Los Angeles Chargers (0-0) vs. Kansas City Chiefs (0-0) in Brazil

The Chiefs won 15 games and made the Super Bowl a year ago, but they didn’t have a lot of wins by big margins, with just three of their 17 victories coming by more than 10 points, six coming by more than 7 points, and six coming by 3 points or fewer, relevant considering this line is Kansas City -3. Including their three losses, just over half (11) of the twenty games the Chiefs played last season resulted in them winning by more than 3 points. 

There is potential for the Chiefs to win more games by bigger margins this season once their receiving corps gets to full strength, but they are going to be without their eventual #1 receiver Rashee Rice for the first six games of the season due to suspension. Rice missed most of last season with injury, but it’s worth noting that if you exclude the four games he played last season, the Chiefs won by more than 3 points in exactly half of their games, 8 out of 16. On top of that, the Chiefs have also lost talented guard Joe Thuney and top safety Justin Reid from last year’s team, though the addition of rookie left tackle Josh Simmons should somewhat offset the loss of Thuney.

Given all of that, it wouldn’t be wise to confidently bet the Chiefs as 3-point favorites in a neutral site against a decent Chargers team. My calculated line is exactly where the actual line is at -3. One thing working in the Chiefs’ favor is that the better team tends to cover in international games as they tend to be better prepared for the unusual circumstances, leading to favorites being 37-20 ATS in international games all time. However, I don’t think that is enough to be confident in the Chiefs covering this spread. The Chiefs are my pick for pick ‘em purposes, but this is a low confidence pick.

Kansas City Chiefs 24 Los Angeles Chargers 17

Pick against the spread: Kansas City -3

Confidence: Low