The Indianapolis Colts surprised the NFL by compiling an 11-5 record a year ago, feasting on a soft schedule to do so. They\u2019ll face one of the NFL\u2019s easiest schedules again this year, getting things started in Week 1 with a matchup against an Oakland Raiders team that has had a dreadful preseason. <\/p>\n
Oakland Raiders (4-12) at Indianapolis Colts (11-5)<\/strong>
\nDate:\u00a0Sunday, September 8, 2013<\/strong>
\nTime: 1:00 PM ET<\/strong>
\nVenue: Lucas Oil Stadium<\/strong>
\nCity: Indianapolis, Indiana<\/strong>
\nO\/U Odds: 47<\/strong>
\nSpread: Indianapolis -10<\/strong>
\nMoney Line: Indianapolis -410, Oakland +340<\/strong>
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Andrew Luck didn\u2019t lose a step in his transition from college to the NFL, throwing for 4,374 yards and 23 touchdowns in his rookie season.<\/p>\n
The system will change in year two with former offensive coordinator Bruce Arians taking the head coaching gig in Arizona, but there shouldn\u2019t be much of a learning curve as the team transitions over to Pep Hamilton, who was the offensive coordinator at Stanford in 2011. The news must have been music to Coby Fleener\u2019s ears \u2013 he caught 10 touchdowns in his final year at Stanford.<\/p>\n
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Hamilton\u2019s system at Stanford leaned heavily on the tight ends, but also on the running game, which likely means heavy doses of Ahmad Bradshaw and Vick Ballard against a porous Raider defense. Bradshaw could be slow out of the gates though after missing large chunks of camp and the preseason with various ailments.<\/p>\n
Defensively, it will be more of the same from the Colts. They\u2019ve got athletes all over the field but that usually means getting manhandled in the run game. LaRon Landry has come in to play safety and he should be able to clean up some of those messes. [soliloquy id=”82219″]<\/p>\n
The Raiders said all the right things in the offseason, implementing a blocking system better suited for Darren McFadden\u2019s talents. They\u2019ll rely heavily on their ground game all season, especially after Matt Flynn failed to win himself a starting gig for the second year in a row.<\/p>\n
Head coach Dennis Allen won\u2019t make it official, but it appears former Heisman Trophy winner Terrelle Pryor will be under center to start the season.<\/p>\n
The casual fan will look back on Pryor\u2019s electric run in the preseason or his impressive line in a meaningless Week 17 tilt with San Diego and expect him to hit the ground running this season, but he has a lot of work to do before he can be viewed as a reliable NFL quarterback.<\/p>\n
The Raider defense could be in for a long season. Poor drafting in recent years has resulted in a lack of talent on that side of the ball. Safety Tyvon Branch is a quality player, but he\u2019s no miracle-worker.<\/p>\n
Points will be harder to come by in this contest than many expect. Oakland was a punching bag in the preseason, but they have zero depth on the roster and so a lot of those scores were run up with the second and third units on the field.<\/p>\n
Indianapolis has historically been slow out of the gate and that could be the case again this season as they work the kinks out of a new offensive system.<\/p>\n
The under is 11-2 in the Colts\u2019 last 13 home games.<\/p>\n
The play: Under 47<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Raiders vs Colts NFL Handicapping The Indianapolis Colts surprised the NFL by compiling an 11-5 record a year ago, feasting on a soft schedule to do so. They\u2019ll face one of the NFL\u2019s easiest schedules again this year, getting things started in Week 1 with a matchup against an Oakland Raiders team that has had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":976,"featured_media":65575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[334,2244,4897,2220,10717,830,2240,41508,41509,1055,41511,1323,13289],"class_list":["post-65565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl","tag-colts","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-nfl-football-lines","tag-nfl-football-picks","tag-nfl-football-predictions","tag-nfl-handicapping","tag-oakland-raiders","tag-oakland-raiders-vs-indianapolis-colts","tag-oakland-vs-indianapolis","tag-raiders","tag-raiders-vs-colts","tag-week-1","tag-week-1-nfl-odds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/976"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65565"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65650,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65565\/revisions\/65650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}