We are back for another edition of Overreaction Monday, and you to know week 1 excessive reactions to the NFL are always the best excessive reactions.
More this year than ever, Week 1 means almost nothing. There are still 16 games left in the season for all the teams (17, actually, for the Raiders and Ravens, who play Monday night), so there’s more time than ever for things to fail in week 1 they would be fine or things would be fine in week 1 to go wrong.
That said, you know we’ll still do it. And you know you will still read it. Because it’s so good and you can’t help but overreact to Week 1. Human nature combined with NFL nature forms a delicious mix of soon-obsolete comments and conclusions.
This week, we focus on the quarterback position, because no position lends itself to reacting more. And we’ll start in Jacksonville, where the hurricane-stricken Saints “housed” the Packers and beat them so badly that Aaron Rodgers will have to schedule a series of cool press conferences to tell everyone whose fault it was. all this.
Jameis Winston will get it paid, great, next low season
In case you haven’t seen what happened in Packers-Saints: The Saints, the defense made NFL defender Rodgers look like a guy who had skipped the low-season show to host game and vacation shows in Hawaii while trying (or not) he got shifted out of town.
Winston, meanwhile, made a memorable first outing as the Saints quarterback. The former YOLO Ships specialist was – understand it – 14-for-20 going on for 148 yards and five touchdown passes. Yes. Five. A 148 yards. Now, then, you’re sitting there wondering, “Wow, Dan. Is that the lowest field total for a quarterback who threw five touchdown passes in an NFL game?” And the answer is, “Yes, reader. Yes it is.”
Winston added 44 aerial yards in his first 13 finishes. For the game, he averaged 7.0 yards of air per pitch, the third-lowest average of a game of his career, and this included his last, which ran more than 50 yards per game. ‘air. It was as if Winston and coach Sean Payton knew you were watching and thinking, “Dang, Payton turned Jameis into a career-ending Drew Brees,” and they signed with a long bomb that Brees hadn’t dropped since his days. of San Diego and called it a very satisfying day. The Saints beat the Packers 38-3 and sophomore quarterback Jordan Love finished the game for Green Bay in relief at Rodgers. It was, to say the least, an absolutely impressive result.
The verdict: IT IS NOT AN OVERRACTION. I don’t expect Winston to have five touchdown passes at 148 yards each week. I don’t expect him to go all season without throwing any interceptions. I don’t expect the saints to be as good as they looked on Sunday, because no one could be. But I think it’s possible that Payton, with a mind as offensive and sharp as he is in today’s game, has spent the last 18 months working with Winston to perfect his game to the point that talent can come to the surface. while the old and paralyzing billing issues go into the background long enough to allow the Saints to win games.
And if the Saints have a great year (if they win their division for the fifth year in a row, for example), I hope Winston is a very attractive free agent in a 2022 quarterback market that could include guys like Russell Wilson, Deshaun Watson and the aforementioned Rodgers as business targets. And that would mean a big contract.
The Browns are not really AFC contenders
The most heartbreaking result on Sunday was delivered, of course, by the most heartbreaking team in the league. The Browns came out absolutely against the Kansas City Chiefs, scoring touchdowns in each of their first three actions and building a 22-10 lead at halftime against an exhausted Kansas City defense. Baker Mayfield threw it deep into rookie accelerator Anthony Schwartz and hit them. Nick Chubb was crushing the Chiefs on the ground. Coach Kevin Stefanski was feel it, to the point that the Browns went for two in the first touchdown of the game and got it.
That was Cleveland’s game to the end. It looked like a loaded and hungry team still sank when they lost to the Chiefs in the divisional round in January. The Browns were created to win their opening act for the first time since 2004. They had this in their pocket.
And then Cleveland spun the ball three times in the second half and lost, 33-29.
The verdict: OVERRACTION. I’m going down with this boat. I still think the Browns have a better roster than the two AFC North teams they won on Sunday, and maybe the one they play Monday night. I still think Stefanski is sharp and fair and is the right coach for this team. I still think Mayfield is good enough to win games as a quarterback if they can keep working well and the line stays intact. (While I recognize that it’s a concern that left-wing Jedrick Wills Jr.’s attack was hurt in this game.)
This is not the first team Mahomesed gets and will not be the last. The Browns won’t be scared the next time they run into the Chiefs and have the firepower to beat them. Are they “better”? No, but they are good enough to beat them face to face one of these days. And as beautiful as the Bengals and Steelers ’Sunday comebacks, I still think that, during a 17-game season, the Browns will prove to be a legitimate challenger to the AFC title. I think all of that, although I definitely understand, would be easier if, you know, they hadn’t eliminated that game on Sunday.
