Judging biggest overreactions for NFL Week 1 games - ESPN

ATLANTA — You think you were excited for Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season? You weren't nearly as excited as us. That's because Week 1 is the overreaction Super Bowl, baby.

If you just watched the early-window games Sunday and let yourself forget there are still 17 more weeks to go, you might be thinking the Bengals are toast, the Falcons need to bench Kirk Cousins for Michael Penix Jr., Sam Darnold is an MVP candidate and the Saints are going to the Super Bowl. All patently absurd takes, of course, but this is what we live for in this overreactionary weekly space, where we judge a few potential takeaways from the weekend's games as legitimate or irrational.

Let's start with a team that won Sunday without scoring a touchdown… because why not?

Jump to:
Could Fields start all year?
Falcons far from the NFC South lock?
Best offense of Mahomes career?
Time to pay Parsons now?
Could Watson get benched?

Fields lost a training camp competition to fellow Steelers newcomer Russell Wilson, but then Wilson aggravated his training camp calf injury Thursday, and Fields ended up having to start the opener in Atlanta. The Steelers won the game 18-10 thanks to six Chris Boswell field goals. Fields was 17-for-23 for 156 yards, rushed 14 times for 57 yards and most importantly did not turn the ball over.

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It was a conservative game plan by Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, who eight months ago was the Falcons' coach and brought with him a healthy respect for the playmakers on his old team's defense and a strong faith in his new team's offense. On this day, though, it was good enough. It remains to be seen whether Wilson's calf will feel good enough this week to allow him to play the Steelers' Week 2 game against one of his former teams