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Every week in the NFL season brings a host of new questions … and answers some old ones, too. Let’s run down what we learned in Week 1 … and what we’ll be wondering about in Week 2 and beyond.
Asked: Do the Steelers have a QB1?
You know the old line about quarterbacks: If you’ve got two, you’ve got none. Pittsburgh has spent the past few months either bucking or verifying that adage, depending on the day. Russell Wilson began the season as the designated starter, but didn’t even take his first snap before getting sidelined with calf issues. In came Justin Fields, the twitch-legged, questionable-armed former Bears QB cut loose for Caleb Williams. One victory over the hapless Atlanta Falcons later, and we still know … not much.
Fields was, as expected, exceptional between the 30s. If football was all about getting your team into field-goal range, Fields would be headed for Canton based on Sunday alone. The problem is, the Steelers can’t expect to face teams with the Falcons’ offensive ineptitude all season, and Fields — or whoever runs this ship — is going to have to get the team at least within the shadow of the goalposts. (Fantasy owners with Chris Boswell, who went 6-for-6 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 removed from his Seattle median, that it’s tempting to throw out that entire misbegotten era of his career. But can Mike Tomlin do what Sean Payton couldn’t? Wilson will need to get on the field first for us to find out.
Answered: Whether Kyler Murray can lead the Cardinals to success
Week 1 showed us that several teams — the Cowboys, the Bills and the Dolphins — are, to quote a famous philosopher, who we thought they were. The more interesting questions are deeper in the schedule, and sometimes, on the other side of the win-loss line. The Cardinals, for one, ended up losing to Buffalo … but not before holding a 14-point lead deep in the first half.
Kyler Murray, long one of the most perplexing quarterbacks in the league, appears ready — at last — to assume the role of starter/savior that the Cardinals expected from him all the way back in 2019. Injuries decimated his past two seasons, but he’s now got the weapons across the board to help Arizona challenge for a playoff berth. Once Arizona can incorporate Marvin Harrison Jr. (three targets, one reception, four yards on Sunday) into the offense, this team is going to be one of those you view on your schedule with suspicion, a heavy sigh.
Things ain’t great in Ohio. First, you have the Bengals, whose all-everything quarterback is still apparently showing the effects of his second season-ending injury in four years. Cincinnati lost to New England Sunday in easily the most surprising fall of the weekend, and Joe Burrow looked thoroughly unremarkable: 21 of 29 for 164 yards, and not much else.
But at least Burrow has shown flashes of stardom. Spare a thought — if not any pity — for Cleveland, where the entire franchise appears to be following Deshaun Watson down the drain. The Browns mortgaged the future and a whole lot of the present to sign Watson, and it turns out that may not have been the wisest investment. Watson has played all of 13 games since arriving in Cleveland in 2022, and he hasn’t looked particularly sharp in barely 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 leap the fence and run off into the distance.
Hey, at least there’s always Ohio State.
The second-most-jarring fact we learned about Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson on Sunday was that he’s now made only 18 starts since high school. The most jarring fact? That he can sling a pass like this:
Sixty-five-plus yards in the air, after slipping, with a man in his face, dead-bang on target? Come on. We don’t want to make snap judgments based on small sample sizes, but hell, everything about Richardson is a small sample size. If he’s got the capability to do that on a semi-regular basis — and if he can double up his career post-high-school starts this year — Indianapolis might just be OK. At the very least, the twice-yearly Colts-Texans matchups are now must-watch … and how often have we been able to say that? (Answered: Never.)
Asked: Is there any hope for Washington?
This season began with a flicker of hope from one of the league’s most hopeless franchises. A new coaching regime is in charge in Washington, and a dynamic new playmaker — quarterback Jayden Daniels — is quickening pulses in the greater DMV area. But even with all that, the cupboard-is-bare Commanders couldn’t hang with the Buccaneers 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’re allowing Baker Mayfield to toss four TDs, you’re going to lose. Badly.
Oh, and the team is still diving into hot water thanks to moronic comments out of its front office. Some things never change.
Answered: Whether the Vikings will be a pushover this season
Look, pretty much everyone wrote off the Vikings heading into 2024, starting with the fact that they seemed like the clear No. 4 in the black-and-blue NFC North. Detroit is rolling, Green Bay has the talent — well, did have, prior to São Paolo — and even Chicago is feeling optimistic. Minnesota? They’ve burbled along with sub-.500 seasons three of the last four years, and underachieved when they did reach the playoffs. Plus, they were starting the year with Sam Darnold — ol’ four-teams-in-seven-years Sam Darnold — at quarterback, which seems like a necessary condition for irrelevance.
Lo and behold, Darnold looked calm, assured and effective in his first start as a Viking — a whole lot sharper than his counterpart, the Giants’ Daniel Jones, and for that matter a whole lot 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 bit of 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’ve got to win Week 1, right?
