It's taken a long offseason, training camp and preseason to get here, but the NFL regular season is finally upon us.
Week 1 action starts Thursday night with a high-profile tussle between the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers, but the rest of the slate features plenty of entertaining games as well. Playoff seeding isn't often on people's minds this early in the season, but some of the contests on the schedule require such forward thinking.
Let's run through each of the week's 16 games with a prediction against the spread, then highlight three safe bets you'd be smart to make this week.