For observers of the AFC North, Week 1 offered a Sunday with plenty of opportunity for overreaction. With all four teams considered playoff contenders, seeing the Browns handily club the Bengals to the point where Joe Burrow was pulled from the game to avoid needlessly reaggravating his calf injury, and the Steelers’ looking like they were on the verge of relegation against the 49ers’ offensive machine, was a bit like taking these ideological popsicle stick houses we’d built all offseason and dismantling them with a bootheel.
The wiser course of action would be to relax. Let’s take a look at why:
• Cleveland, which beat Cincinnati 24–3, was always going to be better suited to play in a game like this. There was bad weather in Cleveland Sunday, which immediately lent an advantage to the Browns’ pass rush against a more stationary Burrow, who is still very obviously recovering from that preseason practice injury. Cleveland spent money this offseason specifically to upgrade its defensive interior, which would take pressure off Myles Garrett. Burrow, because of the calf injury, lacked his trademark pocket finesse. He was sacked twice and hit in the pocket 10 times; four times by Garrett alone.
