Ladies and gentlemen, the 2023 NFL regular season is exactly 3 weeks away. That’s right; the real thing will get underway on Thursday night, September 7, when the Kansas City Chiefs host the Detroit Lions. To get you ready for the action, the Pickswise experts have been delivering all kinds of predictions and you can find all of them in our NFL futures betting guide.

Speaking of the Lions, they are part of the Week 2 preseason festivities as they prepare to face the Jacksonville Jaguars. That game is among my best bets for the week, and be sure to check out all of our NFL Preseason Week 2 picks. 

Cleveland Browns vs Philadelphia Eagles Under 38 (-110)

Browns head coach and Philadelphia native Kevin Stefanski returns to his roots for this Thursday night contest. A meeting between the starters of these teams would be great to watch (although it could only happen in the Super Bowl this season), but that’s not at all what we’re going to see. The teams have done their most important work of the week already in their joint practices, which saw the starters going head-to-head in some hard-hitting action.

But it’s going to be the reserves and guys fighting for roster and practice-squad spots who take the playing field on Thursday. There will be no Deshaun Watson and Jalen Hurts, hurts of course. There might not even be much Marcus Mariota for the Eagles. The Browns have played twice already, staying under Thursday’s total while winning the Hall of Fame Game 21-16 against the Jets and again when losing 17-15 to the Commanders last week. 

New York Giants -3 over Carolina Panthers (-110)

In the debut of Panthers quarterback Bryce Young against the Jets last week, pressure was a concern for the offensive line. The #1 overall pick played a total of 11 snaps and was hit on 3 of them, with 1 being a sack. Backup Matt Corral came in and experienced the same issues, which means that blocking will be a focal point for the Panthers in this game. Young probably won’t play much in this game with the pass-block issues risking injury. An easy fix to poor protection can be short passes, which result in longer, time-consuming drives.

The Giants showed last week that they have extremely good secondary depth, which could provide further issues for the Panthers. With more starters likely coming into play in this matchup, New York should have the upper hand both offensively and defensively considering it has more experienced QBs and also better coaching. Look for the Giants to be at least somewhat inspired and take care of business in front of the home crowd. 

Jacksonville Jaguars ML over Detroit Lions (-180)

The Jaguars mean business this preseason. At least that appears to be the case after they played a large number of starters — quarterback Trevor Lawrence included — in their opener and prevailed 28-23 at Dallas in Week 1. Lawrence completed 5 of 6 passes and threw a touchdown, although he did get picked off once. Wide receiver Calvin Ridley, who was infamously suspended for the entire 2022 season after betting on NFL games in 2021, caught both of his targets for 21 yards.

Jacksonville head coach Doug Pederson hasn’t said what he is going to do when it comes to Saturday’s contest, but one can only assume that he will be playing more starters than Detroit head coach Dan Campbell. In fact, Campbell has already come out and said that his starters are not playing this weekend. WRs Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams are already dealing with injuries, so that makes sense. Give me the Jags on the money line, because there’s no way I’m giving more than a field goal in a preseason game.