The dark days for the Cleveland Browns and their fans seem to be over. Well, maybe not quite, but they did get off to the best start since 2004. We rarely have a TIE in an NFL game but that is exactly what we got in the Steelers/Browns game. 75 minutes of game time wasn’t enough to establish a winner in this one. In other news, defenses had more points than some offenses. The stars came out and some rookies showed up. Football is under way and Sunday Funday is back in full effect. Let’s look at what went down this week.
Defenses were running wild week 1. There were a total of 8 defensive touchdowns. Six of those were interceptions and two of them were fumble recoveries. With the exception of the Bears and Lions, all the other teams were victorious this week. The Rams, Jaguars, Vikings, and Jets all had returned INT touchdowns. While the Bengals and Tampa Bay returned fumbles for touchdowns. Defense wins championships, always has always will.
New head coaches threw up a goose egg week 1. A big, fat zero. New head coaches went 0-7. The Lions, Bears, Titans, Raiders (Gruden? maybe not new), Colts, Giants, and Cardinals all went down. Take away the two defensive touchdowns for the Lions and Bears, and the offenses averaged 15 points a game in week 1. Pretty disappointing showing for new head coaches. Fans are more excited than ever to get the season going especially in a new coach’s inaugural season. There are high hopes and high expectations. It’s crushing to have such poor showings in debuts. But it is only one week and the season is way too long to panic.
Aaron Rodgers is fresh off his high after inking a 100 million dollar deal. Although some say it was pretty ‘dramatic’, getting carted off the field with a knee injury, just to jump back in and lead a miracle comeback. He orchestrated a 20 point 4th-quarter comeback. Sounds made up but I will never doubt Aaron Rodgers because he has produced miracles in the past. His name is synonymous with Hail Mary. He has thrown 3 epic Hail Marys in his career.
The league’s best quarterbacks are still the ‘old’ guys. Philip Rivers (36), Drew Brees (39), Tom Brady (41), and Ryan Fitzpatrick (35) lit it up this weekend. They threw for a combined 1,557 yards, 13 TD tosses against 2 Interceptions. 3 out of the 4 (Rivers, Brees, and Fitzpatrick) threw for over 400 yards. Drew Brees turns 40 this season, he just recently signed a 2 year extension, clearly he isn’t ready to hang up his cleats. Who knows when Tom Brady will retire. The rest of the AFC is patiently waiting for that time to come.
Week 1 was filled with turmoil and excitement. We’ve waited so long for this weekend to come and it didn’t disappoint. There were some notable stories that we couldn’t focus on. Like Sam Darnold’s first NFL pass being intercepted for a TD but then went on to beat the Lions so bad in his debut. Or the star Wide Receivers that went crazy like Julio Jones, Michael Thomas, and Tyreek Hill having 3 TD’s, 1 coming on a return. Hopefully, we’ll get the same excitement next week as we did this week.
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