Week One Reactions

The NFL season is always wild and unpredictable, and no week encompasses this more than Week One. We come into the season with very specific expectations of how things are going to go, and after a single day we’re ready to toss them all out the window. Nothing ever seems to go as we think it will on opening day, and since this is the only real evidence we have, it’s easy to overreact to these events.

For each game this weekend, I listed the biggest takeaway that the media has gone with so far. Some of these reactions are reasonable, and some are not. I’ve listed them in order from the ones most like to continue going forward to those that were just a one week surprise.

The Redskins offense is atrocious with Kirk Cousins at quarterback

Who knew? You put a mediocre, turnover prone quarterback into the game, and you’ll only score ten points against the Dolphins. The Redskins defense did a fantastic job containing Miami, and they would have had a chance to win this game if they’d gotten anything from their offense. But Cousins was still Cousins, throwing two interceptions and averaging only 6.3 yards per attempt. The Reskins are in trouble no matter what they do, but by now it should be obvious that Cousins is not helping them at quarterback.

Oakland sucks

Oakland has been terrible for more than a decade, so there isn’t much more to say at this point. There was some talk that this could be a year where things finally start to turn around, and this could very easily still be the case. But it wasn’t in their first game of the season, an absolute trouncing at the hands of a solid but unspectacular Bengals team. Derek Carr was miserable before leaving with a hand injury, and their offense didn’t get any better with Matt McGloin coming off the bench. Oakland was never going to be good this year, but there were at least hopes they wouldn’t humiliate themselves. After one week however, this looks a lot like the same Raiders team we’ve seen for the past twelve seasons.

Same old Saints

New Orleans saw more turnover than any other team in the league this offseason, with nearly half their roster made up of players who weren’t on the team last year. And in their game against the Cardinals, they looked pretty much like nothing had changed. Their defense struggled to contain a mediocre offense and let them down in the clutch. Their offense couldn’t run the ball, and they made very few explosive plays in the passing game. New Orleans has built optimism for this season on the basis of a major turnover, but if you look at their roster, it’s hard to see anywhere they’ve gotten significantly better. Their only obvious improvement is on the offensive line, and if they continue to struggle in the running game like they did against the Cardinals, they’ll find the same results they saw last season.

Johnny Manziel may not be completely terrible

The real story of this game was the dominance of the Jets defensive front against a quality offensive line, but when Johnny Football is involved, he is always the lead story. He wasn’t spectacular by any means, but after his performance last year he merely needed to not humiliate himself in order to count this as a success. It looks like he’ll be under center again for the Browns this weekend, though whether or not he lasts is still very much up in the air. But based on what he showed against the Jets, Manziel supporters have to be a lot more confident than they were a week ago.

Blake Bortles can only play in the preseason

Blake Bortles Career Stats

Preseason: 63.9% completion, 3TD, 0 INT, 8.8 Y/A

Regular Season: 58.6% completion, 12 TDs, 19 INT, 6.0 Y/A

After a stellar preseason, many came into this year expecting Bortles to be significantly improved. Instead, after spending most of 2014 as the worst quarterback in the league, he fell comfortably back into that role in 2015. For the second year in a row his performance in preseason has failed to carry over into the regular season, and at this point it is very easy to dismiss everything that happened in the preseason as meaningless. And while this might be true, it’s also possible that this was just one bad game against a talented defense. The jury isn’t out on Bortles yet, but this first game is definitely a cause for concern.

Atlanta is Back

Atlanta has some of the most impressive talent in the NFL, which is why it’s been such a shock when they’ve fallen short over the past two seasons. But with a new head coach and a top ten pick giving them new flash on defense, expectations were high coming into the year, and the victory over Philadelphia showed many exactly what they expected. Atlanta certainly looks improved, though it’s hard to be certain of anything against an Eagles team we know absolutely nothing about. And the biggest problem with Atlanta remains their depth, a monster that could rear its head if they suffer injuries as most teams do over the course of the season.

Same old Jay Cutler

Cutler has thrown an interception in every game against the Packers since being traded to the Bears, so it wasn’t really a shock when Clay Matthews undercut his pass at a crucial moment in the fourth quarter. After a surprisingly strong performance by the Bears offense, they failed in a crucial moment, just as they have seemingly every year. And yeah, I think Jay Cutler is the same quarterback he’s been for years. But I also think that’s not that terrible an option. If the Bears can keep running the ball like they did on Sunday, and if their defense can make positive strides, Cutler is good enough that they can compete for the playoffs this season.

The Giants coaches are idiots

Most of these headlines are bigger picture concerns, but the only thing that really came out of the Sunday night game was what happened at the end. The Giants had a three point lead with 1:54 left and the ball on the Cowboys four yardline. A touchdown would have put the game out of reach, but since Dallas only had two timeouts left, the Giants had the ability to run the clock down below a minute remaining before kicking the field goal to go up by six. But an incomplete pass on third down left Dallas with more than a minute and a half to work with, and the Cowboys proceeded to score the game winning touchdown.

