Week 1 of the 2022 NFL season wasn't always pretty, but you can't knock the entertainment value. Seven of the 13 games in the two afternoon windows were one-score games, and an eighth was a tie. Five were decided by scores in the final two minutes. Multiple teams missed what would have been game-winning field goals, while another was stymied by a blocked extra point. The Chiefs and Ravens were back to their old selves, but the story of the week was upheaval.
Seven playoff teams from last season lost Sunday afternoon, with four losses coming against teams that missed the postseason a year ago. Both No. 1 seeds from 2021 were defeated. After the Rams lost in the season opener Thursday, their opponents in the NFC Championship Game, the 49ers, were dispatched amid 2 inches of standing rain by the lowly Bears. The AFC champion Bengals lost in a far more agonizing manner.
Let's get into a handful of those teams to get a sense of whether fans should be meaningfully worried by what they saw over the weekend. There's not much to say about the Cardinals getting manhandled by the Chiefs, who looked at first glance to be even better than the team we saw a year ago. I want to hit the five teams that made it to the playoffs in 2021 and then lost to a non-playoff team Sunday.
I'm also going to add two teams that made the playoffs last season, and I'll hit them first. The Steelers ended up topping the Bengals in overtime, but I wonder whether both fan bases might feel worse about their teams heading into Week 2. Let's start with Cincinnati, which seemed to overcome its own mistakes by the end of the game, only for the unbelievable to occur:
Jump to a team:
49ers | Bengals
Packers | Patriots
Raiders | Steelers | Titans
Cincinnati Bengals
Week 1 result: Lost 23-20 to Pittsburgh Steelers
During the 2021 playoffs, we talked about several reasons the Bengals had gone from being 7-6 and in the middle of a crowded playoff picture to somehow coming out of the AFC as conference champs. The AFC North's quarterbacks were all injured to one extent or another. Their pass rate spiked. Joe Burrow was more confident about the left knee he injured in 2020. The defense coalesced. Nobody believed they had a chance against the Titans and Chiefs. All of those factors meant something.
The biggest difference between the Bengals who lost to the Bears and Jets and the ones who beat the Chiefs and Titans, though, was plain as day. Through the first 13 games of their season, they turned the ball over 21 times. When they turned the ball over two or more times during that 13-game stretch to start the season, they went 0-5.
Over their final seven games of the season -- leaving aside a meaningless Week 18 game their starters took off -- Burrow & Co. went 6-1. They turned the ball over just two times, with one giveaway in their win over the Titans and their subsequent victory over the Chiefs.
We knew the Bengals weren't going to turn the ball over once per month for any extended period of time, but the regression past the mean didn't have to come so suddenly and be so dramatic. Burrow and Cincinnati turned the ball over on four of their first five drives in Week 1, with the quarterback losing a fumble on a strip sack and tossing three interceptions. He added a fourth pick later in the game. Burrow was strip-sacked yet again in overtime, but teammate Samaje Perine fell on the fumble.
The Bengals probably win this game without those giveaways. Safety Minkah Fitzpatrick took the first interception to the house for a pick-six, giving a limp Steelers offense seven crucial points. The Bengals might have been in position to attempt a long field goal if Burrow had merely avoided the strip sack in overtime, with Cincinnati instead being forced to punt. Even with the giveaways, the team was in position to win on an extra point at the end of regulation or a 29-yard field goal in overtime, neither of which produced points.
Should the Bengals be concerned about the turnovers? Not really. We know from history a five-giveaway game is historically unlikely. Watching those plays back, the Steelers deserve credit for making some spectacular catches. T.J. Watt somehow managed to catch a full-speed Burrow pass 0.2 seconds after it got into the air, per NFL Next Gen Stats. Cameron Sutton, who had a great game, made an excellent catch undercutting a Burrow pass up the seam. Ahkello Witherspoon tipped a pass to himself for his pick. Those throws are more likely to hit the ground harmlessly in weeks to come than they are to turn into interceptions again.
What would concern me as a Bengals fan, though, is that while the offensive line might be better after their free agency spending spree, the job of protecting Burrow might not be finished. He was sacked seven times by the Steelers on 60 dropbacks. Any line with Watt and Cameron Heyward is going to be fearsome, but the Bengals won on just 56.3% of their pass block attempts, per ESPN Stats & Information research; that's better than their 48.8% mark from a year ago, but it's still below league average.
While the Bengals addressed center and the right side of their line in free agency, the left side had a rough day. Left tackle Jonah Williams, a first-round draft pick in 2019, allowed two sacks to Alex Highsmith, including a strip sack. Debuting left guard Cordell Volson, who beat out Jackson Carman for the starting job, was bull-rushed by Heyward for one sack and asked to come across the line and kick out Watt on a play-action concept. You can guess what happened next.
The other reality is Burrow himself is responsible for taking some of these hits. This was true in the playoff game against the Titans, in which he was sacked nine times on 46 dropbacks, and again true against the Steelers. He's patient in the pocket when it comes to getting rid of the football, but that coolness can lead to sacks. The overtime forced fumble is on Burrow, who even saw Steelers defensive back Arthur Maulet blitzing off the edge and chose to keep the ball. He can sometime shrug off those hits and keep the play going. Instead, he handed the Steelers back the football for what ended up as a game-winning drive.
The special teams probably won't be this bad over the remainder of the season. The Bengals lost long-snapper Clark Harris to an injury in the fourth quarter, and while it might not seem difficult to find a player who can snap the ball in special teams situations elsewhere on your active roster, it's a specialized skill. Teams carry only one long-snapper on their active roster, and we saw the impact when a high snap led to Evan McPherson missing a 29-yard chip shot in overtime. The duo of Drew Sample and Hakeem Adeniji was unable to slow down Fitzpatrick, who saved the game with a crucial blocked extra point at the end of regulation.
