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Every week of the NFL season brings new questions…and answers to some old ones, too. Let’s review what we learned in Week 1…and what we’ll be wondering about in Week 2 and beyond.
Question: Do the Steelers have a QB1?
You know the old saying about quarterbacks: If you have two, you have none. Pittsburgh has spent the past few months either defying or verifying that saying, depending on the day. Russell Wilson began the season as the designated starter, but didn’t even play his first snap before being sidelined with calf issues. In came Justin Fields, the former Bears quarterback with wobbly legs and a questionable arm, who was replaced by Caleb Williams. One win over the hapless Atlanta Falcons later, and we still know … not much.
As expected, Fields was exceptional between 30 and 40. If football were about getting your team into field goal range, Fields would be headed to Canton based solely on Sunday. The problem is, the Steelers can’t expect to face teams with the Falcons’ offensive ineptitude all season, and Fields — or whoever is in charge of this team — is going to have to get the team at least in the shadow of the goalposts. (Fantasy owners like Chris Boswell, who was 6-for-6 on Sunday, may disagree.)
The real question for the Steelers is what exactly they have in Wilson. His performance over two years in Denver was so erratic and so far from his average in Seattle that it’s tempting to dismiss that entire disastrous stretch of his career. But can Mike Tomlin do what Sean Payton couldn’t? Wilson will have to get on the field first for us to find out.
Answered: Can Kyler Murray lead the Cardinals to success?
Week 1 showed us that several teams (the Cowboys, Bills and Dolphins) are, to quote a famous philosopher, who we thought they were. The more interesting questions are further down the schedule and sometimes on the other side of the win-loss line. The Cardinals, for example, ended up losing to Buffalo… but not before holding a 14-point lead deep into the first half.
Kyler Murray, long one of the league’s most mystifying quarterbacks, appears ready, at last, to step into the starter/savior role the Cardinals have expected of him since 2019. Injuries decimated his final two seasons, but he now has the weapons to help Arizona contend for a playoff spot. Once Arizona can add Marvin Harrison Jr. (three targets, one reception, four yards on Sunday) to the offense, this will be one of those teams you look at on your schedule with suspicion, with a deep sigh.
Things aren’t going so well in Ohio. First, there are the Bengals, whose all-round quarterback is apparently still suffering the effects of his second season-ending injury in four years. Cincinnati lost to New England on Sunday in the most surprising fall of the weekend, and Joe Burrow was nothing special: He completed 21 of 29 passes for 164 yards and not much else.
But at least Burrow has shown flashes of stardom. Let’s spare a thought (or a little pity) for Cleveland, where the entire franchise seems to be following Deshaun Watson down the drain. The Browns mortgaged the future and much of the present to sign Watson, and it turns out it may not have been the smartest investment. Watson has played in all 13 games since arriving in Cleveland in 2022, and he hasn’t looked particularly sharp in almost any of them, including Sunday’s two-interception, 16-point loss to Dallas. Cleveland is the gambler who bet it all on one horse, only to watch that horse jump the fence and race off into the distance.
Hey, at least there’s always Ohio State.
The second most surprising fact we learned about Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson on Sunday was that he has now started just 18 games. Since high schoolThe most shocking fact? That he can throw a pass like this:
Sixty-five yards in the air, after sliding, with a man in his face, right on target? Come on. We don’t want to make snap judgments based on small samples, but, heck, everything about Richardson is small sample size. If he has the ability to do that on a semi-regular basis — and if he can duplicate his career as a starter out of high school this year — Indianapolis might be fine. At the very least, the twice-a-year matchups between the Colts and Texans are now can’t-miss … and how many times have we been able to say that? (Answer: never.)
Question: Is there any hope for Washington?
This season began with a glimmer of hope from one of the league’s most hopeless franchises. A new coaching regime is in charge in Washington, and a dynamic new player — quarterback Jayden Daniels — is setting pulses racing in the DMV metro area. But even with all that, the empty-handed Commanders couldn’t handle the Buccaneers on Sunday, falling 37-20 in a game that wasn’t even that close. Daniels played well enough, rushing for two touchdowns and throwing for 184 yards, but when you allow Baker Mayfield to throw for four touchdowns, you’re going to lose. Badly.
Oh, and the team keeps getting into trouble thanks to . Some things never change.
Answered: Will the Vikings be an easy opponent this season?
Look, pretty much everyone wrote off the Vikings heading into 2024, starting with the fact that they looked like the clear No. 4 seed in the NFC North. Detroit is on a roll, Green Bay has the talent (well, it did, before São Paulo), and even Chicago is feeling optimistic. Minnesota? They’ve had sub-.500 seasons in three of the past four years, and they haven’t delivered when they’ve made the playoffs. Plus, they were starting the year with Sam Darnold (the old Sam Darnold of four teams in seven years) at quarterback, which seems like a necessary condition for irrelevance.
Lo and behold, Darnold looked calm, confident and effective in his first start as a Viking, far more accurate than his counterpart, the Giants’ Daniel Jones, and, in fact, far more decisive than the Vikings’ last opening-day starter, Kirk Cousins. Darnold and Justin Jefferson connected, and the Vikings took care of the Giants on both sides of the ball, winning 28-6. Granted, this is the Giants we’re talking about, so there has to be a sliding scale based on the opponent, and of course the season is long. But Minnesota might not be the divisional doormat after all. To go undefeated, you have to win Week 1, right?
