Months of speculation are over. The NFL finally got to see the results of draft picks, free agent signings and a litany of practices in full motion on the first Sunday of the regular season.
It didn’t go exactly like we expected. The Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Giants and Chicago Bears all won as significant underdogs. The only team to appear in last season’s conference championship games and escape Week 1 with a win was the Kansas City Chiefs.
That leaves us with plenty to unpack from a 14-game slate that featured a walk-off field goal and a walk-off blocked kick. Let’s dive into the six biggest developments from the first Sunday of the 2022 NFL season.
The Bears are not the worst team in the NFL (but don't read too much into one win)
The Bears do not have a great roster. They do have a 1-0 record.
Chicago overcame an early 10-0 deficit to upset the San Francisco 49ers at home, 19-10. It was a gross win on a disgusting rainy day where Justin Fields could complete less than half his passes and still look … well, maybe not impressive, but certainly hopeful.
Fields finished his day with eight completions on 17 passes for 121 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. He added 28 rushing yards on 11 carries. And, given the circumstances, this was pretty good!
Fields attempted only five passes 10-plus yards downfield.
Two were the result of blown coverages. This was a combination of the constant downpour that soaked Solder Field, his understocked wideouts failing to find open space (against a shaky 49ers secondary, no less) and an offensive line that struggled to stem a consistent four-man pass rush.
Against that backdrop, it makes a little more sense how he averaged just 7.1 yards per attempt in a win. But Fields, when he created his own time, made magic:
Justin Fields is playing backyard football out here ‼️ @justnfields
📺: #SFvsCHI on FOX
📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/8gCtJMnwZ7 pic.twitter.com/2ZtvdvwKaz— NFL (@NFL) September 11, 2022
And when he didn’t have time, well, it mostly stunk. But he still found opportunities to create something from nothing:
the Bears' O-line is a real problem (the Niners only rushed four!) but Justin Fields is here for it pic.twitter.com/2NI7Pv7uqO
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) September 11, 2022
Credit where it’s due; offensive coordinator Luke Getsy took advantage of moments when it made sense for the Niners defense to sell out against the run and used that to create big opportunities:
St. Brown bros 🤝 scoring TDs
📺: #SFvsCHI on FOX pic.twitter.com/97SeF6Trrd
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) September 11, 2022
The Bears were further buoyed by a Niner team prone to mistakes on both sides of the ball. San Francisco committed 12 penalties for 99 yards, including two on what should have been drive-ending third downs that instead turned into Chicago touchdowns. The team turned the ball over twice, which all connects the dots of how they lost by two possessions on a day they outgained Chicago 331-204.
The Bears still have a lot of problems to contend with. Their offensive line regularly lost five-on-four battles against the San Francisco pass rush. The only player to have more than one reception was tailback David Montgomery. The secondary left holes a more capable quarterback than Trey Lance could exploit on a drier day.
That doesn’t change the fact the Bears emerged from this rock fight with a win and tripped up a contender in the process. Chicago still isn’t a playoff team, but the light at the end of their rebuild tunnel shines a little brighter after Week 1.
The New England Patriots are gonna have a bad time
The Patriots largely stood pat in free agency in 2022 after spending gobs of cash in 2021. Their draft picks were as assortment of high ceiling prospects who could struggle to have an impact as rookies. They lost offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels to the Raiders and replaced him with the failed head coach binary star system of Matt Patricia and Joe Judge.
This raised serious questions about the team’s upcoming season. Week 1’s loss to the Miami Dolphins — a game in which the Pats scored seven points and gained 218 yards after their opening drive — did nothing to quell those concerns.
New England trailed 17-0 at halftime. It allowed Tua Tagovailoa to average 8.2 yards per pass attempt — the fourth-best single-game mark of his career. The Patriots got beat in every phase of the game except on the ground, and that’s only because their meager 3.5 yards per carry was better than Miami’s pitiful 2.8.
Our first real look at Mac Jones’ second year brought some good and bad. His 9.3 average yards per pass attempt showcased a newfound ability to move the ball downfield after averaging 8.0 yards as a rookie. Unfortunately, the results were mostly bad. His second quarter strip sack handed the Dolphins six easy points. His end zone underthrow cost New England a vital scoring opportunity early.
❌ + ⛄️‼️@Iamxavienhoward 💪 @HollywoodVon | 📺: Watch #NEvsMIA on @NFLonCBS pic.twitter.com/Pmj08ozO4K
— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) September 11, 2022
This disappointment wasn’t just limited to the young QB. Per RBSDM.com, which uses the NFL’s Next Gen Stats to gauge each player’s impact, only three of New England’s skill players were responsible for positive Expected Points Added (EPA) in Week 1.
Good on Jakobi Meyers, Jonnu Smith and that one snap Kendrick Bourne was targeted, I guess.
This underwhelming play extended to a rebuilt defense as well. New England fielded the league’s third-best passing defense by DVOA in 2021. Then it let top corner J.C. Jackson leave in free agency. This may have already had a significant impact; Tyreek Hill cooked this team for eight catches and 94 yards Sunday.
