Week One--edited
Chaos Is the Expected: The Complete Week 1 Madness — From 91.8% Blown Leads to 96-Point Trade Bowls.
_The season hasn't started until the unbelievable grows into the expected. I recapped 6 games. 5 upsets. 1 statement: 2026 is going to be unhinged.
A chaotic, high-scoring start to the NFL weekend. The season hasn't really started until the unbelievable starts to feel expected.
Heading into Monday Night Football, it was the highest-scoring average ever. And yet it still felt like Week One — unfinished.
The Lions struggled to put the Saints away, surviving a late overtime scare. The loss didn't stop Tyler Shough from going off — 410 yards, including an obnoxious 60-plus-yard bomb. Detroit gave up 457 yards of offense. Many people expect the Lions to return to contention, but that defense needs to clean up fast.
Tampa Bay fought hard against Cincinnati but couldn't overcome a four-fumble game, falling to a voracious Bengals defense. Ball security issues happen — some days the ball refuses to buckle up. I'm not selling my Tampa stock just yet. The South is still coming down to the stretch. But I want to see Mayfield scramble less.
Minnesota was where it got weird. The Kyler Murray revival under Kevin O'Connell took a massive speed bump when an illegal hit knocked him out with a concussion — right after an interception on his first pass. Enter Carson Wentz. Nobody expected a redemption tour, much less a roster spot.
He showed out. When Jordan Love hit Jonnu Smith for 43 yards in the third, Green Bay held a 91.8% win probability, per ESPN. Then the Vikings ripped off four straight touchdown drives from the end of the third into the fourth. 22 points in the fourth alone. Two Packers turnovers on downs, a Love pick, a Love fumble to close it. Final: Vikings 39, Packers 22. Green Bay outgained them 412 to 269, including 387 passing yards to 151. They played well enough to win for three quarters. They couldn't close it out.
And then there's New York.
The NFC East dark horse showed up. The Giants hung four touchdowns and 431 yards on Dallas in the city.
It was Jon Harbaugh's debut, and his defense held one of last year's best offenses to 259 total yards. Dak Prescott finished with 175 yards, two touchdowns, and a pick — quiet all day.
Dallas invested heavily in that defense this offseason. Didn't matter. Jaxson Dart didn't flinch. He saw the same Cowboys jersey and assumed the same result: 23-of-29, 79.2%, 230 yards, three touchdowns, 134.2 rating. He blasted them all over the field.
Dallas blew multiple coverages on Sunday. This isn't just a talent problem.
The Giants added weapons, too. Former Raven Isaiah Likely went a perfect 8-for-8 for 78 yards, two touchdowns, and six first downs.
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Bills vs. Texans: Josh Allen Finally Doesn't Blink
Josh Allen has struggled against the Texans throughout his career. Entering Week One, he was 1-4 against them — and 0-4 down in Houston. Those struggles date back to 2019. Against Houston, Allen had posted a 72.7 passer rating and taken 14 sacks.
Last season was the low point: eight sacks, two interceptions, a 69.0 passer rating, and -0.20 EPA per play. And yet, Buffalo only lost by four. Turnovers cost the Bills around -10 EPA. Outside of that, they outplayed Houston by a wide margin. It looked like a blowout on the stat sheet, but it wasn't. That Texans defense was dominant, but their offense couldn't pull away — that game featured Davis Mills, not C.J. Stroud.
Houston's celebrated defense will always try to impose its will. Buffalo doesn't need a Superman Josh Allen game to win if the Texans' offense struggles to score enough to put them away. Like a scene from Fast & Furious, both teams charged at each other, trading their best shots until one blinked.
In the end, Josh Allen didn't blink.
With less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Bills, down 31-30, drove Buffalo into the red zone. He targeted Josh Palmer downfield — the ball landed right in the hands of Texans DB Kamari Lassiter. Then it popped out. Incomplete.
If Lassiter had secured it, the game would have been over. Instead, Houston blinked.
Next play, Allen hit Palmer again — this time across the middle for a 33-yard, game-winning touchdown. Bills stole it, 36-31 over the Texans.
