NFL Week 2 Picks: Bills Win Thursday Shootout, Seahawks Upset

The NFL season is barely one week old and it's already out of control.

I mean, the Falcons are in first place despite having no wins and no quarterback, the trip to Australia may or may not have ruined the Rams and I'm pretty sure the Browns have already been eliminated from the playoffs. OK, so apparently, that's not mathematically possible after one week, but I think we can all agree that the Browns won't be making the playoffs.

The biggest shock of Week 1 might have been the fact that the Raiders , Jets , Giants and Cardinals all won. The last time all four of those teams opened with a win in the same season was never.

The only thing that was normal about Week 1 was the Chargers . You can always count on the Chargers to let down their fans and not only did they do that on Sunday, but they also let down pretty much every person who entered a survivor pool this year.

> The Los Angeles Chargers' loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday eliminated $10.3 million worth of Circa Survivor entries, per @dustinswedelson . ➡️It's the most $$ lost on any single pick in Circa's NFL contest history — Ben Fawkes (@BFawkes22) September 14, 2026

Only the Chargers could eliminate $10.3 million worth of entries from a survivor pool. If that's not the most Chargers stat ever, I don't know what is.

Although Week 2 might not top the craziness of Week 1, my picks are definitely going to get a little crazy, so let's get to them.

Actually, before we get to the picks, here's a quick reminder that you can check out the weekly picks from every  CBSSports.com NFL expert by clicking here . However, if you don't want to click over, I totally understand. As someone who is easily sidetracked, if I leave this page to go read another story, there's a 100% chance I will end up going down some sort of internet rabbit hole and if that happens, I'll never make it back to the story I was originally reading. So I guess maybe you shouldn't click over.

Anyway, let's go down the rabbit hole of my picks.

NFL Week 2 picks

Lions (1-0) at Bills (1-0)

- Thursday, 8:15 p.m. ET (Stream on Amazon)

The Bills ' new stadium will be hosting its first regular-season game ever on Thursday night and I have to say, I'm already looking forward to the complaints on social media. The Bills unofficially opened the stadium with a preseason game last month and, well, you know how the dinosaurs ate people when they tried to open Jurassic Park, that's kind of what happened here. No one got eaten, but this was definitely wasn't a smooth dry run and that's mostly because several hundred season-ticket holders found out that they couldn't actually see the entire field because they had an obstructed view .

> Whoever designed the new Bills stadium should wasn't very keen to detail. Imagine paying tens of thousands on PSLs and season tickets and walk into a view like this... pic.twitter.com/mGhzbCaMVs — BuffaloWeather (@weather_buffalo) August 9, 2026

The good news for anyone with an obstructed view is that this game is on Amazon, so you can just stream it from your phone and watch everything there. Would that defeat the purpose of buying a ticket to the game? Probably, but that's not for me to decide.

I think the best solution here is to just tear the entire stadium down and start again from scratch, but only if the Bills lose. You can't tear down a stadium while they're on a winning streak.

So is there any chance the Bills are going to lose? If Week 1 is any indication, it's certainly possible. The Lions and Bills combined to play zero defense last week. The Bills gave up 31 points to the Texans while the Lions defense gave up 30 to the Saints .

What I'm trying to say here is that I'm fully expecting a shootout.

Thursday night games can sometimes turn into a slog, but that usually doesn't apply to the first Thursday game of the season (And yes, I know there was a Thursday game last week, but this is the first Thursday game where the teams are coming in on a short week). In eight of the past 11 seasons, the first short-week Thursday matchup of that year has been decided by one score. In seven of the past 11 seasons, it's been a game where both teams scored at least 23 points.

When you think of short-week Thursday games, you think of boring, low-scoring games, but I don't think that's going to be the case here. The last time these two teams played came in 2024 in a game the Bills ended up winning 48-42. We got 90 total points we might top that here. The Over/Under should be set at 104.

The unfortunate part for the Lions is that their Week 1 game went to overtime, which means not only do they have to play on the road on a short week, but they have to do it after playing an extra 10 minutes on Sunday. That's brutal.

You know what else is brutal? The fact that I can never remember my Amazon Prime password and I'm going to need it to watch this game. If you need me, I'll be spending the next three hours asking my wife what the password is. I'm starting to think that she keeps me in the dark about the password so I can't see everything she's buying on Amazon. If the Bills score a point for every Amazon box that came to my house over the past month, they're going to win by 40.

THE PICK: Bills 38-31 over Lions

Browns (0-1) at Buccaneers (0-1)

- Sunday, 1 p.m. ET on CBS (Stream on Paramount+ )

After four years of waiting, we're finally getting what might go down as the greatest revenge game in NFL history: Baker Mayfield vs. the Browns.

In the movie "Gladiator," Maximus' sole purpose in life is to get revenge on Emperor Commodus and I feel like that about sums up Mayfield's life at this point. I think I can confidently say that there's no one in the history of sports who wants to beat his old team more than Baker Mayfield wants to beat the Browns this week.

