This is a stand-alone page for the Hall of Fame game pick.

In weeks ahead, Fearless Rick's pick pages will become more robust, with picks of every NFL game - preseason, regular season and playoffs - plus selected college picks.

This season, like last season, I'm offering a different perspective, employing early odds and two methodologies: coin flip against the spread and analysis straight up and against the spread. While that may sound like three methodologies, the latter is really the same because I'll be offering a final score, which covers both SU and ATS.

OK, this is a first shot. Hang in, because this is just preseason and there are plenty of roster changes, coaching decision and injuries with which to contend.

I am not one to feign powers of prognostication that would reveal a Super Bowl winner. That's for the so-called experts. I'd rather just take it one game at a time, which calculates out to something like 25 to 30 games a week coverage.

Most of my analysis is empirical, based on facts rather than assumptions. Thus, there's potential for reality-based outcomes rather than pie-in-the-sky cognitive dissonance.

I don't guarantee anything beyond the conceptual framework of visual and audial inputs, background knowledge (50 years of avid addiction) and an honest effort at pick correctness.

It's not easy, but it is also not hard to present this information, at least for me. Having been both very right and very wrong on too many occasions I wish to remember, I surely won't have a record much better (or even equal to) the random coin flip, so let's see how it goes.

Hall of Fame Game, Thursday, August 2, 2018, 8:00 pm, NBC, Fawcett Stadium, Canton, OH

Baltimore Ravens (-2 1/2, 33 1/2) vs. Chicago Bears

Neither of these teams reached the playoffs in 2017, though the 9-7 Ravens were much closer to the mark than the 5-11 Bears.

Since the Bears really stunk it up last season, they are more likely than the Ravens to improve, so this might be a matchup of quality if the game were to be played mid-season. However, so this is just the opening chorus of the entire NFL panoply, Baltimore is likely to be better organized than the Bears.

Coin Flip: BALTIMORE

Prediction: Ravens 17 Bears 10

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