NFL Takeaways: Week 1

Photo by Harry How from Getty Images

The NFL is back!

That’s right, after three weekends of college football, the premier football league in America is back and action.

And the results were…extremely dull and sloppy.

So much for preseason shaking off the rust, eh?

But still, we learned quite a bit.

Lions defeat Chiefs 21-20

We see this happen a lot in the NFL.

A team gets a superstar QB, the team decides they can move resources elsewhere, and suddenly it becomes a problem.

The Seahawks and Ravens skimmed on the offensive line a bit because their QBs were elusive.

The Patriots didn’t feel they needed receivers. Tom Brady works with everyone.

Eventually, it becomes a problem.

So it did not come as a surprise to me that the Chiefs, minus Travis Kelce, had significant problems with their receivers.

Kelce will come back. The Chiefs will be fine. But they desperately need to make improvements there, because Kelce won’t be around forever.

As for the Lions, the defense, which was a huge problem last season, looks vastly improved.

That’s extremely promising.

Falcons defeat Panthers 24-10

I love Arthur Smith.

The Falcons have a dream offense for fantasy.

Drake London, Kyle Pitts, Bijon Robinson. It’s a gold mine!

And it was Tyler Allgeier who got the big carries and touchdowns for a Falcons victory.

Smith is very committed to pissing off fantasy owners.

I have to respect it.

Browns defeat Bengals 24-3

Sure, Joe Burrow didn’t play in preseason.

Sure, the Browns do extremely well against the Bengals, specifically at home.

Even still, that was a hell of a statement from the Browns defense.

It is a little bit concerning that Deshaun Watson still looked very, very rough.

But if the defense looks like that every week, the Browns could be a problem.

Jaguars defeat Colts 31-21

This was close to a very frustrating opening season loss for the Jags before they pulled away and the Colts ran out of gas.

But that was far from an upsetting first performance for a new head coach and new quarterback in Shane Steichen and Anthony Richardson.

Buccaneers defeat Vikings 20-17

There is a spot for Baker Mayfield in this league.

He may not be elite. He may not break records. But the dude knows how to get nitty gritty and win games.

It remains weird to me that the Browns completely gave up on him after an injury riddled season.

Maybe he can take over for the Vikings next year, because Kirk Cousins can’t still be here next year.

Saints defeat Titans 16-15

This game was incredibly boring and nothing of note would be lost if the game film was destroyed.

49ers defeat Steelers 30-7

The Steelers defense is really good. The Niners torched them.

The Steelers offense in preseason looked really good. The Niners destroyed them.

San Fran is a problem, y’all.

Commanders defeat Cardinals 20-16

For a team that was supposed to be tanking, Arizona didn’t seem to get the memo.

They looked pretty feisty and played pretty hard. They almost got themselves a win.

Probably best that they didn’t, though.

Ravens defeat Texans 25-9

Houston showed some grit, but the story of this game has to be the Ravens losing running back JK Dobbins for the season and safety Marcus Williams for an extended period of time.

You always think the Ravens can’t possibly have another horrible injury riddled season again, and yet 2023 is off to a bad start.

Packers defeat Bears 38-20

I didn’t even think Justin Fields played that badly, but good lord the Bears defense has some issues.

Shout out to Jordan Love, though. A great first game of the season for him.

God forbid the Packers have a year with bad QB play…

Raiders defeat Broncos 17-16

Russell Wilson looked a lot better with worse weapons than last year, but the Broncos still only found a way to get 16 points and still lost the game.

Hopefully for their sake, that trend doesn’t continue.

Rams defeat Seahawks 30-13

Sean McVay always just seems to have Pete Carroll’s number.

Even last year when the Rams didn’t have Matt Stafford, Cooper Kupp or Aaron Donald, the Rams almost beat the Seahawks both times.

So a Rams win would not have been surprising.

The Rams blowing the doors off of them was the shocking bit.

Sean McVay, despite retirement rumors in the offseason, is here to remind people that he’s still got it. As is Matt Stafford.

Eagles defeat Patriots 25-20

The Eagles got the win, but I have to give credit to Mac Jones with the Patriots.

Jones started the game horribly, including giving away a pick six, but the young QB fought back in tough conditions against a good defense and almost led a comeback victory.

It’s a good sign of things to come now that he has an actual offensive coordinator.

Dolphins defeat Chargers 36-34

Finally, we made it to the only truly great game of the weekend.

Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert going back and forth all game with a final two minute touchdown to get the win for the Dolphins.

I would love to talk about Tua’s performance, but I pounded the drum that he was really good last year. So this wasn’t a stunner.

The main story all offseason was that Justin Herbert finally has a good offensive coordinator in Kellen Moore who will let the young quarterback push the ball downfield.

The results? Herbert finished Sunday with 43 total air yards.

That’s not exactly what people were hoping to see.

Still, it’s early in the year.

Let’s see if the trend continues.

If it does, we may need to stop talking about the coordinator…

Cowboys defeat Giants 40-0

We all sort of had a feeling that the Giants would take a step back this year from being a playoff team, and the Cowboys were obviously very talented.

But this was different.

This was a statement win by the Cowboys that things will not be business as usual.

Dak was great. The defense was great. The play calling from Mike McCarthy was great.

I was very, very impressed. Let’s see how it continues.

Jets defeat Bills 22-16

The Jets got the win. The atmosphere at MetLife Stadium was incredible.

But do either of these teams fans feel happy right now?

The Bills offensive struggles from last year clearly continued with Josh Allen having 4 total turnovers.

The Jets lost Aaron Rodgers for the season incredibly early in the game, and now have to go through the season with Zach Wilson who only managed 16 total points off of those four turnovers.

Even Sauce Gardner, the reigning defensive rookie of the year and already one of the league’s best corners was targeted 6 times and gave up 6 catches.

The Jets won the game, but it really feels like both teams lost.