By Kim Dunning
The 51st season of the NFL kicked off this week starting on Thursday night with a Super Bowl rematch putting Denver against Carolina. The Broncos, with the referee’s help, ended up winning once again. This game became the talk of the week with the helmet to helmet hits Carolina quarterback Cam Newton sustained on multiple occasions with no flags being thrown by the officiating crew. It leaves the fans scratching their heads as to whether this supposed “players safety” applies to a select few quarterbacks or all quarterbacks. In true NFL fashion, the game ended with a missed field goal by Graham Gano. As the average fans shake their heads and said to themselves, who knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Sunday ushered in the meat and potatoes of the NFL week 1 with 9 games in the afternoon. Some games left you shocked and some games were pretty much the normal for the NFL as it has been the last few years.
Surprising wins by Oakland and Kansas City on a huge comebacks set the table for a feast of NFL games. Oakland came from behind to beat the Saints with a two-point conversion. Not many coaches would have gone for the win like Jack Del Rio did but sometimes you roll the dice. Del Rio is being hailed a hero for his gutsy call and if it would have been the other way, everyone would have said same old Raiders.
Kansas City also had a huge 24-point comeback to win the game against their division rival Chargers. This game was thought to be over by half-time and surprise, the Chiefs fought their way back and won the game in overtime.
Other surprises were the Falcons getting handed their rears by the Bucs defense and the way Jacksonville hung around with Green Bay to almost come back and win it. It was kind of a surprise that the Colts lost with their quarterback Andrew Luck back and Detroit actually pulled it out when it mattered. Let’s not forget to add how close the Miami and Seattle game was. Who expected it to be such a low-scoring defensive battle? Seattle won with the late touchdown.
Not so surprising was the self-destruction of the Cowboys against the Giants. I mean what veteran wide receiver does not know to go out of bounds with seconds left on the clock and the best kicker in the league on their bench. Terrance Williams didn’t even give Dan Bailey a chance to be a hero. Sadly, that’s the Cowboys and it really is not a surprise.
Everyone pretty much assumed that the Vikings would roll over the Titans and they did even with Shaun Hill starting.
The Texans are coming on strong with their new quarterback and pretty decent defense. They will be one to watch in the AFC South along with Jacksonville, as the Texans defeated the Bears this weekend.
The Ravens won when they were supposed to over the Bills but Joe Flacco still could be the biggest issue in Baltimore with his inconsistency. However, the Baltimore defense always tends to pull him out of a tough situation as they did against the Bills. The Sunday night game was a slug fest between the Cardinals and the Patriots. The Patriots started off strong and in true New England fashion found a way with a quarterback not named Tom Brady to pull out a win. This just goes to prove that any idiot can run the Patriots offense and they still win games.
Week 1 wrapped up with the Monday Night double-header with the Steelers obliterating the Redskins and the Niners shutting out the Rams for the surprise win.
What week 1 taught us was that the officiating still sucks, good teams still win football games and there are some up and coming teams to watch out for that could sneak into the playoffs and be spoilers for the “elite” teams. On to week 2!
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