Monday Night Markets: Week One
The 2010 Monday Night Football season will kick off tonight with a double header set to make up for eight and a half months of the Monday night humdrums. First, the Baltimore Ravens visit New York to meet the Jets in the first Monday night game held in the $1.6 billion New Meadowlands stadium. Both teams have high hopes for the season with the Jets finally signing CB Darrelle Revis and QB Mark Sanchez entering his second year after closing out last season with a strong performance in the playoffs. Baltimore will be lining up behind QB Joe Flacco, who has some new targets with recently acquired receivers T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Anquan Boldin but the team will be without safety Ed Reed due to a hip injury.
The late game has the San Diego Chargers visiting the Kansas City Chiefs in the new Arrowhead stadium. The Chiefs were 4-12 last season and are looking to improve with former New England coordinators Romeo Crennel as defensive coordinator and Charlie Weis brought in to work with QB Matt Cassel in his second year with the Chiefs. San Diego is aiming for its fifth straight division title behind QB Phil Rivers looking to pick up where he left off with his favorite target, TE Antonio Gates who is coming off a career year and WR Malcom Floyd hoping to step up in place of Vincent Jackson.
FOX Business has evaluated the win/loss and stock market statistics over the past 20 seasons of Monday night NFL games and come up with a Monday Night Markets [MNM] score for each team based on their record and the prior week’s market activity. Let’s take a look at what the markets have to say.
The Dow Industrials ended last week up 0.14% and the S&P 500 was up as well, closing out the week with a gain of 0.46% as the markets responded to the easing of European credit concerns and a larger-than-expected drop in weekly jobless claims.
Over the past 20 years, the Ravens have played 14 Monday night games and based on our calculations have a Monday night rank of .500 when the Dow closes the prior week up and .500 when the S&P 500 is up, giving them a MNM rank for this week of .500.
During the same 20-year period, the Jets have played 18 Monday night games and have a rank of .462 when the Dow is up and .429 when the S&P 500 is up, giving them an MNM rank this week of .446.
So, Monday Night Markets picks the Ravens to beat the Jets in their season opener.
Meanwhile, the Chargers have played 14 Monday Night games over 20 years and have a Monday night rank of .500 when the Dow closes the prior week up and .556 when the S&P 500 is up, giving them a MNM rank for this week of .528. The Chiefs have played 24 Monday night games and have a rank of .571 when the Dow is up and .571 when the S&P 500 is up, giving them an MNM rank this week of .571.
Based on that, Monday Night Markets picks the Chiefs at home over the Chargers to open up their season.
Week 1 FBN Staff Picks:
Ravens v. Jets
Good chance their egos are big enough to make it to the Super Bowl.
Chris Cotter
I take the Ravens… Because it makes sense. The Jets have had way too much pre-season publicity. The additions of Boldin and Houshmandzadeh should help Ravens’ Joe Flacco become a top tier QB this season. The Jets needed Darrelle Revis and now they have him, but he won’t quite be 100% this week.
Sandra Smith
Rootin’ for the underdog in this one!
Chris Cotter
The Chargers will beat the Chiefs because they are the better team. It is that simple. KC will show improvement, especially with Charlie Weis leading the offense. San Diego should be able to run the ball at will with rookie back Ryan Matthews.