to run their head-to-head win streak against their NFC North rivals to three on MNF. I love the value with the significantly more-complete team in what’s become a de facto pick’em.

The line opened with the Bears favored by 1.5 and swung to favor the Vikings by the same number as early money poured in on Minnesota in the NFL public betting trends. The public figures to still be on Minnesota as the week progresses and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Viking moneyline get shorter before Monday.