Hurley's Picks: The Cowboys are definitely winning the Super Bowl

BOSTON -- Ah, Week 1. Don't you just love it? Once 1 p.m. hits on that Sunday and RedZone fires up its engines, it's pure chaos. There's no preseason training that can get anyone ready for that first hour of an NFL Sunday. It's beautiful, delicious mayhem.

And of course, once the dust (or rubber pellets, I guess) settles, we're left with a smorgasbord of wild and insane results. The Bucs beat the Vikings? The Browns smoked the Bengals? The Patriots almost beat the Eagles? THE ARIZONA CARDINALS HELD A FOURTH-QUARTER LEAD? It's wild.

Naturally, we are heavily impacted by what we've seen most recently. And it takes every ounce of our energy to resist drawing grand conclusions based on 60 minutes of football played by each team. We know better than to make those large-scale projections based on such a small sample size.

But you know what? That's no fun. It's time to make some damn declarations.

--The Dallas Cowboys? Super Bowl-bound. Actually, forget that. They're going to get to the Super Bowl and they're going to roll to a championship victory. Best team ever, quite possibly. Did you see that manhandling of a 2022 playoff team -- a team that won a playoff game no less? On the road, no less. It's all on the table: 17-0, historic defense, record-setting offense. Cowboys fans should book their February trips to Las Vegas now. Trust me, it's safe.

--The windows have closed on the Joe Burrow-led Bengals and Josh Allen-led Bills and Patrick Mahomes-led Chiefs. They had good runs! But it's a new era for AFC contenders. 

--The Jets will still win 10-12 games, even with Zach Wilson at quarterback. Sure, he seems to be absolutely shocked every time he takes a snap, leading to him turning his back on the field of play and running like Forrest Gump toward his own goal line before heaving a bomb out of bounds (if he's lucky). And yeah, sometimes he throws footballs directly into the chests of defenders. But this is a results-driven lead. And the results show that Mr. Wilson and his headband are 1-0. (Well, technically, Aaron Rodgers is 1-0, but, you know, we saw what we saw.)

--Tua Tagovailoa will obviously shatter Dan Marino's Dolphins passing records. If you watched the game, you might have seen four or five floaters that could have been picked off ... but that would also make you a hater. All I see is a sick stat line, one that is a certain indication of future dominance over every NFL defense, not just the Chargers' porous D.

--Jordan Love is perfectly positioned to be the Packers' starting quarterback for the next 15 years. How do they keep doing it?!

Ah, that was fun, yeah?

Unfortunately, we do know better than to take the Week 1 results and run with them. Here in New England, we witnessed the Patriots get absolutely thumped in Week 1 in 2003 ... when they ended up going 14-2, winning a Super Bowl, and kickstarting a 21-game winning streak. The 2014 Patriots also lost by 13 points in Miami in Week 1 to begin another Super Bowl-winning season.

Tom Brady lost his first game as a member of the Bucs, and in ugly fashion, losing 34-23 in Week 1 at New Orleans. It was a mess. Everything looked awful. They'd of course win the Super Bowl later that season.

These things happen. So for as bad as some teams looked last week, and for as great as others looked, most of what we witnessed last weekend will prove to be useless in the end. The challenge now is not letting last weekend's results impact this week's picks too much. That's the real struggle.

(Home team in CAPS; Thursday lines)

Minnesota (+6) over PHILADELPHIA
I like the Eagles to win outright, but six points feels like a great opportunity for Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson to sneak in the back door in the final minute.

TENNESSEE (+3) over Los Angeles Chargers
The Chargers-Dolphins game felt like it was being played on Super Nintendo. Gross football. Bad job all around. 

At the same time, Ryan Tannehill was truly painful to watch last week. I don't trust him one bit.

But I always like a Mike Vrabel-coached team when there's reason to be pissed off.

Green Bay (+1) over ATLANTA
I'm curious what the NFC South's record will be in non-divisional games. Could be ugly.

Don't get me wrong. Bijan Robinson's touchdown last week made me spit out my sandwich. They might have something on offense there. But they also might not. That's just something you've got to consider.