Hill didn’t need to flash his deep ball skill to burn the Pats. Only two of his eight catches traveled more than 10 yards downfield. Five came within five yards of the line of scrimmage.
Hill found space just about everywhere and dragged a number of different corners into the danger zone with him. His diverse route tree and success suggests this isn’t just a Tyreek Hill thing; there’s a wide swath of AFC wideouts who can follow that plan and roast New England with yards after catch or big throws downfield. The Patriots are going to have to win some shootouts to make it back to the postseason this winter. Jones didn’t look like the quarterback who can fire back in those situations Sunday afternoon.
Joe Burrow's strength was evidently contained mostly in his appendix
Joe Burrow threw three interceptions in his first start of 2022. In the opening 25 minutes of the game.
This contributed to the drunkest game of Week 1 and what will be, quite possibly, the drunkest game of 2022. Burrow, back from the burst appendix that kept him out for the bulk of the preseason, was the axis around which this game wobbled. And his early struggles — and uncharacteristic misses from kicker Evan McPherson — led to a 23-20 overtime win for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Steelers were roughly what we expected. The defense made big plays. Mitchell Trubisky played below-average football but avoided sacks and protected the ball. Pittsburgh was, for most intents and purposes, a mid-2000s Big Ten team.
The Bengals were supposed to be the uptempo, high-impact offense that cracked that facade. Instead, Burrow turned the ball over five times. His first pass of the game was a pick-six.
Minkah Fitzpatrick PICK 6️⃣!!#Steelers #HereWeGo
🎥: @NFL
— BetFTW (@Bet_ForTheWin) September 11, 2022
This left Cincinnati to play 70 minutes of football in which it never held a lead. Burrow dropped back 60 times and was either sacked or hit on 18 of them, casting doubt on the rebuilt offensive line in front of him. In fairness, no one from that group took a snap in the preseason. In fact, none of the offensive starters did, which could explain the rustiness that led to 17-6 halftime deficit.
Burrow’s downfield touch was especially concerning for a player whose intermediate and deep passing game was immensely valuable in 2021. The third-year QB completed 59 percent of his passes 10-plus yards past the line of scrimmage last season. He was just 6-14 with zero touchdowns, three interceptions and a 33.0 passer rating against Pittsburgh.
Of course, this would have all been a moot point if his special teams hadn’t imploded in the fourth quarter and overtime. Losing long snapper Clark Harris was a major problem. After a blown challenge, goal line stand and blown Steelers possession, Cincy had the chance to win the game with an extra point. Instead, McPherson’s 33-yard kick was blocked.
Watch @minkfitz_21 fly in for the block. #HereWeGo
📺: #PITvsCIN on CBS
📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/pHwdeoOMZE pic.twitter.com/biWfkVX4g4— NFL (@NFL) September 11, 2022
The snap on his 29-yard game-winner in overtime was high, leaving a kicker who’d booted a 59-yarder earlier in the game — a franchise record — 0 for 2 on game-winning chip shots.
NO GOOD. This game is bananas.
📺: #PITvsCIN on CBS
📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/pHwdeoOMZE pic.twitter.com/WuyBvNuRp7— NFL (@NFL) September 11, 2022
This was a very dumb and sloppy game the Bengals can either chalk up to inexperience and move beyond or allow to fester until it infects the rest of their season. Burrow won’t be as bad as he was on Sunday often — but other offenses won’t be as mind-blowingly dull as the Steelers, either. Cincinnati’s got to fix things, and fast.
Carson Wentz is still Carson Wentz, but the Jacksonville Jaguars are still the Jacksonville Jaguars
Which Carson Wentz do you believe in? The one that started his Washington debut with touchdown passes on his first two drives and threw a game-winning touchdown to rookie Jahan Dotson with under two minutes to play? Or is it the one who threw interceptions on back to back plays to allow the Jacksonville Jaguars to take a fourth quarter lead and necessitate those heroics?
The real Wentz stands somewhere in between, but at least we now know he can handle the Jags in an important(ish) game. Here he is, showcasing a connection with his first year wideout and putting the ball in a spot where Dotson will either get it or draw a pass interference penalty:
Yo this rookie is the real deal
📺 FOX | #HTTC pic.twitter.com/6dHneR0vy4
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) September 11, 2022
And here he is, blinking out of existence in the middle of pressure and throwing an interception on a screen pass (!).
This man @44Ytw is a problem.#JAXvsWAS on FOX pic.twitter.com/xPEGqEe8Nk
— Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) September 11, 2022
Granted, that’s an amazing play by Trevon Walker, but that pass was already way behind intended target Antonio Gibson. It could only have ended in disaster.
Wentz, when he falls apart, falls apart much like Jimmy Garoppolo or Kyler Murray does. The mistakes make no sense when lined up against the good things of which he’s capable. They’re so deeply ingrained in his game there’s no removing them.