Against a good Bills defense, C.J. Stroud looked sharp. He forced some plays, but he stayed aggressive and didn't fall into his worst habits. He played dialed-in ball: 26-of-38 for 274 yards, two touchdowns, a 106.7 passer rating, and only three sacks. New addition David Montgomery made a statement in his Texans debut — 60 yards on 20 carries and three touchdowns, one through the air.
Despite the loss, this was progress for Stroud and the Houston offense.
But this day belonged to Allen going toe-to-toe with the team that has gotten the best of him. It might have been one of the best passing performances of the weekend — maybe of his career: 20-of-29 for 334 yards, two touchdowns, and four completions of 20+ air yards. That vertical separation is what separated Allen from Stroud.
Dalton Kincaid finished with 130 receiving yards. D.J. Moore got involved with a big touchdown on his way to five catches for 100 yards. Khalil Shakir chipped in four catches for 50 yards, with a couple of big first-down conversions.
Buffalo got off to a promising start. The offensive line had some skittish moments against this defensive line — a few sacks, some penalties — but playing with Allen and James Cook made up for a lot of it.
The Bills will have lapses when defensive backs capitalize on Allen's risky tendencies. But they looked strong in their opener. Allen plays his best when he squeezes the football into spots most quarterbacks wouldn't dare. Either his team or the other team has to capitalize on those moments. Today, Buffalo did.
He attacked downfield: 12.8 average depth of target, four deep completions for 155 yards, 275 explosive passing yards, and a 10.3% big-time throw rate. His MVP campaign is off to a great start.
The Jacksonville Jaguars and head coach Liam Coen want to prove that last season had merit — that the division run and the rumble with the Bills in the playoffs meant something. The Jaguars have something to say as representatives of the South.
As a franchise, Jacksonville hasn't sustained playoff success in nearly a decade. Much of the noise around that comes down to quarterback Trevor Lawrence, who needs an MVP-level year to take the Jags beyond the Wild Card.
Can Lawrence carry the confidence he built in 2025 into 2026? In a short five-year career, he hasn't built a track record of sustained success. He played pitifully in the Wild Card loss to the Bills and finished just average in yards per attempt, EPA per dropback, and accuracy.
Against the Browns, he looked like the guy fans expected to push for MVP.
The Jaguars handled Cleveland with relative ease, 34-10 — and that score doesn't tell the full level of dominance. The Browns tacked on a late fourth-quarter touchdown; otherwise, Jacksonville rolled.
Lawrence finished 18-of-25, 78.3% completion, 86% adjusted completion, 245 yards, four touchdowns, one sack, and a 150.6 passer rating. Some of those touchdowns featured a high degree of difficulty: a 32-yard dart on the move to Jakobi Meyers in the third, and a 30-yard strike to Parker Washington in the back of the end zone in the first.
For most of the game, the Jags looked like a team playing against itself because the Browns added little challenge.
Cleveland's offense, with Deshaun Watson at quarterback, got off to an inauspicious start — an interception on the first drive — and never found any rhythm after. Watson finished 16-of-22 for 205 yards, one touchdown, one pick, five sacks, and led the Browns in rushing with 38 yards.
It’s fair to question if he has the heart to play football anymore.
The Browns' rushing attack and defense entered the season with expectations for growth, but that never materialized in Game One. Jacksonville dominated a defense still filled with talent despite no Myles Garrett. The Jags executed their script at will: +0.298 EPA per play, 3.4 points per drive, despite a lagging run game — something that could become Jacksonville's undoing later.
One positive for Cleveland: rookie receivers Denzel Boston and KC Concepcion led the charge with 59 and 43 yards, respectively.
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Lamar Jackson throws for 324 and runs for 40, Zay Flowers gets 5-150, and Derrick Henry gets 144 yards as the Ravens score 28 unanswered to beat the Colts 41-23 in Week 1.
When the Colts locked up Daniel Jones on a massive two-year, $88 million deal, most called it a risk. After Jones suffered an Achilles injury midway through 2025 — after posting MVP-level numbers through 10 games — his game started to break down before his body did.
Nobody outside the Colts organization knew whether Jones could sustain that level, or what type of player would return from an Achilles injury.
Jones and the Colts shook off the questions by opening the season with seven straight pass plays, with Jones going 5-of-7 for 59 yards and Jonathan Taylor punching in the goal-line score. Everyone from the owner to Shane Steichen to Jones himself exhaled. He still looked sharp.
