NFL Picks And Predictions: Patriots Vs. Titans

The New England Patriots are overwhelming favorites headed into their Week 1 matchup against the Tennessee Titans, as Jake Locker faces a tough task in his first NFL start.

Locker has long been considered a solid NFL quarterback prospect, and he didn't throw an interception in his rookie campaign. But Bill Belichick's vaunted Patriots defense will be gunning for the No. 8 pick in the 2011 NFL Draft as he gets used to taking snaps as Tennessee's first-stringer.

Joel Thorman of SB Nation had this to say in his Week 1 NFL picks:

If Jake Locker is the playmaker he's supposed to be, the Titans get a little more out of Chris Johnson and Kenny Britt stays out of trouble, this is a very good team.

But they won't be good enough on Sunday. You can't pick against the Patriots, not this early. We know who they are and that's an elite team. We don't know who the Titans are yet.

All 12 pickers at ESPN picked the Patriots, as did all eight pickers at CBS, all three pickers at Yahoo!, and all six over at USA Today, where Jim Corbett and Robert Klemko called the Pats game their "lock" of the week. So did predicting machines Accuscore and CBS' Prediction machine, as did pick'em users at Yahoo! and ESPN. That said, the season-opening game between the Giants and Cowboys got the same treatment from those websites, and that ended up with egg on the faces of expert pickers everywhere, as Dallas beat the team that beat New England in last year's Super Bowl.

For more on the Patriots, head over to Pats Pulpit and SB Nation Boston, while Music City Miracles is your go-to source on the Titans.