Normally when you ask someone the best time of year, the answer is something boring like "Christmas" or "Fourth of July" or even *gag* "Valentine's Day". All of those answers are wrong. Unequivocally, factually incorrect. The best time of year starts tonight and runs through Monday. It's the start of football season, the return from a seven-month trial by boredom, the release from Sundays of actually having to pay attention to other people. I couldn't be more pumped. And because I can't contain my excitement, I enlisted numberFire's help to pore through the stats and pick out four key things that I will be looking for tonight when the G-Men and America's Team finally take the field.

numberFire's Guide to Giants-Cowboys, Week 1

After these two teams combined for 71 points on week 14 and 45 points on week 17 last season, many observers are expecting another Old West-style shootout this time around as well. In fact, these two teams have not combined for a score less than those 45 points since December 14, 2008, when the Cowboys defeated the Giants 20-8. With that in mind, an over/under of 45 points seems like a bettor's absolute dream. However, I wouldn't automatically assume that a high score is guaranteed this time around. With the Cowboys' upgraded secondary, Week 1 Projections though, Cruz and Bryant blow their respective teammates out of the water. Wondering why? In a game when both are likely to be receiving plenty of targets, it all comes down to catch rate. Cruz was able to convert 62.88% of his massive amount of targets last season, while an injury-hampered Nicks converted a career-low 56.49% of his targets. Meanwhile, Bryant was right above the league average at a 60.78% catch rate last season, but Austin could not keep up with a slightly lower 58.90% catch rate of his own. That may not be the only difference between the players on each team: for instance, numberFire projects Cruz to get more TD chances with 0.70 projected TDs as compared to Nicks's 0.37 touchdown projection. But the catch conversion rate is definitely something to watch out for, as it may determine who receives more targets throughout the season if (big if) all four of these guys can stay healthy.