He didn't stay sharp for long. On the next drive, Jones threw a batted pass right into the arms of Ravens linebacker Roquan Smith.
Baltimore's offense began to run away with it with back-to-back touchdown drives. Lamar Jackson ran in the Ravens' first score of the season to tie it 7-7 — a sudden 5-yard TD after a 49-yard catch-and-run by Zay Flowers set up the red zone.
Following the Jones pick, Lamar wasted no time. He scrambled for 16 yards on 3rd-and-16 to keep the drive alive, and Derrick Henry finished it with a 4-yard touchdown.
The Colts went three-and-out. Baltimore marched again, marching all over the Colts' defense for a third red-zone trip early in the second quarter. With 13 minutes left and a chance to put it away, a Ravens touchdown came off the board for offensive holding. Three plays later, the Colts forced a turnover on downs.
It didn't last. After another Colts punt, the Lamar-and-Zay show continued. Flowers took a pass 54 yards — 47 after the catch — skating past and through multiple defenders for the end zone. 21-7 Ravens.
Jones never recaptured his early form. On the next drive, Jonathan Taylor fumbled after a catch-and-run, giving it back to a rolling Ravens offense. Henry got explosive — a 32-yard touchdown to cap a three-play, 47-yard drive. 28-6. 28 unanswered points.
Daniel Jones and the Colts never recovered as Baltimore ran it up in their debut, 41-23.
Jones: 19-of-31 for 166 yards, one touchdown, one pick, 72.8 passer rating. Jonathan Taylor: 19 carries for 98 yards and two touchdowns, but it wasn't enough when the defense couldn't stop them.
Baltimore racked up 526 net yards. Lamar Jackson threw for over 324 and added another 40 on the ground — too much for the Colts' defense. Derrick Henry got off to a strong start in his age-32 season: 24 carries for 144 yards, 6.0 yards per carry. He continues to defeat Father Time. Zay Flowers nearly broke the time-space barrier — 5 catches for 150 before exiting in the fourth.
The Ravens have gotten off to a strong start, a common quality of the Lamar Jackson era. But we've yet to see September play sustained into January.
The Colts defense traded two first-round picks for Sauce Gardner a season ago, and he was a non-factor. They need a difference-maker on that side of the ball. They surrendered 496 total yards, 227 on explosive plays, 7.8 yards per play, and +0.293 EPA per play — numbers not uncommon for teams who have faced Lamar Jackson.
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Chargers vs Cardinals piece, cleaned, corrected, and packaged the way you love.
Love At First Sight, But Same Old Questions: Cardinals Upset Chargers 26-14
Cardinals upset Chargers 26-14 in Mike LaFleur's debut. Jeremiyah Love scores his first career TD, Jacoby Brissett throws for 277 yards, and Herbert is held to 268 total yards.
The Jeremiyah Love third-overall pick conflicted with me on draft night because I’m a proud member of the Don’t Draft Running Backs In The First Round club — let alone top-3 —, but I’m also a huge fan of Love’s game and his talent.
After watching his former teammate and fellow first-round back, Jadarian Price, succeed in Game 1 for Seattle, I became less skittish about the Love selection. Still, I needed to see Arizona’s RB2 play.
First-round running backs have actually lived up to the billing in recent years. So much so that the market has picked up — Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs both reset the market in the same offseason, after Saquon Barkley reset it a season ago. Always a good sign when the top of the position keeps jumping. The production matches the value.
Running backs lead the way in scrimmage yards — the top six players in offensive production all play tailback. However, only two of those six teams made the playoffs: Christian McCaffrey and James Cook. Running backs, no matter how productive or dazzling, don’t drive winning.
And while the Cardinals deserve merit for stepping outside the expected, Jeremiah Love’s highlights won’t gloss over their pass defense getting shredded week after week.
Two truths can intersect at once: You can love a player and believe he’s one of the best in his draft class, and still draw the line at where you draft him in April.
Love scored the first touchdown of his career on the first drive against the Chargers, scrambling past Los Angeles defenders in the first quarter to give Arizona an early 7-0 lead.