The Browns have made hundreds of bad decisions over the past decade, but we all know what the worst one was: It came in March 2022 when they decided to mortgage their franchise by making a trade for Deshaun Watson . At the time, Mayfield was still on the roster, but the Browns ended up getting rid of him four months later in a trade with the Panthers .

In 2020, Mayfield led the Browns to their first playoff win in 18 years, but the Browns don't handle success well, which is why he was out the door less than two years later.

Instead of sticking with Mayfield, who the Browns drafted with the first overall pick in 2018, Cleveland decided to dump him in favor of a guy who didn't play a single snap in 2021 and was being accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of massage therapists. Any normal team would have slammed the door shut on a possible trade if just one of those two things happened, but not the Browns. Not only did they end up making a deal for Watson, but they also gave him a fully guaranteed five-year, $230 million contract.

Since leaving Cleveland, Mayfield has won two division titles in Tampa Bay, but I think he would trade those in if it meant he could get just one chance to beat Watson and the Browns by 45 points.

In 2022, Mayfield actually got to face the Browns, but he didn't get to face Watson, because Watson was serving the first week of an 11-game suspension .

At the time the Watson trade happened, it was already being called one of the worst deals of all time, and four years later, you could argue that it holds the title for "worst trade in NFL history."

Mayfield originally signed with the Buccaneers in 2023 and due to the NFL scheduling formula, he has known for three years that the Bucs would be playing the Browns in 2026. I am fully convinced that he has been counting down the days, possibly in blood, until the kickoff of this game.

The Buccaneers didn't win in Week 1, but their defense did give Joe Burrow some trouble, and if they gave Burrow some trouble, they are absolutely going to terrorize Watson. He might throw three interceptions. I will definitely be starting the Buccaneers' defense in Fantasy this week.

As for Mayfield, I think he's going to go off. The Browns' defense got exposed by the Jaguars in Week 1, especially in the passing game with Trevor Lawrence throwing for 245 yards and four touchdowns. I feel like Mayfield is going to want to double those numbers. That probably won't happen, but I do think Baker finally gets revenge on his old team.

THE PICK: Buccaneers 34-16 over Browns

Seahawks (1-0) at Cardinals (1-0)

- Sunday, 4:25 p.m. ET on Fox (Stream on Fubo -- try for free)

We are only one week into the season and I have to admit, I'm already obsessed with the Cardinals. Most of my obsessions only last for about a week or two, so this could pass quickly, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

If you would have asked me before the start of the season to rank the best games of Week 2, this one wouldn't have even been in my top 14, which is saying a lot when you consider that there are only 16 games on the Week 2 schedule. However, I am now oddly intrigued by this matchup for two reasons: The Cardinals actually looked good in Week 1 and the Seahawks almost certainly won't have Sam Darnold .

If you didn't get to watch the Cardinals in Week 1 -- and I'm guessing you didn't because their game only aired in like 1.2% of the country -- the Cardinals pulled off a total shocker by going into Los Angeles and beating the Chargers 26-14. And let me tell you, this game was not close. The Cardinals dominated from start to finish. They never trailed.

Yes, the Chargers are the Chargers, a team that makes inexplicable mistakes all the time, but it was still an impressive win. The Cardinals' defense had Justin Herbert under constant pressure, which led to three sacks and an interception. No one can seem to agree on how good Herbert is, but I think we can all agree that he's better than Drew Lock . If Herbert struggled against the Cardinals' defense, I think things could a lot uglier for Lock.

I feel like the Seahawks are going to have trouble scoring points, but I also feel like the Cardinals are going to have trouble scoring points. The Seahawks' defense saved the day in Week 1 by holding the Patriots to just 10 points, so I don't think we're going to see a sudden explosion of scoring from the Cardinals.

One reason the Seahawks are so good is because Mike Macdonald is one of the smartest coaches in the NFL. He knows how to confuse opposing quarterbacks, but as crazy as it sounds, that's not easy to do with Jacoby Brissett . He's started 66 games over his 11-year career and there hasn't been a single instance where he's thrown three picks in a game. As a matter of fact, he only has five games ever where he's even thrown two interceptions. He might not throw for 350 yards, but he doesn't make mistakes, which is why the Cardinals should be able to keep this close.

Wait, did I say keep this close? Because they're going to do more than that. They're going to win this game. This is the Cardinals' home opener and beating the defending champs would probably go down as one of the five biggest regular-season wins of the past decade (In related news, Cardinals fans have not had a lot to cheer about over the past decade).

That's right. I have completely lost my mind and I'm taking the Cardinals to pull off the upset.

THE PICK: Cardinals 20-17 over Seahawks

Post-Australia special

If we learned one thing from Week 1, it's that you definitely should not take ANY travel advice from the Rams if you ever decide to make a trip to Australia. The Rams flew in the day before the game last week and they played like a team that flew in the day before the game. It was ugly.

That being said, the Rams' strategy wasn't just about Week 1, it was also about Week 2. The Rams' theory was that if they never adjusted to Australia time, then they would never have to readjust back to Pacific Time. That part of their logic actually makes a lot of sense. As for the 49ers , they just spent an entire week in Australia, so they are going to have to readjust

_Originally reported by [CBS Sports](https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-week-2-picks-score-predictions/)._