Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, and everyone knows the NFL until Week 1. Some surprises were good, like the New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers putting on a tremendous show, or Daniel Jones body-swapping with prime Peyton Manning for an afternoon. Some were bad, like the under hitting on 11 of the 16 games. Given the small sample size, it’s hard to draw much certainty from a single week, but there are clear trends to track in Week 2.
We’ve got staff picks further below, but first, let’s talk about the biggest storylines from Week 1.
📊Market Watch📊The Good📈
Have these young pass-catchers finally arrived?
Across the league, a handful of young receivers whose evolution has been eagerly awaited by fans appeared to make the fabled “leap.” Keon Coleman is in his second year and managed to get more than a quarter of the way to last season’s reception total in a single game, leading the Buffalo Bills in targets, catches and yards. Quentin Johnston, in Year 3 for the Los Angeles Chargers, led the team in receiving yards while catching five of seven targets and scoring twice, playing his way into first-read territory against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Finally, Zay Flowers ended up as the WR1 in fantasy after becoming the exclusive rightsholder of Lamar Jackson targets. The third-year wideout had more than twice the targets of any other Raven and more than doubled the receiving yards of the rest of the team combined.
Cam Ward is worth the watch
The stats are gross to look at, but the No. 1 pick was absolutely what Titans fans were hoping for talent-wise. The man was throwing seeds, even if the Tennessee receivers refused to hang onto them. Ward hit tight windows, threw lasers on the run and across his body, and whipped perfect darts up the seams. Yes, he held the ball too long. Yes, he took a pair of sacks that only a rookie would take. But those problems fade in the face of all the throws only he could make. If you don’t believe, dial it in for Week 2. The numbers might not shine, but it’ll be the coolest bad box score you have ever watched.
Daniel Jones…
…Nah, we aren’t doing this. Yes, the Indianapolis Colts scored on every possession and won their first opener since 2013. We are happy for Jones, and everyone deserves their moment. But the Dolphins were an abject disaster all game, and the Colts QB was pressured on just eight of his 33 dropbacks. If this continues against Denver, we can talk.
The Bad📉
Is this the best the Lions can do?
Detroit was always going to regress in 2025. Two coordinators and an All-Pro center left, and their 2024 offensive pace was unsustainable even if they had stayed.
But Week 1 was the worst-case scenario for that regression. The Lions had a 31 percent success rate on designed runs, which was their fifth-worst performance since 2022. David Montgomery had several handoffs that were dead before he ever took a step. Like this:
Yikes.
Worse, 31 of Jared Goff’s 39 passes traveled less than 10 yards and accounted for 84 percent of his completions. The Lions thrived last season without working deep (6.8 air yards per attempt), but that worked because they led the NFL in yards after the catch (2,643 — 100 yards more than the next-closest team). Through one week, they are 18th in EPA per pass and 28th in EPA per rush.
Were we too high on Nix?
Bo Nix started slow but took off late last season, saving fantasy owners the nation over as a mid-season waiver grab who thrived down the stretch. But there were flaws in his game, most notably the fact that he struggled against the blitz (90.6 passer rating, 24th in the league) and was horrible under pressure (53.7 passer rating, worse than everyone but Gardner Minshew and Anthony Richardson).
It was clear what needed to improve for Year 2, but things look worse than ever. Under pressure against the Titans, Nix went 2-for-7 with two picks, posting a passer rating of 0.0. He also once again worked incredibly short.
Nix can scramble, but the league finds weaknesses and exploits them fast. Right now, there’s a clear defensive manual on how to undo the sophomore quarterback, and fantasy owners have to be wondering if they should have married their fall fling.
Atlanta looks stuck in park
Last season, Michael Penix Jr. averaged nearly three more air yards per attempt than Kirk Cousins and had double the deep pass percentage.
Imagine everyone’s surprise, then, when Atlanta’s first game saw only 35.7 percent of their offensive attempts reach the first down sticks. For context, the lowest mark posted by any team last year was 37 percent. The Week 1 offense was so conservative it would have made Bill Belichick blush. Bijan Robinson faced a stacked or neutral box on half of his runs, and his 108 YAC accounted for 30 percent of the team’s total yards. That can’t all be due to Darnell Mooney’s absence. Keep an eye on downfield work going forward.
NFL staff picks for Week 2
With some Week 1 storylines out of the way, let’s shift our focus to Week 2, starting with staff picks before getting more into the matchups ahead.
📺Tune In📺
Unlike Week 1, when everything was shiny and new, it’s now time to be more discerning in your NFL diet. Here are the games that deserve your attention in Week 2.
All times Eastern and all games on Sunday unless otherwise indicated.
Bills at Jets
1 p.m. on CBS
Two games hit the over on Sunday: The Bills and Ravens, which makes sense, and the Jets and Steelers, which very much does not.
The Bills and Ravens put on an all-timer, with Buffalo pulling off a once-in-a-decade comeback, per NextGenStats:
“The Bills win probability was as low as 1.1% with 8:37 remaining in the fourth quarter, trailing 40-25. This was the most improbable comeback by the Bills with Josh Allen at quarterback, and the 13th-most improbable comeback by any team over the last decade. Prior to the Derrick Henry fumble with 3:10 remaining, the Bills win probability was 2.2%.”