Did anyone look better in the Sunday window than Murray and the Cardinals? Maybe the Eagles, but we’ll get to them in a second. Murray did everything but steal bases and scored the goals at home in a 38-13 victory over Tennessee.
He went 21 for 32 passing for 289 yards and four touchdowns and ran for another score as the Cardinals dominated the Titans on both sides of the ball in Nashville. Yes, yes, Chandler Jones came in with five sacks and the defense kept the Titans at 248 yards and turned them around three times, but the star of the show was Murray, and he was the most sensational in that.
The verdict: IT IS NOT AN OVERRACTION. Look, there’s a long way to go to get here, and what happens to Murray will keep him healthy. He was in that conversation for a minute last season, but fell late while playing injured. But a guy who was a first-round pick in both baseball and football is capable of doing a lot of really exciting things, and if Murray stays healthy, there’s no reason to think he can’t keep acting like that in the league. ‘Kliff Kingsbury’s personal offense. .
Part of the problem with his case is that, as good as Arizona looked, he could still be the fourth-best team in his division (all four NFC West teams won Sunday). This could also be a division that would put all four teams in the playoffs. Nor would it be a nuisance for the Cardinals to win it. I bet he’s the one who will choose Tennessee coach Mike Vrabel if you ask him this morning.
The Jets should have kept Sam Darnold
Raise your hand if you didn’t see the Sam Darnold revenge game coming. Post-Adam Gase, in a new system, armed with better passing game goals than ever in New York and able to deliver it to Christian McCaffrey? Darnold may never be a Hall of Fame, but you have to think he has a chance to be better with the Panthers than with the Jets. On Sunday it was.
Darnold went 24-for-35 for 249 yards and a touchdown (to teammate Jet Robby Anderson) in the 19-14 victory over his former team, and in order not to pass for Kyler Murray, he also ran one. Nothing that caught my eye, but he was sharp enough and certainly good enough to overtake Zach Wilson, the Jets ’new apple of the eye, in Wilson’s tremendous first outing in the NFL.
The verdict: OVERRACTION. The Jets have nothing against Darnold, whom they drafted number 3 overall in 2018. They just have new managers who felt it was worth starting again with a new guy as they chose number 2 overall. Cheaper that way and Wilson is a very talented guy.
Wilson had a hard start (20 of 37 passing with two TDs and a selection), but had sparrows eating through the face mask at almost every dropback and he lost his left attack due to injury during the game. He was much better in the second half, and there isn’t enough game to judge him. Plus, again, it’s not like Darnold was Patrick Muhammad out there.
It was a fun day for Darnold to beat his old team, but the best days are ahead of Wilson. And even if Darnold turns Carolina around, it’s a bad idea to say the Jets should have kept him. They no longer believed in him, and that is no recipe for success.
Hurts and Wentz played at the same time in different cities: Hurts led the Eagles to a 32-6 win over the Falcons in Atlanta and Wentz faced the Seahawks, 28-16, in their Indianapolis debut. Hurts went from 27 to 35 for 264 yards and three touchdowns, and added 62 running yards in seven runs. Wentz was 25-for-38 for 251 yards and two touchdowns. He added 23 running yards in four runs.
Similar statistical lines, but the main difference was the relentless pressure Wentz faced with the Seattle defense, especially in the second half. Wentz was not bad, he was very good. Hurts was fun, though, and the Eagles won their game a bit crucially instead of losing it.
The verdict: IT IS NOT AN OVERRACTION. First of all, after last season and how he was forced to leave the city, which makes us think that the Eagles did not to want to forget about Wentz? Hurts has a lot of wrinkles in his game to erase, but guys do iron them very often. He has the toughness that teams want in his initial quarterbacks and his ability to win teams with his legs should help cover some of the flaws as he develops.
The Eagles have (probably) three first-round picks in next year’s draft and are ready to upgrade as a quarterback if they need to, but it’s not a big deal to imagine a world where Hurts proves he can be your answer. This week all the Eagles came out. All other NFC East teams lost and the Colts lost while Wentz played the entire game. This last part matters because the second round the Eagles gave him becomes a first round if Wentz plays 75% of Indy’s offensive attacks. And it becomes one better first round every time the Colts lose.
There is a long way to go, as we continue to say, but it was a great start to the season for the Eagles and Hurts, who are sure to believe they can forget about Wentz after a long time.