HOUSTON (-1.5) over Indianapolis
Tough one here. Not for any reason other than that neither team is going to be very good. That's tough.

DETROIT (-4.5) over Seattle
We've all got LIONS FEVER, folks. What could possibly go wrong???

Chicago (+2.5) over TAMPA BAY
I am refusing to budge on my Tampa Will Be Very Bad stance. I refuse!

BUFFALO (-8.5) over Las Vegas
Josh McDaniels will be 18-29 as a head coach after this weekend. That's crazy -- especially for someone who started his career going 6-0.

Kansas City (-3.5) over JACKSONVILLE 
The Chiefs weren't ready to play last Thursday. They will be this week. (As long as Travis Kelce can go. If not ... forget what I said, go you Jaguars.)

Baltimore (+3.5) over CINCINNATI
I think the Bengals win with a last-minute field goal. They're clearly not at full power just yet and thus won't be in win-big mode, but I don't like a team that talented to start 0-2.

New York Giants (-4) over ARIZONA
Let's all take a moment of silence to reflect upon the loss of my dearly beloved Giants as Cover Gawds. It was a great run, but all good things must come to an end. Sad!

Yet while I won't be automatically going with NYG every week no matter the spread, I also have conviction that the Cardinals are going to smell. I understand they looked decent for most of last week, but we're going to ignore that and stick with our conviction.

San Francisco (-7.5) over LOS ANGELES RAMS
I wish the line reflected some respect for the Rams after last week. Even though I may believe that to have been a mirage, certainly it should have bought me a couple of points here.

Regardless, the fully healthy Niners are fun to watch. They're like the Golden State Warriors, before they got un-fun to watch. I'm not sure if that makes sense but I already wrote it. I'm not going to hit the backspace key now, I promise you that.

DALLAS (-9) over New York Jets
I may have been joking about the Cowboys definitely making the Super Bowl, but I'm quite sure they're capable of blowing out both New York teams in a seven-day span, which is always fun.

The Jets' defense, as we saw, will remain potent. It's just ... that quarterback. Man. What a shame. Garrett Wilson better get used to intercepting interceptions if he wants to keep his reception and touchdown count up.

Decent Excuses For Wearing A Signature Headband (-1000) over Zach Wilson
I don't want to harp on Zach Wilson too much, but did you all see on "Hard Knocks" when Aaron Rodgers was goofing on Wilson for wearing the headband for a preseason game? Wilson swore he doesn't even want to, that it's not for style, but that he literraallllyyyy sweats into his eyes and "can't see." Zach Wilson believes he's the lone human who gets sweaty while playing sports and thus has to wear a signature headband while throwing the most godawful interceptions in league history. 

You can't make this stuff up.

DENVER (-3.5) over Washington
I don't know, man. We're not going to go crazy for the Commanders, right? Have we decided on that? Perhaps we need to all meet and figure it out. For now, I'll keep it relaxed on the Commanders.

Miami (-3) over NEW ENGLAND
I actually liked the Patriots in this matchup after watching the aforementioned Super Nintendo Dolphins game last week. That was a defensive trainwreck, and Tua is lucky to have escaped with just his one pick. I liked New England to run it down their throat and get a few interceptions and pull out a victory.

But I'm afraid of the injury report. After Sidy Sow, Atonio Mafi and Calvin Anderson were among the worst-performing offensive linemen in the whole league last week, Sow is now dealing with a concussion, while the two good offensive linemen -- Trent Brown and David Andrews -- are injured too. Brown has a concussion and thus could create a really problematic void at left tackle, and Andrews is working through a hamstring injury. 

So that whole running it right through Miami thing may not be in the cards for the Patriots, who are off to a brutal start health-wise on their O-line.

New Orleans (-3) over CAROLINA
The Saints already have an out-of-division win, so they get the edge here.

Fortunately, this is a double-Monday nighter, so you can stop watching this one at halftime.

Cleveland (-2.5) over PITTSBURGH
I said it last week, I'll say it again: Just because the Steelers wear Steelers helmets and Steelers jerseys and employ the longtime Steelers coach does not mean that the Steelers are good! OK? OK.

Last week: 11-5 (you're WELCOME)

You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.