After that fumble, Allen threw for 100 yards and ran in a touchdown, which is more than many quarterbacks do in a half. It was a thrilling end to a game between two titanic offenses.
In Pittsburgh, the Steelers and Jets beat their over by nearly 30 points and had a wild fourth quarter of their own. Aaron Rodgers managed to lead a late comeback drive, but the real marvel was Justin Fields and the Jets offense.
Fields, who at his best last season looked like a Kirkland version of Jayden Daniels, was a different guy. He put up a 119.1 passer rating, throwing for 218 yards and a touchdown and running for two more. He was accurate and composed, facing the second-most pressure of any quarterback but picking up half his passing yards in those situations. More than that, he looked like a top-tier passer. He moved smoothly in the pocket, stepped calmly into space to avoid rushers, and hit receivers on deep passes within the route structure. He finished with the second-best EPA-per-dropback.
The whole offense hummed, with Breece Hall finishing third on the day in rushing (108 yards) and six different Jets having 15 or more yards receiving. All this despite losing guard Alijah Vera-Tucker for the season roughly 24 hours before their first game.
The Jets are the Jets, so they lost, but the show looks a lot more watchable heading into Week 2 against the Bills.
Jaguars at Bengals
1 p.m. on CBS
Whether or not hexes and superstitions are a big part of your life, it’s time to accept the Bengals are a deeply unserious football team in Week 1s. Since Joe Burrow arrived, Cincinnati is 2-6 in season openers and scored less than 20 points four times. They won Sunday, but he’s now thrown for less than 165 yards in Week 1 for three years running, and Ja’Marr Chase has totaled 127 yards the last three openers combined with zero touchdowns. Cincinnati had seven yards of offense in the second half.
Now that that’s out of the way, the Bengals can play football again. Oddsmakers clearly expect the real Cincinnati to show up, giving this game the highest over/under of the week and the Bengals a listed total of 26.5. The thing to watch is whether the remade Jaguars can live up to their half of the bargain.
The Jags had a weather interruption that killed the game’s energy in Week 1, but still managed to run for 200 yards. The Bengals allowed the 14th-most rush yards per game last season and the fifth-most rushing yards over expected. Jacksonville’s passing attack was thoroughly unmoving, but Liam Coen had Trevor Lawrence spreading the ball around. Eight different players had targets, with rookie Travis Hunter leading the team (8) and catching the most passes (6). If the run game stays viable, Coen can let the throttle out a bit and see what his coterie of pass catchers can do.
Commanders at Packers
Thursday, 8:15 p.m. on Prime Video
Given the problems Jayden Daniels and the Commanders can create, there’s no more intriguing test for Week 1’s most impressive defense.
The Packers unit absolutely dismantled the Lions, hitting Detroit ball carriers behind the line of scrimmage on 16 of 22 carries (72.7 percent of the time) and allowing -0.6 yards before contact per carry.
Then there’s the Micah Parsons of it all. The newest Packer generated three pressures, one causing an interception, and beat a double team to pick up a sack. He was on the field for three of the four sacks the Packers had on the day, and Jared Goff threw more than a half-second faster when Parsons was on the field compared to when he wasn’t. On the ground, Green Bay allowed 48 yards on the 15 runs for which Parsons was sidelined and -2 on the seven runs when he was on the field.
The Commanders will counter with an offensive line that effectively neutralized whatever the Giants conjured up, using chips and pulling plays to keep New York’s vaunted front from causing problems. Should Daniels break containment, Green Bay’s penchant for knockout-hunting could make for a shootout.
Jordan Love averaged 8.9 air yards per attempt last season, third among full-season starters. Six of his first 16 passes this year traveled for 15 yards or more before the Pack powered down after halftime with the game in hand.
When it’s working, the Packers are explosive enough to sear retinas. When it’s not, it feels like they’re standing still. The first reason to watch is to see if Green Bay can bottle up Daniels and the offense. The second is to see if the Packers keep pace if they can’t.
Other games of noteBears at Lions
Revenge game! Surely the Bears will fare better now that they are aware a fourth quarter exists.
Falcons at Vikings
J.J. McCarthy just finished cramming one of the best quarterback debuts ever into just 15 minutes. Who doesn’t want to watch the follow-up act?
Patriots at Dolphins
Good heavens are the vibes rotten in Miami. The temperature of Mike McDaniel’s seat is now one degree less than the melting point of whatever the chair is made of. If the Dolphins look that miserable again (both in performance and emotion), someone will be filling a banker’s box back at headquarters by halftime.
49ers at Saints
These two offenses are now Christian McCaffrey and Alvin Kamara. Let’s see who has more juice left in the tank.
Chargers at Raiders
The Great Rookie Running Back Debate gets its first true data point. Fantasy football heads spent all draft season debating Ashton Jeanty vs. Omarion Hampton; now they can take that dispute intravenously for 60 minutes.
(Photo of Aaron Rodgers: Evan Bernstein / Getty Images)