Everyone ridiculed the Giants and their coaching staff for deciding to throw, but I don’t hate the play call. The problem was in the execution. Eli Manning has to know that an incomplete pass is the worst thing that can happen on this play, that he would have been better off eating the ball and taking a sack than throwing it away. This falls partially on the coaches for not reminding him, but they trusted their veteran quarterback to make the smart play. That doesn’t make them idiots.

This is what makes them idiots.

The AFC West is wide open

Kansas City and San Diego won by similar margins, but they got there in different ways. The Chiefs jumped out to an early lead and weathered late game surge, while the Chargers fell behind early before staging a comeback. The important thing is, both teams won, and they did so while showing flashes of total domination against quality opponents. Their offensive weapons look a lot more dangerous than they did a year ago, with Travis Kelce performing at a Gronk-like level and Keenan Allen responding with a fantastic game after a disappointing second season. I’m not convinced that these offenses can sustain this level of play, but if they can, both teams are right in the race for the division, especially with the questions that arose for Denver this weekend.

Peyton Manning is done

I’m not going to dismiss a player like Manning, but he looked absolutely wretched on Sunday. It wasn’t that he was making mistakes, misreading coverages or missing open receivers. Every decision he made was the right one, and he just didn’t have the arm to take advantage of it. That is the truly scary thing, because I’m not certain that can be improved on. If he physically can’t throw the football on a ten yard out route, Denver’s offense is in serious trouble.

That said, if there’s anyone in NFL history who can adjust to a loss in arm strength, it’s Manning. Give him some time to figure out what he can and can’t do, and he has a chance to find a way to make this offense work. On Sunday their defense looked even better than expected, and they probably don’t need Manning to be a superstar in order to compete. As long as they can move the ball a little, Denver is still one of the best teams in the league.

The Vikings are all hype

The second game on Monday night was one of the ugliest football games I have ever seen (yet still not the ugliest of the weekend, thanks to whatever the hell happened in Denver). The Vikings—this year’s “sleeper so popular they’re no longer a sleeper” team—looked comically inept against a 49ers team that had just emerged from the most tumultuous offseason anyone can remember. Already scorn is being heaped upon the pundits who picked the Vikings to take a leap to the playoffs (including yours truly), and people are wondering if the Vikings will be even close to the team many expected.

And yeah, it’s possible that we jumped the gun a little. The Vikings are a very young team, and it was exciting during the offseason to imagine all that talent emerging at once. There were always going to be bumps on the road, and this week was one of them. They did some things well, their secondary essentially neutralizing the 49ers outside receivers, and Teddy Bridgewater was actually decent aside from a few bad plays. The future is still very, very bright for this team. It just might be further down the road than many expected.

Tom Brady is going to tear the league apart

After his suspension was voided, many speculated Brady would respond by playing out of his mind. And on opening night, he certainly did, completing 25 of his 32 passes for 288 yards and four touchdowns. He was as impressive as any quarterback in the league on opening weekend, and it’s easy to imagine him carrying this over through the rest of the year. But I think his opening night performance had more to do with the opposition than anything else. The Steelers are a good team, but they don’t match up well with the Patriots. To stop Brady a team needs to be able to match up on the edge, to close down the immediate passing lanes so their front can get pressure. If there are open receivers available, Brady will find them, and there are always going to be open receivers against the Steelers. Other teams will do a better job of slowing him down, and Brady will regress to more reasonable levels.

Marcus Mariota should have been the first player taken in the draft

It might not be possible to have a bigger contrast between debuts than that of Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota. Mariota became only the second quarterback in NFL history to throw four touchdowns in opening week of his rookie season, joining Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton. Winston completed less than half his passes and threw two interceptions. So naturally, everyone is already declaring Mariota a superstar and Winston a bust.

I’m hardly the best person to ask about picking between these two. I was very much up in the air about them prior to the draft, ultimately ranking Mariota higher because of off the field concerns with Winston. And right now, I’m still not sure. Mariota looked great, but it won’t last. The Titans did a good job using him in a smart way, designing plays that mirrored what he succeeded with at Oregon. But these plays left them with a very conservative offense, never asking him to throw the ball more than twenty yards downfield. This worked against Tampa Bay’s exhaustingly outdated Cover-2 scheme, but other defenses will have no trouble keying off this and taking advantage of it. Mariota got off to a fantastic start, but I think by the end of the year these two will be back on even footing.

The Colts and Seahawks are in serious trouble

Maybe the two most popular preseason Super Bowl choices both lost on opening day to middle of the pack teams. The Seahawks lost in overtime to the division rival Rams, while the Colts were absolutely demolished by the Bills. Every year there seems to be at least one team that comes out and epically disappoints, and now people are wondering if the Colts or the Seahawks could be this year’s team.

No. The answer is no. Both these games played out in eerily similar ways, two teams going on the road against teams designed to perfectly exploit their biggest weaknesses. The Rams and the Bills have the two best defensive lines in the league, and the Seahawks and the Colts have two of the bottom ten offensive lines. This is the sort of lopsided matchup that can completely disrupt an offense, the sort of matchup that is unlikely to recur. Seattle and Indianapolis will be back on top of things in a week’s time, and we can all forget that this first week ever happened.