The city of Cleveland partied like it’s 2016 on Thursday night after Baker Mayfield made his NFL debut and led a second half comeback against the Jets on national television. After getting their first win since the Obama administration, the Browns finally have some life and optimism.
Baker is a baller and has been a winner at every level of football. The Steelers are a circus, the Bengals collapse every December, and the Ravens are a picture of mediocrity. Place a 6/1 bet on the Browns to win the division, put your faith in Baker, and party hard with the good people of Cleveland after every single win. Bud Light for everyone!

San Francisco 49ers to win the Super Bowl: +8,000

While you’re drinking along to this Scouting Report, pour some out to pay respect to 49ers quarterback Jimmy G. Nothing worse than seeing a young, budding superstar tear his ACL and have to miss the rest of the season like Garopollo did last Sunday.
The 49ers had high hopes for 2018 success with coach Kyle Shanahan and Jimmy G having a full offseason to work with. From the outside looking in, it looks like the 49ers season is all but finished.
So why should you bet on them to win the Super Bowl? Well, they were heavily picked to make the playoffs because their team is solid and deep, and their division is weaker than ever. With Jimmy G missing the rest of the season, the 49ers Super Bowl odds dropped from 25/1 to 80/1.
CJ Beathard is coming in to start at QB and he might just shock the world. Last year’s NFC Championship game was a battle of backups with Nick Foles vs. Case Keenum. Who’s to say Beathard can’t be as good as those guys?
Most importantly, Shanahan is a great coach. As an offensive coordinator, he once made the Cleveland Browns look competent with Brian Hoyer as the starting quarterback. Pretty damn good. Betting on the 49ers long-shot success would be a fun way to get invested in Shanahan’s creative play calling.

Josh Gordon will Spark It Up in the Endzone: +400

We still don’t definitively know whether Gordon is a mature player who has moved on from all his issues. Here, you can bet for or against his maturity. If you like the 4/1 odds of Flash Gordon pulling off this celebration, try to parlay it with “Will Bill Belichick decapitate Josh Gordon on live television?” (6/1 odds).
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Clay Matthews Will Punch a Referee This Season: +10,000

Speaking of the possibility of seeing a murder during an NFL game, Packers Linebacker Clay Matthews might go postal on the zebras at some point. Clay was hit with a bullshit roughing the passer penalty for the third straight week. 
My sympathy for Matthews is low for two reasons:

• His hair is beautiful and I’m jealous of it.
• This could have been prevented if he read our breakdown on how to hit an NFL QB. #TheMoreYouKnow

Hedge this by also betting on Packers Head Coach Mike McCarthy to attack the refs, too. He was ready to throw hands on the sideline with the official who threw the flag. 

The NFL Will Change its New Rules to Protect Non-QBs: +0
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Think Clay Matthews has had it rough? He hasn’t suffered nearly as much from the roughing the passer rules as Dolphins defensive end William Hayes has. Hayes tore his ACL last Sunday while awkwardly shifting his body in an attempt to avoid being flagged for putting his weight on quarterback Derek Carr.

So, the NFL, always prioritizing player safety, will certainly change the rules to protect defensive players like they do to protect quarterbacks? Nope. Not a snowball's chance in Tom Brady's afterlife. Never waste a penny betting on the NFL to address this issue. Betting on a possible rule change here is such a long shot you may as well stick to the Powerball.

Taysom Hill to win NFL MVP: +8,000

Saints Swiss-Army knife Taysom Hill plays QB, wideout, tight end, special teams gunner, as well as punt and kick returner. He’s a dynamic stud who is athletic and skilled enough to be plugged into almost any position on the field. ​

While you can’t actually find a place to bet on him yet (Spoiler Alert: I made up the Clay Matthews odds also) you should place a long shot on Hill winning MVP if ever given the opportunity.

What could possibly be more valuable than a guy who can play FIVE different positions?? The Arizona Cardinals don’t even have five players who competently play one position. Taysom Hill is an absolute beast and rooting for him to fill up the stat sheet sounds like a blast.

Welcome to the first installment of the Scouting Report. The Coach, The Rookie, and Stats Guy were naïve enough to trust me with producing some written content for the best NFL fans on the internet: #TeamBlitzed.

​I’m Scout. Preferably The Scout, or else it sounds like I’m just the Blitzed NFL golden retriever. Regardless, I’m so happy to contribute to my favorite podcast that I don’t care if you call me Air Bud. I highly encourage you to drink along with my writing like you do with the podcast!

This week on Blitzed NFL Radio the Blitzed Crew gave you their biggest overreactions from the NFL’s first regular season games:

• ​Ryan Did-You-Know-He-Went-To-Harvard? Fitzpatrick will win the MVP.
• DeShaun Watson is a bum.
• Titans, Saints, and Bears fans should just give up hope, quit the 2018 season, and find a new sport entirely after their respective teams lost one-score games.

Now, whose fans should be sharpening the blades? Ironically for The Coach, it’s the Seattle Seahawks. 

Maybe it’s the first sign of the curse of him drafting Tom Brady in the Blitzed Fantasy Draft. Maybe it’s losing every single good player on defense and not replacing any of them. Maybe it’s having your first-round pick be 16 pounds overweight.

Whatever it is, the Seahawks are totally FUCKED.

They're fucked not only because they'll miss the playoffs for a second straight year. The Seahawks have simply peaked and there is nothing they can do about it. Nobody has replaced Chancellor, Sherman, Bennett, Avril, and Richardson. Maxwell and Baldwin will also be out for a long time. 

The roster is depleted. It showed on Sunday when the Broncos offensive and defensive lines manhandled them. Sure, Seattle only lost by three points. But the old Legion of Boom would never win by only single digits, let alone lose, when snagging three interceptions. The new Seahawks let Russell Wilson take six sacks every week instead of being just good enough to let him roll out of the pocket. 

My Denver Broncos are obviously a Super Bowl contender, if not the favorite. While that is simply an undisputable fact that I’m happy to address later, let’s first wrap up the overreaction part of the program. 

As a Broncos fan, I’ve seen this situation before. Mike Shanahan won two rings as the Broncos head coach and burned his place into Denver history like he burned his skin every summer. Then, after Hall of Famers like Elway, Terrell Davis, and Shannon Sharpe left, things got different. The Broncos slowly went from NFL royalty in the late ‘90s to NFL purgatory by the mid ‘00s. Shanahan’s teams were bad enough to miss the playoffs, but not bad enough to get top-ten draft picks and accumulate young talent.

Much like Shanahan, Pete Carroll will slowly devolve into NFL purgatory after losing all of his best players. It won’t be quick and easy. The Seahawks won’t be the Browns or the Bills. Slowly and surely, Seahawks fans will realize that 8-8 seasons are as common in Seattle as skinny guys with patchy beards dressed like lumberjacks.

​Sorry, Coach, it looks like you can’t ship those razors out to Buffalo quite yet. Unfortunately for you and the good folks of the Emerald City, you aren’t allowed to sharpen 'em up either. The mass exodus of talent from this Seahawks roster has landed Pete Carroll in Mike Shanahan purgatory. The blades that kill your spirit will be dull, and the process will be long and painful. Think cardboard paper cut.