Thursday, September 14, 2023

Best & Worst NFL Week One

Week One in the NFL is in the books and what a wild and wacky week it was. The Jets lose their new toy and somehow find a way to win a game. Green Bay is showing early now signs of stopping with their new toy under center. Miami outlasted Los Angeles in a track meet for the ages. Some teams got off to great starts, while others not so much. Lots to digest from the first week of the season. Here's some of the winners, and losers, from week one.

Best: Christian McCaffery Running Back San Francisco 49ers
McCaffery is coming into his first full year with the 49ers and looking to prove that he's still one of the elite backs in this league. he did that in week one as San Francisco rolled to a 30-7 win over the Steelers. It was a statement game for the 49ers and it showed that McCaffery was back ton his old self. He finished the day with 22 carries for 152 yards and a touchdown. He had himself a day and is off to a fantastic start. If the Niners want to have any hope of keeping pace as a top team in the West, they need performances like this on a regular basis.

Worst: New York Giants
Things were supposed to be better for the Giants right? Right? Well after week one against the Cowboys it didn't look that way. Dallas walked into MetLife Stadium and dominated from start to finish, walking away with a 40-0 win. Dallas was all over a pathetic Giants offense. Jones was sacked seven times, he thr3ew two picks and the Giants fumbled six times, losing four of them. There was not one single thing that the Giants could do right the entire day. It was one of the biggest displaying of laying an egg I've ever seen.

Best: Miami Passing Attack
Not going to lie, I had some question marks with Tua and how well he'd be able to throw the ball. Well that was spelled quickly. Miami pulled out a 36-34 shootout win over the Chargers in an outstanding ballgame. Tyreek Hill went off with eleven catches for 215 yards and a couple of touchdowns. Tua finished throwing for a league best 466 yards. That was the fourth highest passing yards in an opening game in league history. Sure there's still some holes with this Dolphins team. There's no running attack to really speak of, and the defense got lit up for 34 points against a pretty good Chargers team. But if the passing attack can continue to play close to this level most of the year, and stay healthy with Tua, they are going to be just fine.

Worst: Buffalo Passing Attack
The hell happened to Buffalo Monday night? The Bills lost 22-16 in overtime to the Jets in a game that was focused on the Rogers injury and Buffalo blowing the game. Josh Allen was off, at least by his standards. Yes he threw for 236 yards and set up the late tying filed goal. But he was sacked five times and got picked off three times. Josh Allen had set such a high bar for himself over the last number of seasons so to see him play the way he did on Monday night was quite surprising and below his standards. The pass game in general looked off. The line wasn't protecting as well as they usually do and he just look out of sorts.

Best: Jordan Love Quarterback Green Bay Packers
When you take over as the starting Quarterback in Green Bay, there's plenty of pressure there. Taking over for Aaron Rogers adds more to it. But Jordan Love passed his first test and with flying colors. He had to do it against division rival Chicago, and helped lead the Packers to a 38-20 win over the Bears. Love did exactly what he was supposed to do. He protected the football, didn't try to force plays and didn't try and be something he's not. He went 15 of 27 for 245 yards and three touchdowns. Of course there is room for improvement with Love, but this was a good first outing and helped Packers fans move on with this new era of Green Bay Football.

Worst: Bengals Offensive Line
There was a lot for Cleveland to come into this game fired up about. Chase had given them incentive with his elves comments and Burrow was hurt part of the preseason. So the onus fell in the Bengals offensive line to be able to protect Joe Burrow and open up rushing lanes for the Bengals vaunted ground game. Neither thing happened. The run game was AWOL and Burrow got hit ten times during the course of the game. Call it bad line play, call it bad play calling. Either way it was a bad day for the Bengals in a 24-3 loss to the Browns.

Best: Calvin Ridley, Wide Receiver Jacksonville Jaguars
Jacksonville had pulled the trigger on bringing Ridley in, hoping to make him either their number one weapon, or close to it. He showed on Sunday that he could be a number one receiver. Jacksonville walked away from the Colts with a 31-21 win and Ridley was a factor.  He had eight catches for 101 yards. He had eleven targets and eight catches. There was only one other Jags receiver that had more than five targets and that was Zay Jones with seven. It goes to show that Ridley is going to fit right in with this passing attack and could get back to top flight levels soon.

Worst: Injuries

Week one was a bad week on this front. The two biggest names to go down were Ravens Running Back JK Dobbins and Jets Quarterback Aaron Rogers. Oh but there's more. Colts RB Evan Hull, Steelers WR Diontae Johson and TE Pat Freiermuth, Browns OT Jack Conklin, Jaguars G Brandon Scherff, Vikings C Garrett Bradbury, Panthers CB Jaycee Horn, Ravens S Marcus Williams, Texans S Jalen Pitre, Seahawks WR Tyler Lockett, Packers RB Aaron Jones and Raiders WR Jakobi Meyers all went down with injuries. Yikes!

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