Skip to content

NFL: Week One results indicate very little about what to expect this season, says Simon Veness

Mike Wallace of the Miami Dolphins scores a touchdown against New England

In View From America this week, Simon Veness attempts to make sense of an incredibly jumbled first week of the new NFL season.

The USA is a country of huge contradictions. It is home to the crass (Howard Stern, Donald Trump and the Tea Party) and the sublime (Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie and the Peace Corps); the creative (Woody Allen, Bruce Springsteen and Pixar Films) and the insipid (Sylvester Stallone, Britney Spears and the Kardashians); and the inspiring (President Obama, Ken Burns and Derek Jeter) as well as the out-and-out doltish (Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Rush Limbaugh).

It includes just about every geographical phenomenon and climate type, and urban landscapes that range from the monstrous (New York) to the tiny (Monowi, Nebraska – population, 1). Plus, there is everything in between.

So it makes sense for the start of the new NFL season to be just as wide-ranging and chaotic; brilliant and ridiculous; exciting and ‘They did WHAT?’ From high-powered Seattle to popgun St Louis, virtually everything was on display in Week One, and attempting to make sense of it all was akin to trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube while blindfolded.

Miami will be in the play-off conversation and Joe Philbin will be in line for Coach of the Year.
Simon Veness

Some of it just didn’t make sense, such as the second-half collapse of New England under a Cameron Wake-inspired Miami defensive assault and the New Orleans defence giving up most of Georgia in territorial terms to the re-tooled Atlanta offence.

But it served to highlight the deliciously unpredictable nature of the opening week. Think back to last year, when we had defending champs Baltimore getting taken to the cleaners by Denver, the Steelers barely able to move the ball at home to Tennessee and Houston roaring back with 17 unanswered fourth-quarter points to win at San Diego (one of only two victories they chalked up all year).

With the exception of the Chargers again collapsing in the fourth quarter, there is not a lot you can count on, and it is hard to be positive about any single outcome in today’s National Football League – even if the Seahawks and Broncos did start as if it was Week 18 of the 2013 regular season.

Is anyone ready to proclaim any of the Dolphins, Jets or Bills as AFC East power-houses? How about Tennessee and Houston topping the AFC South? Are Minnesota and Detroit walking away with the NFC North? Or, conversely, are Chicago and Green Bay dead ducks?

It is those kind of issues that were thrown up by the first stanza of pigskin pandemonium, and we will be facing more this week, especially if the likes of the Ravens, Giants, Cowboys, Chargers, Chiefs and Raiders all come bouncing back. Although you might suspect the Giants and Raiders are the least likely of rubber balls, you’re not ready to rule them right out, are you?

Absolutely no-one would wager any serious money either way right now, especially as the odds-makers have only one double-digit underdog (Kansas City at Denver) in the midweek betting stakes.

The fact they also have Philadelphia (at Indianapolis), Detroit (at Carolina), Atlanta (at Cincinnati) and Dallas (at Tennessee) all likely to lose tells you everything you need to know about the fragile status of the bookies’ psyche this early in the campaign.

Meltdown

Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints
Image: Drew Brees: Saints need him to keep firing

So, if everything is up for grabs and open to debate, what can we say about what to expect in Week Two?

Well, I seriously suspect the Dolphins defence IS for real. They have been steadily building into a formidable force for three years now and, if the offence just keeps pace, all those lost seasons since Dan Marino finally decided he could carry the team no more will be forgotten. Miami will be in the play-off conversation and Joe Philbin will be in line for Coach of the Year.

By the same token, the Patriots will not suffer such a comprehensive second-half meltdown again. Bill Belichick will have burned through several hoodies this week while scheming for an answer at Minnesota, and woe betide the Vikings if they fall behind at all.

Live NFL

Equally, the Saints will go marching to Cleveland determined to prove that overtime loss at the hands of an inspired Falcons team was a one-off aberration. Defensive coordinator Rob Ryan certainly can’t afford another complete mis-fire but you suspect Drew Brees might throw 10 touchdowns just to be on the safe side.

Houston should be well positioned to continue their defensive rehabilitation under Bill O’Brien at Oakland (although it could be ugly from an offensive point of view) while at least one of Jacksonville and Washington is going to have to emerge with a first ‘W’ of the year (although, again, you can’t rule out of the wacky possibility of a tie between two teams that both looked like they had forgotten what a win looked like last weekend).

This week’s cases for the Most Intriguing file, though, involve the teams that go head-to-head with a comforting ‘1’ figure in the winning column.

Either one of Miami or Buffalo will turn that into a ‘2’ by Sunday night and be able to claim some serious momentum, especially if the Jets and/or New England slip up at all.

The Atlanta and Cincinnati game is another opportunity for either of these well-matched outfits to get a firm foothold on the Progress Express train (final stop, Phoenix, Arizona - next February) while the Lions’ trip to Carolina will also establish one of these teams as serious contenders, as they both have the makings of play-off material if they continue to develop the kind of single-minded intensity they showed in beating the Giants and Tampa Bay respectively.

Circus

When it comes to top of the intrigue stakes, though, it HAS to be M&T Bank Stadium in the early hours of Friday morning (UK time).

Not only is it the first in the annual double-helping of seismic collisions between two of the league’s most ardent arch-enemies, Baltimore and Pittsburgh, but, with the huge swirl of public outcry over the sorry Ray Rice episode continuing to hang above the Ravens, there are enough sub-plots in the game to fill several John Grisham novels.

First, can Justin Forsett and Bernard Pierce fill the full-season void left by Rice’s departure? Second, how much will the media circus distract John Harbaugh’s men from the task in hand? And third, will it continue to spiral out of control, bringing in just about everyone in the NFL, from owner Steve Bisciotti to league commissioner Roger Goodell?

Live NFL

Make no mistake, the public and media are urgently on the lookout for scapegoats in the wake of Rice’s “disgusting and shocking” act (Bisciotti’s words), and there is no sign of the storm abating in the near future.

Given all that, Harbaugh has a massive task on his hands to keep his team focused on the job at hand, and he cannot afford the Ravens to be anything other than rock solid, in playing terms, when they take on the Steelers.

It is quite likely more people will lose their jobs amid the media firestorm, and Baltimore’s head coach has to make sure they don’t lose their season, too.

Oh, and one final thought on the reverse end of the equation this week. While I’m not quite ready to suggest they are funeral material, both the Giants and Cowboys will have to show much more than they did in their feeble opening outings to avoid looking dead and buried already – and take some of the increasing heat off head coaches Tom Coughlin and Jason Garrett.

Both have been out of the play-off picture for much longer than their owners’ liking, and any further signs of early-season fallibility are likely to light a significant fire under those already-warm coaching hot-seats.

For Jerry Jones, though, it could be a case of ‘Where do I go from here?’ He is increasingly anxious in his search for someone, anyone, to right the good ship SS Dallas, and no-one needs a victory more than the Cowboys owner to avoid looking like King Canute in the face of an advancing tide of ‘I-told-you-so’s’.

Dallas fans, it might be time to watch from behind the couch.

Around Sky