I thought this game had a sneaky chance to play out like Panthers-Bears: high-scoring, with Mike McDaniel calling shots for the Chargers and Arizona’s talented skill players. Instead, both defenses dictated terms. The Chargers pressured Jacoby Brissett’s pocket, and the Cardinals recovered an unforced Omarion Hampton fumble, forced a turnover on downs, and forced Justin Herbert off the field. The Chargers had possession for all but 11 minutes, with Arizona leaning on the run.
The Chargers secondary had no answer for Brissett and Arizona’s multifaceted assault. Still, they held the Cardinals to three field goals on three straight red zone trips between the first and second quarter.
In Mike LaFleur’s first game as head coach, the Cardinals pulled off the upset over the Chargers and Justin Herbert, 26-14.
Herbert’s offense under Mike McDaniel didn’t get off to a promising start. The Chargers managed just 268 yards against a modestly respectable Cardinals defense. Herbert went 17-of-27 for 209 yards, one touchdown, and one interception that ultimately sealed the game. The Chargers didn’t play up-tempo — maybe Jim Harbaugh hasn’t let McDaniel have the reins just yet — leading to Herbert’s forced deep shot, which Arizona picked off. A season of high expectations gets off to a sour start.
Jacoby Brissett, the veteran, went 27-of-37, 73% completion, for 277 yards, one touchdown, no picks, and a 103.1 passer rating. And he did it on impressive downfield throws — none more impressive than his late connection with Trey McBride. This wasn’t screens and checkdowns. He generated 187 air yards.
The Cardinals have a lot of ways to attack — spreading defenses out and forcing the give-and-take: you take this option away, I’ll take the other. It swings in their favor against defenses unprepared for so many questions.
The Cardinals have concerns, too. This offense should have scored 30 easily but escaped with 26. There’s more potential to unpack as the season goes on.
For the Chargers, I want to see the offense shift to a more up-tempo pace, give Herbert more dropbacks, and create more scoring opportunities instead of leaning on ball control. Arizona ran 21 more offensive plays, 71-52, averaging +0.117 EPA per play.
Steelers vs Falcons cleaned and packaged. This is your most layered QB narrative yet; I kept the Tua + Rodgers final-chapter parallel.
For some, 2026 would be — or should have been — the year Falcons quarterback Tua Tagovailoa returns to form.
The past few seasons of Tua breaking down physically and unraveling as a high-level processor have cast away the memory of a player who held position in the MVP race with Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, and Josh Allen. PFF ranked Tua as the top quarterback in 2023. Instead, his most recent injury — an oblique he suffered in practice the final week before the season — will dampen, and probably close, any hope he’d recover his mojo.
Tua’s career probably ends this season in Atlanta. Given the decline in performance — he narrowly beat out Michael Penix Jr., who will start the season on IR, for the starter spot — the combination should never have had a chance, but Tua never stepped up to seize the reins. And then the injuries.
Another quarterback in his final season — not a presumption — Aaron Rodgers will close out his career with one final run as the quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers made the playoffs in 2025, but everyone agreed Rodgers didn’t play plus football in his first season behind the Steel Curtain. His numbers looked solid: 24 touchdowns to 8 interceptions, but EPA per dropback has declined ever since 2021. He couldn’t throw deep last year and became a checkdown merchant as the season progressed into the playoffs.
Rodgers brought the howitzer with him on Sunday.
According to Next Gen Stats, his 9.2 air yards per target was his highest mark as a Steeler. He completed six passes for 10 yards, but his receivers, particularly DK Metcalf, struggled with drops. Rodgers went 24-of-40 for 221 yards, one touchdown, an 83.4 passer rating, and plenty of unrealized air yards thanks to Metcalf.
The Steelers won 20-13, but the offense only mustered 13 points. The other seven came from the defense, with T.J. Watt snagging an errant, anticipated target to Bijan Robinson in the flat and taking it back for a defensive touchdown.
The Get The Ball To Bijan offense got the Falcons on the board early in the first quarter on a 23-yard catch-and-run. But the quarterback struggled to connect with other pass-catchers, as Robinson led the team in both rushing (89 yards) and receiving (90 yards), tripling the production of leading receiver Drake London, who managed 29 yards. Only three Falcons players outside of Bijan caught a pass.
Cooper Rush finished 12-of-22 for 143 yards, one touchdown, two picks, a 51.9 passer rating, and four sacks.
