The NFL is back! Week 1 delivered in the best way, with great games coming down to the wire in all four primetime windows and throughout the Sunday slate.
Some teams with high expectations soared through their openers. The Green Bay Packers looked like the Super Bowl contenders everyone was hoping for in a destruction of the Detroit Lions after the Micah Parsons trade. The Bills and the Ravens played one of the best regular season games you'll ever see on Sunday night, with Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson ascending to another planet while going blow-for-blow with each other.
On the flip side, not everyone left Sunday with a smile. The Miami Dolphins embarrassed themselves in a disastrous loss to the Colts, while the Texans still couldn't protect C.J. Stroud in a loss to the Rams. The Broncos escaped with a win over the Titans despite a poor day from Bo Nix and the offense.
Were those dreadful showings enough to make the losers list? Here is the worst of the worst from Week 1.
The Ravens are the NFL's best team… until they have to be
For 55 minutes on Sunday night, watching the Baltimore Ravens was football heaven. Lamar Jackson was a walking explosive play through the air while producing a scramble that somehow took him from 25 yards in the backfield to a third-and-10 conversion, all while making Chris Collinsworth mutter some inaudible noises into his headset. Derrick Henry was still very big and very fast, outrunning a helpless Bills defense that had no answers for it.
Then, with five minutes to go in the game, the Ravens remembered that they are in fact the best team in the NFL, not at football, but at losing games that make you stare at your TV for a half-hour afterwards and wonder: How did they just lose that game?
Something out of the Ravens' control kickstarted the collapse when Keon Coleman was right there to reel in a bizarre tipped fourth-down pass for a touchdown to cut the lead to eight. Then Baltimore fell into the same sort of implosion that has plagued it more than any other team over the last few seasons.
Derrick Henry, normally an invincible iron man, fumbled at the worst possible time to set up another Buffalo touchdown, cutting the lead to just two. Then, John Harbaugh decided to punt the ball on fourth-and-3 instead of giving Jackson another crack at closing the game out.
They just lost the game was the only thought rolling through my head the second the punter stepped on the field for Baltimore, and Josh Allen proceeded to march the Bills right into chipshot field goal range to seal the improbable victory. This loss may not matter, or it may be the reason the Ravens are back in Buffalo in January instead of in front of their home fans.
Mike McDaniel's seat is heating up
The vibes were seemingly bad in Miami this offseason, as Mike McDaniel's once-innovative offense had grown stale and Tua Tagovailoa came off yet another injury-riddled season. Could Miami recapture the explosiveness that made it must-watch TV in 2023? Would the defense hold up? Can the Dolphins protect their franchise quarterback?
On Sunday, the vibes took a nosedive to levels that haven't been seen before in the Sunshine State. McDaniel, Tagovailoa and company were completely helpless in a 33-8 rout at the hands of the Indianapolis Colts, surely the most dreadful overall team performance of the weekend.
Daniel Jones made his first start as a Colt and absolutely cut up the Miami defense all day long. On the other side, Tagovailoa turned the ball over three times, took three sacks on just seven pressures, and it took less than two quarters for our first Tyreek Hill sideline crashout of the season (it won't be the last!).
It may not be possible for a coach's seat to be hot after just one game, but McDaniel's chair is at least pre-heating with the Patriots on deck in Week 2.
The Texans still can't protect C.J. Stroud
The Texans were a major disappointment on offense in Year 2 with C.J. Stroud at quarterback, and the offensive line was the root cause of all of their problems. Houston couldn't run the ball and couldn't give its young star quarterback any time to throw, causing him to plateau a bit after an incredible rookie season.
Houston did fire offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik at the end of the season, but they failed to upgrade the personnel up front. In fact, the Texans decided to address being a laughing stock in pass protection by… trading star left tackle Laremy Tunsil to the Commanders?
On Sunday, Stroud was introduced to a very good Rams defense line, and they got after him all day long. The third-year star was pressured on 14 of his 34 drop backs according to Next Gen Stats, a pressure rate north of 40%. He took just three sacks, but the pressure was constant as Houston tried to get back in the game in the second half.
That is not tenable even for one of the best pocket managers in football in Stroud with a great receiver in Nico Collins on the outside, and it is a big reason why Houston didn't find the end zone once in Week 1.
It's a bad time to be a CB2 in the NFL
Passing games are seemingly better than ever in the NFL, but there are still a select group of star cornerbacks that can shut down even the game's best wide receivers. Those players were on full display in Week 1 and made a number of great plays. Jaycee Horn came down with a one-handed interception, Sauce Gardner had a great day for the Jets, and Jalen Ramsey settled his beef with Garrett Wilson with one of the biggest hits of the weekend to seal the Steelers' win.
However, the players opposite those top corners had a brutal weekend. Teams picked on the rotating cast of weaker starting corners relentlessly throughout Week 1, and it popped off the screen in almost every game.
It started on Thursday night, when new additions Adoree' Jackson (who gave up a league-high 103 yards in coverage) and Kaiir Elam took turns getting brutalized through the air during Eagles-Cowboys. On Sunday morning, Aaron Rodgers put the microscope on Brandon Stephens for two of his four touchdowns in his Pittsburgh debut.
Elsewhere around the league, Tariq Woolen almost single-handedly lost a divisional game for the Seahawks by giving up two of the more inexplicable catches of the weekend, and Josh Allen created one of the craziest comebacks in NFL history by almost exclusively targeting Chidobe Awuzie and Jaire Alexander. Beware, CB2s, the quarterbacks are coming for you in 2025.
The Week 1 Bengals are back
In 2024, the Bengals started their season off with the biggest surprise of Week 1, losing a sloppy game to the dreadful New England Patriots. At the time, everyone thought all would be fine in Cincinnati and that Joe Burrow and company would figure everything out.
Well, Joe Burrow did figure it out. The rest of the Bengals, however, did not, and Cincinnati missed the playoffs with the worst defense in the NFL. Surely getting off on the right foot was a top priority for the Bengals against a Cleveland Browns team that was in the news this offseason for just about everything except for being a good football team.
Well, the Bengals technically got in the win column with a 17-16 victory, but they limped out of Cleveland arguably feeling worse about themselves than they did when they got off the bus. After playing a solid first half that included two nice touchdown drives, the Bengals finished with seven total yards in the second half. Seven!!!
The Bengals owe a lot of thanks after still coming out of Cleveland with a win. First, thanks to the Tennessee Titans and Brian Callahan struggling with the rules of football, seven yards wasn't even the lowest second-half total of the week. Secondly, Cincinnati should thank the Browns for doing a lot of Browns-ing to somehow come out with a loss despite their defense dominating Burrow and company after halftime.
Cleveland missed an extra point, a short field goal and threw a pair of tipped-ball interceptions that helped the Bengals get over the top. However, Zac Taylor and his staff have plenty to fix before Week 2.