That wasn’t fatal Sunday thanks to his comeback effort, but it nearly marred what was, as a whole, a pretty good game. Wentz took a shaky secondary to task downfield and delivered the kind of performance that could lead Washington back to the playoffs.
But he also needed Jacksonville to fall back on the tendencies that made the franchise a running joke on The Good Place.
There were reasons for hope in Florida. James Robinson was a monster in his return (again asking the world to collectively wonder why Urban Meyer spent a first round pick on Travis Etienne last year) and Christian Kirk/Zay Jones look like a viable 1-2 punch atop the wideout depth chart.
Trevor Lawrence, however, looked very much like a player trying to put a bad year behind him and not quite able to shut the door on it. With the game in the balance — but with an extra down available before the Jags needed to throw up a prayer — Lawrence proved the residual stink of the Meyer era hasn’t quite washed off.
Washington won, Wentz got some revenge and the Commanders finished strong enough to build hope for the season. Now we wait and see if this is just another spin through the Carson Wentz cycle of disappointment or an actual fresh start for the embattled QB.
Aaron Rodgers already appears to be checked out of the 2022 season
On his first pass of the 2022 NFL season, Aaron Rodgers uncorked a rainbow to a streaking Christian Watson downfield. The rookie speedster had two arms lengths of separation 45 yards beyond the line of scrimmage as the ball arced into his waiting fingertips. Then it tumbled to the ground instead of being jogged into the end zone for an easy 75-yard touchdown.
This was the face Rodgers made in response.
That more or less describes Rodgers’ public reaction to Sunday’s game at large. At halftime he’d thrown for just 76 yards. Only eight of them belonged to his wide receivers.
And so, the lack of wideout depth largely assumed to be Green Bay’s fatal flaw proved brutal in Week 1. In a rivalry game in Minnesota against the Vikings — the team’s biggest competition in the NFC North — the Packers’ wide receivers had 95 receiving yards while Rodgers was in the lineup. Davante Adams, formerly Rodgers’ huckleberry in Wisconsin, had 141 in his Las Vegas Raiders debut.
Head coach Matt LaFleur tried to plan around this. He noticed A.J. Dillon’s hot hand and split his running back out wide as his “Z” receiver to catch quick-hit slants from Rodgers:
This offense performed better in the second half, but it was clear the playbook that worked with Davante Adams in the lineup didn’t fit with this new, depleted wideout corps. This was a third-and-1 playcall late in the fourth quarter. It’s the kind of route Adams could be counted on to haul in for a first down and more. Instead, Watson failed to get his head around in time and nearly created an interception.
The end result was grim. Rodgers needed 34 passes to throw for only 194 yards (5.7 yards per attempt). Kirk Cousins averaged nearly three more yards per attempt than Green Bay’s QBs (Jordan Love took on a mop-up role late in the fourth quarter). Rodgers wide receivers, as a whole, finished with 3.9 expected points added. Justin Jefferson, star Vikings wideout, had 12.6 on his own.
For the second straight year, the Packers opened the season with a multiple-possession loss to an NFC team. Last year they rebounded as Rodgers put together an MVP season alongside All-Pro WR Adams. This year, he’ll have to be even better to elevate a receiving corps that was missing Allen Lazard, and looked enormously low-rent in the process.
Saquon Barkley is back, kiiiiiiid (assuming he doesn't get hurt again)
The Giants are a Rorschach test when it comes to running back value. They drafted Saquon Barkley with the second pick of the 2018 NFL Draft, watched as he earned offensive rookie of the year honors, then saw injuries and ineffectiveness mute his effectiveness over the following three seasons.
He came back strong to tell the world that’s all behind him in 2022. Holy [expletive], he shouted it from the top of Mount Everest.
Barkley had 194 total yards against the Titans, including 164 on 18 carries. He was a perfect support system for Daniel Jones, who finished his day with only four incompletions but still had his share of Daniel Jones moments (five sacks, an interception in the end zone in the fourth quarter while down seven).
This is wonderful for first year head coach Brian Daboll, who seems to firmly grasp the no-lose situation he’s been handed in 2022. Daboll is playing with players mostly drafted and signed by since-retired general manager Dave Gettleman and coached into misery by Joe Judge. The purpose of this season is to line up pieces on the chess board and look toward 2023. Any wins are icing on the cake.
Without real consequence for losing, Daboll shaded toward aggression like a gambler placing a 10-team parlay with house money. That’s why he went for two after pulling to 20-19 with a minute to play in the fourth quarter. Who’d he go to for those game-winning points? The best player on his roster:
RIGHT WHEN WE NEEDED IT 🙌
📺: @NFLonFOX pic.twitter.com/jUGL1l7VkR
— New York Giants (@Giants) September 11, 2022
The Giants aren’t an objectively talented team, but they have a competent head coach and a handful of skill players capable of lifting Jones and the New York offense. Following multiple-possession losses from the Packers and 49ers, the NFC remains weak. Daboll’s team, facing one of the softest schedules in the game, might just be bold enough to sneak into a Wild Card spot.
And if they don’t, who cares? It’s still better than the Joe Judge era.
