NFL Week 1 - What We Learned

Written by John Edward Betancourt

What a glorious weekend ladies and gentlemen. Grills were fired up and barbecues were had as we all put on our finest jersey to sit down and be united in football. There are few weekends as magical as Kickoff Weekend and this year's beginning to the NFL was filled with some incredible thrills and plenty of juicy stories. So without further ado, let's talk about what we learned from Week 1 in the NFL.

1. I have said this before, and I will likely say this again and again until it happens, but for the love of all that is holy in the football world...please, please, please...release Robert Griffin III. It's fine that Washington demoted him to third string and deactivated him on Sunday to ensure he doesn't get injured so that they don't have to pay him $16 million guaranteed. But the man is a distraction through and through. Every five seconds the camera cut to him on the sidelines regardless of whatever happened on the field with Kirk Cousins at the helm. Enough is enough Mister Snyder. You and your team picked a bad player in the draft. It happens and it will happen again. Spare your fans the circus and let this worthless player go. 

2. While the Denver Broncos won in stunning fashion, there are still many questions when it comes to the offense. In fact, if it wasn't for the D, there's a good chance Denver would have lost their season opener because the offense was as anemic as it was in preseason. The only difference here is that the running game that looked great in games that didn't count couldn't get going against Baltimore and well, Peyton Manning had yet another up and down day. At times he was able to pick the defense to pieces, at times it looked like he had no control on the ball. It also didn't help that the reworked offensive line didn't do a fine job of protecting him. It's still clearly a work in progress in Denver, but it needs to come together quickly. 

3. Two teams this off season, Cleveland and Chicago, did their best to reinvent themselves in the hopes of seeing some different results when the regular season kicked off. Cleveland tried to do it with a fancy new uniform and Chicago revamped its coaching staff and as it turns out these moves were nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig because man...both teams looked rough. Cleveland was an absolute mess, losing their shiny new quarterback early on to injury and Johnny Football is well...Johnny Football. As for Chicago, well the hope was that John Fox and Adam Gase would finally fix the nightmare player that is Jay Cutler...turns out that was just a pipe dream. Cutler was inaccurate all day long and of course he did what he does best and turn the ball over. There's a good chance that once again...it's going to be a long season for Bears and Browns fans.

4. How about those Buffalo Bills? It seems like the Bills gave Rex Ryan all the tools he needed to coach a team because wow...he and his squad came out and shocked the world with their big time win over Indianapolis this week. They shut down Andrew Luck like few teams can and man...the decision to start Taylor at quarterback was a stroke of genius as he destroyed the Indy defense. I can't remember the last tiem I saw the Bills look that good and this could be a sign of things to come and it also means Indianapolis needs to do things differently next week and not take their opponents for granted. 

5. The Rookie Bowl ended with Marcus Mariota emerging victorious and man...did he impress. Mariota ended the day with four touchdowns and a perfect quarterback rating while Winston looked...just okay. He threw a pick six and another INT later on in the day so take what you will from that, but this continues the grand debate of which quarterback will be the better player for years to come. I personally think Tampa Bay got their draft choice wrong and today helps cement that in my mind, but this is a story to revisit later in the season since this was merely their debut.

---