Will Aaron Rodgers hold this level of aggressive downfield play all season? Many big plays in the Steelers' scheme resulted in DK Metcalf drops, but that doesn’t mean Pittsburgh can’t keep seeking explosive plays all season.
Symmetry In Chaos: Bears Outlast Panthers 59-37 In 96-Point Trade Bowl
Bears beat Panthers 59-37 in 96-point thriller. Caleb Williams accounts for 4 TDs; Bryce Young throws for 361 yards and 3 TDs in the trade bowl.
The artistic symmetry between the Panthers and Bears: two No. 1 overall quarterbacks who sort of struggle with the mundane but excel in the spectacular—as shown on Sunday and tied together by a trade —two highly touted offensive guru head coaches, and young, talented receivers. The symmetry came to life as Chicago and Carolina squared off in a hair-raising, eye-snatching exhibition.
The Panthers secured the rights to Bryce Young by trading multiple picks to the Bears, one of which became Caleb Williams in 2024, and freed the Bears up to use their own pick to select Rome Odunze — all of whom made a big impact Sunday.
For a while, the Bears looked like the trade winner. Young got benched early and looked overwhelmed. Then Dave Canales arrived — former offensive coordinator in Tampa — and solved most of Young's woes. The team unexpectedly won the NFC South and battled the Rams in the Wild Card.
Caleb Williams also looked overwhelmed as a rookie before Ben Johnson, offensive coordinator for division rival Lions, moved west and helped channel Williams' talent into a respectable quarterback.
The two teams generated 55 points in the first half, with the Bears leading 31-24 at the break.
Williams and the Bears jumped out to a 21-7 lead. Williams connected with Cole Kmet on a 22-yard dime in the back of the end zone in the second quarter, then hit Rome Odunze for a 47-yard bomb down the sideline that set up the second of D’Andre Swift’s two first-quarter touchdowns. The Bears offense had all phases working — the O-line, Williams escaping and moving in the pocket, receivers making plays downfield.
But the Panthers, playing with the spirit of Bryce Young, fought back in the second quarter. Young reminded the football world he can also hit beautiful deep balls, connecting with Jalen Coker on a 51-yard deep pass.
The Bears went down on downs on their next drive and Young — not the most explosive or elusive scrambler — snuck past the defense on a 7-yard scramble to knot it at 21-21.
In games between evenly matched teams, swing plays like turnovers often decide the outcome, and Panthers returner Jimmy Horn muffed a punt, giving Chicago field-goal range. Bears took a 24-21 lead. Williams matched Young with an explosive rushing touchdown of his own — a 29-yard rushing score to put Chicago back up 31-24 in the second quarter.
Both defenses made big plays like sacks, but the explosive plays kept coming in the first half.
The Panthers drew it even out of halftime on a Chuba Hubbard 2-yard goal-line scamper, where Young looked sharp connecting over the middle — a place he's struggled in recent seasons.
The Panthers could have escaped. The defense forced Caleb Williams into a potential 3rd-and-20. Then Derrick Brown hit Caleb after the incompletion — roughing the passer, fresh set of downs inside the red zone. Bears scored quickly and never looked back.
Carolina produced a lot of what fans wanted to see from Bryce Young entering a crucial fourth year, but too many miscues to overcome.
The two teams combined for 96 points. Unfortunately for Panthers fans, Chicago scored 59, including seven touchdowns. Caleb Williams accounted for four total: two through the air and two on the ground, as the Bears blasted past Carolina in the second half.
Williams finished 21-of-29 for 269 yards, a 124.1 passer rating, and a couple of big shots downfield. On the ground, Chicago crushed it — 291 yards total, none more impressive than Kyle Monangai's 61-yard dash through the Panthers defense in the fourth with the game well out of reach.
The Panthers defense allowed 552 total yards, 7.9 yards per play, 7.5 yards per rush, and 10-of-14 on third down.
The scoreboard overshadowed a promising game from Bryce Young: 23-of-37, 361 yards, three touchdowns, one interception, 110.3 passer rating, and accurate over the middle — which I wanted to see above all else.
The Panthers invested heavily in their defense this offseason, and it got shredded on every level — certainly not what Carolina fans expected.
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