Can you believe it? It’s actually here, the NFL season is upon us, and Week 1 is nearly in the books as I write this. Where do I even start here? I guess where the season itself started, when my Cowboys took on the Super Bowl defending Eagles. I’ll be completely honest here; I did not have high hopes coming into this game at all. I was obviously excited about football back on TV and being able to watch the Cowboys in real time again, but there’s been a lot of noise coming out of Dallas this off-season and most of it wasn’t really good. Most notably, was trade that lit the internet on fire a week before the season started, letting Micah Parsons walk to the Green Bay Packers. I’m not going to get into all of that now, feelings have settled a bit and I’m more focused on the season now than what could’ve been, but it was questionable to say the least. Maybe it’s a hot take, but I get why they did it. That’s a whole lot of cap space to tie up in 3 players since we already sunk so muck into Dak and Ceedee (not saying that was a bad decision either) and our defense does have holes and areas that need fixed, even when Parsons was there, so why not save the money and try your chances on the draft and finding less expensive defensive pieces. Was it the right decision though? Only time will tell, Parsons is a needle mover on the defense, so he won’t be easy to replace, but my fandom is not shattered over this. I’m used to the pain as a football fan. The Boys put on a much better game against the Eagles than I and most analysts thought they would though and if it wasn’t for a redzone fumble by Sanders or an uncharacteristic late in the game drop by Ceedee then this result might’ve been very different. I think the offense is going to be chugging this year, but the defense is going to have a hard time against the run like I and many guessed. Diggs, Bland, and the Boys shut down AJ Brown and Devonta Smith all game long, but Barkley and Hurts ran all over the place.
Then Friday night, the Herbert/Harbaugh led Chargers pulled off the upset against the conference champion Chiefs in Brazil. Quite the shocker, but that’s what tends to happen Week 1 in the NFL I suppose, shocking results. Herbert and the Chargers pass catchers looked phenomenal in this game though. McConkey, the vet Allen, and Josh Palmer were humming all game long and Herbert finished the game with over 300 yards passing and 3 touchdowns in only his 2nd career win against the Chiefs. Not to say that Mahomes and the Chiefs offense looked like slouches either because they didn’t, they played like the Chiefs and Mahomes had a few superhero moments like usual, the Chargers just came to play, and they brought it to them from start to finish in Sao Paulo. The Chiefs did have a couple moments of grief though, as their offensive speedster Xavier Worthy went down again after colliding with Travis Kelce which resulted in him dislocating his shoulder, and Rashee Rice will still be out for weeks with a suspension, so there’s holes on that offense at the moment. They’re the Chief though, so I have a sneaking suspicion that they’re going to figure it out. Moving into my other team for a moment just because I have to, my Browns had such a Browns opening to start the season. On one hand, we were able to shut down an absolutely dangerous offense in the Cincinnati Bengals and held them to 17 points on the day, on the other hand we only put up 16 points and lost in the most heartbreaking fashion…because we missed an extra point. That’s just sad, and sadly, so Browns. If you’re the Bengals or a Bengals fan though, there’s reasons to worry here. The worries about this team coming into the season were already exposed. The Browns were able to move the ball down the field, but Jeudy and Tillman both gave up excruciating fumbles/drops that ended up really costing us and aside from Hendrickson who is a beast, that defense has some major holes. I can give you a break on giving up the 3 sacks to Burrow seeing as Myles Garrett is an absolute monster and one of the best defensive linemen in NFL history, but Burrow was under pressure all game and that offense could not get a single thing going the entire 2nd half, tallying 2 total yards! On the entire half! How the Browns defense can hold Joe Burrow and Jamarr Chase to 2 yards on the half and still lose the game tells you everything you need to know about that team’s current status. Defense is sound, but offense feels like it’s in a bit of a limbo to be honest.
A team that looks sound all the way around is the Packers. That Week 1 game against the Lions was shocking as well, at least to me. I expected that to potentially be the game of the week and if I had to lay out a prediction coming into the week, I would’ve said Lions win in a dog fight, but it wouldn’t be pretty. That wasn’t the case at all, from the first quarter till the end of the game the Packers gave the business to the Lions on both sides of the ball and handily beat them 27-13, with Goff getting sacked by the Packers defense 4 times, one of them being from none other than Micah Parsons. The Ravens and the Bills put on an absolute show though in the late slot Sunday night. My goodness, we knew these offenses would be some of the highest-powered ones in the NFL this season, but that game was fireworks through and through. Lamar Jackson had over 200 yards passing with 2 touchdowns and 70 yards rushing with another TD, Derrick Henry had 169 rushing yards on just 28 carries and 2 touchdowns, and Josh Allen with damn near 400 yards passing, 2 passing touchdowns, 2 more rushing touchdowns, and one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history. A late fumble by Henry set the Bills up and they ended up capitalizing and winning the game 41-40 but my gosh you cannot ask for a better game to lead off this season for either of these offenses. The defenses on the other hand…maybe they could use a little help, but time will tell with that. They were facing some of the best offenses in the entire league going up against one another, but you’ll need better performances out of both those squads come January when playoffs roll around. So, that’s maybe a premature hitting of the panic button, but those things really do matter and while this was an amazing game to watch and these offenses were setting off bomb after bomb, all that means is that the defense couldn’t stop anything either.
There were fun games elsewhere on the weekend, notably the QB swap game between the Jets and the Steelers which saw Aaron Rodgers take on his old team and Justin Fields take on his old team in both their first games in new uniforms. That game was way more fun and enthralling than I think anyone expected it to be and the grizzled old vet Rodgers showed he still has some of that vintage A-Rod in him as he passed for 4 TDs on the day and won in a 34-32 shootout of a game. It’s early in the season, but it’s always fun to see the first week after a long and plodding offseason and kind of try to act like you might know how teams are going to look or how certain players seasons are going to go. Almost always things still get flipped on their head after the first week of the season, but it’s just nice to be able to talk and speculate about things again after having no football on TV and no fantasy on your phone for months, so everyone becomes a stat head and a know it all after such a small sample size. This is still such a fun time of the year as a fan, it’s just so exciting to be able to see your teams and your players out on the field every week and have a little something extra to look forward to. As I said, the Cowboys are my NFC team and the Browns are my AFC team, it’s always been that way, and it will always be that way, but I’m realistic and realize it could be a bumpy season for my personal fandoms. I’m still excited I get to see my favorite players Ceedee Lamb and Myles Garrett in action, on the field, every week though. More than anything, I’m just a football fan. If there’s a game on, there’s a strong chance I have that game on regardless of who the team is because I love the sport and there’s players on every team that make it fun and exciting to watch, plus if I have any guys in on my fantasy team that’s just a little added bonus.
It’s a long and exciting season ahead, stay tuned with me and I’ll give another update here a few weeks down the line! In the meantime, stay up to date with the blog to see all my latest posts over WWE, NFL, horror movies, new release films, and the NASCAR Cup Series! Thanks and have a great week!
