NFL Week 1 Recap: Overreactions and Underperformances

There are 52 (or 53, depending on the calendar) Sundays in the entire year. Since 2021, we hold a special place for 18 of these Sundays. The first of these Sundays came and went, and featured a baker's dozen of NFL games--13 of the 16 games that kicked off the NFL's 106th season. So let't get this first full week recap started, shall we? Let's start with, oh, I don't know... Lions/Packers. Big NFC North battle, had it circled on my mental calendar the moment the schedule was released, very important to both teams.

Spotlight increased when some guy named Micah Parsons, whoever he is, was traded to the Packers. Sounds like a big deal. So how did that work out? Let's see: discombobulated Jared Goff to the point that he threw a bad pick, sacked Goff late in the game, led the defense to a dominant win. Packers won, 27-13, at home, and we looked so good! Already, we matched our division win total from last year, and it was against the Dan Campbell iteration of the Lions! Oh man! Jordan Love did his thing, and it was absolutely enough!

As for the Lions, that's where the overreactions came in. So many people saying that the Lions suck now, without Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn, Dan Campbell's terrible coach, yada yada yada. Chill out, y'all. It's Week One. It's just a tad too early to declare that the butt monkey Lions are back, OK? So their offense got fried, dyed, and laid to the side at Lambeau. That's football. That's Sunday. Shit happens.

Opening Week also saw Aaron Rodgers make his anticipated debut with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and what we saw was a glimpse of the old classic Rodgers that we Packers fans remember very well. Big performance, four touchdown passes, surviving a high-scoring battle against the New York Jets, with the final score being 34-32. While Rodgers' performance was one standout, the Jets putting up 32 points in their first game under new head coach Aaron Glenn is pretty damn impressive. It was a week that saw the AFC East totally falter; the Patriots fell to the Raiders, and the Miami Dolphins were blasted by the Colts. Had the Bills actually lost, guess who would have been in first place via a very deep tiebreaker? To borrow a line from Big Daddy, "The Goddamn Jets." Yeah.

Last year, I was in nine Fantasy Football leagues. I did not have Joe Burrow in any of them, and it bothered the hell out of me. This year, I got him in a number of leagues. I was so happy! Even better, this year, I have Ja'Marr Chase in more than one league. It was epic... and then Sunday happened. Oh boy. At least the Bengals won their opener, but it was too close for comfort. A 17-16 win over the Cleveland Browns despite the duo of Burrow and Chase absolutely underperforming. Normally, I go to the numbers for great performances, but this has to be mentioned here.

Scoring for QBs goes like this: 1 point per 25 passing yards, and passing TDs are 4 points each. Interceptions are a one point deduction. Burrow threw for 113 yards (4.52 points), a touchdown (4 points), and ran for three yards (0.3 points). A whopping total of 8.82 points. Yikes! A lot of kickers had more than that. As for Chase: two receptions for 26 yards, totalling 4.6 fantasy points. I don't expect the duo to underperform like this again, but still, those numbers definitely cost a lot of people who started one, the other, or both on the same team this week.

On September 3, 1995, the Carolina Panthers and the Jacksonville Jaguars began play in the NFL for the very first time. Just over 30 years later, these two teams faced each other to kick off their 31st season of play, and it was a game that saw a weather delay (the second of three this week) occur. When play resumed, the Jags went on to win 26-10, starting on the right foot with Travis Etienne, Jr. showing out. Regarding the rest of the early window, the Cardinals won a close one over the Saints, the Commanders blasted the hapless Giants, and the Buccaneers held on over the Falcons after Younghoe Koo missed a game tying field goal in the near final seconds.

The rest of the four-game late window saw the Rams win a defensive battle, 14-9, over the Houston Texans, and the Broncos defeated the Tennessee Titans (that game also had a weather delay, but a very brief one). Elsewhere, an NFC West battle between the San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks saw the former barely survive, but as we saw, the cost was immense. Brock Purdy is ruled to be out for Week 2, and George Kittle ended up leaving the game with a hamstring problem, and he's listed as being out for weeks. The injury bug hits the Niners yet again; it's been a problem for them for years.

The NFL's Opening Week concluded with the other half of the NFC North on Monday Night Football. The 56th season of MNF began with the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears in the Windy City, and it truly looked like the Bears had this, until they didn't. The Vikings, down 17-6 in the fourth quarter and led by their rookie QB J.J. McCarthy, pulled off a massive comeback; three touchdowns in the frame, resulting in a 27-24 victory. The loss put a damper on Ben Johnson's head coaching debut for the Bears, while McCarthy showed why the Vikings banked on him so much.

Week 1 was chaotic, but in the end, it was the normal result: 16 teams won, 16 teams lost. In the AFC East, the Bills were the only winners, but they needed a massive comeback to make that happen. In the AFC West, the only team who lost? The Kansas City Chiefs. In fact, three-quarters of the AFC's Final Four from each of the last two years lost. The Lions, who lost twice all of last year, are one down in the standings already--the only team from last year's NFC Final Four to lose this week.

Also, this season is the first regular season that will feature the new OT rules that were introduced into playoff games two years prior. The new rules now state that both teams will have the ball in OT, as an opening drive touchdown will no longer end the period with the other team not getting a chance. An opening drive touchdown will be followed by an extra point, and the other team receiving a chance to match it with a TD and PAT of their own, which would be followed by sudden death rules applying if they do so.

So Week 1 is in the books. 16 games down, still 256 left to go. Week 2 will kick off with the beginning of Amazon Prime's fourth season of Thursday Night Football, and it'll feature the Green Bay Packers hosting the Washington Commanders. On Sunday Night Football, the Minnesota Vikings will host the Atlanta Falcons, and on Monday Night Football, a doubleheader will take place. First off, the Houston Texans will host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and that will be followed by an AFC West battle between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Las Vegas Raiders.

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Check out my recap of the first two games of the 2025 season!

And here's my recap of the Sunday Night Football opener!