The Bengals likely will be fine. Burrow won't turn the ball over this often. They'll find a long-snapper. They won't have key extra points blocked every week. Wideout Ja'Marr Chase should have had his first touchdown in the fourth quarter on a play in which he ran alongside the goal line and seemed to break the plane on a drive in which the Bengals eventually did not score. Burrow missed an open Mike Thomas up the sideline for what should have been a touchdown later in the quarter. That stuff happens.
In the big picture, though, those feelings of invincibility that seemed to come from Cincinnati's spectacular run to the postseason might have taken a hit. What felt like a formula during December and January isn't going to be sustainable. The Bengals can win games other ways, and they nearly won this game despite those turnovers, but they're not immune to bad luck and sloppy play. More tangibly, with every other team in the AFC North winning on Sunday, the Bengals are now in last place.
Pittsburgh Steelers
Week 1 result: Won 23-20 over Cincinnati Bengals
Having just said all of that, the Steelers might actually have reasons to feel worse about their future coming out of Sunday's game than their vanquished foes. Yes, they won, and a win is a win. Banking a victory is always the goal. In terms of what it told us about Pittsburgh, though, virtually all of what we found out doesn't bode well for their chances of contending.
Mike Tomlin's defense forced five takeaways. Great! Forcing a ton of takeaways is going to be its best chance of winning, and from its 2019 season, we know leading the league in takeaways is well within the team's range of possibilities on defense. It also seems safe to suggest the Steelers won't force five takeaways, score a defensive touchdown and block an extra point to save the game each week. It's dangerous to rely on your defense to be this productive if you want to win games consistently.
On top of that, the Steelers now appear to be without their best player for the foreseeable future. Amid his latest stellar performance, T.J. Watt left the field clutching his left arm while visibly suggesting he had torn a pectoral muscle. ESPN's Adam Schefter confirmed that the Steelers fear Watt suffered that very injury. If testing confirms a torn pectoral, he will be out for several months. The defense still has valuable players up front with Cameron Heyward and Alex Highsmith, who had three sacks in the opener, but Watt is the reigning Defensive Player of the Year. Any defense would suffer without him.
Can the offense shoulder more of the burden? Based on what we saw Sunday, the answer is no. The Steelers scored 16 points on 13 offensive possessions, and that was with a mostly full game from Najee Harris, who left in the fourth quarter with what appeared to be a foot injury. Harris' injury doesn't appear to be as severe as Watt's, but the Steelers don't have any meaningful depth at running back.
Making his first start since leaving the Bears in 2020, quarterback Mitch Trubisky looked ... a lot like the guy who struggled through his time with Chicago. He didn't turn the ball over, but his 38 pass attempts generated just 194 yards. He generated minus-0.25 expected points added (EPA) per dropback. He had just five passing plays produce more than 10 yards, and they included a flea-flicker, a screen to tight end Zach Gentry, a spectacular one-handed catch by Diontae Johnson on a poorly placed ball, and a throw against the grain on a free play. Trubisky was not moving the ball functionally within the context of the offense to even the extent that Ben Roethlisberger was a year ago.
Trubisky will get more time to establish himself, but the Steelers won this game in spite of their offense. More performances like this and Pittsburgh will have no choice but to turn to rookie first-round pick Kenny Pickett, regardless of what their preseason plans might have been. Trubisky will get the Patriots in Week 2, and while New England's offense appears to be in a period of deep self-examination, the Steelers won't be able to rely on their Week 1 formula to win.
New England Patriots
Week 1 result: Lost 20-7 to Miami Dolphins
Well, you can't say the Patriots' struggles on offense came out of nowhere. After weeks of steady reporting that Mac Jones & Co. looked disjointed and sloppy during training camp, they scored seven points Sunday. Miami features one of the league's best secondaries and finished last season 10th in DVOA, but it's not the 1985 Bears. The Patriots made it to double digits in each of their 18 games a year ago. They're 0-for-1 in 2022.
After a closer look, I'm not quite as concerned about the Patriots as that score might seem. Yes, there are reasonable questions about their plans and their ceiling, but this was a better offensive performance than, say, the one we saw from the Steelers. New England picked up 17 first downs on eight meaningful drives, and only three of those came when they were down multiple scores in the fourth quarter.
Instead, their drives mostly came to an end in no man's land. Four of their eight drives ended between the Miami 40-yard line and midfield, where even a few more yards would have created a field goal opportunity. Those drives produced three punts and a fumble by wideout Nelson Agholor. A fifth ended on New England's 42-yard line. Most of those ended with fourth-and-long situations in which a punt was the right call; the Pats attempted and failed on a fourth-and-3 bomb to tight end Hunter Henry.
The offensive line has been a concern during the preseason, but the running backs deserve their fair share of the blame. The Pats averaged just 3.5 yards per carry and generated minus-0.24 EPA per rush attempt, with the latter standing as the third-worst mark of Week 1. Per the NFL Next Gen Stats rushing model, though, average backs with the same blocking as what we saw from the Patriots on Sunday would have gained just over 5.0 yards per carry.
The line bore more of the responsibility for the most damaging play of the game, when the Dolphins scored their defensive touchdown. A late blitz on the play by safety Brandon Jones should have been picked up by left tackle Trent Brown, who instead stayed inside to help block edge rusher Melvin Ingram. The Pats ended with three linemen blocking two Dolphins defenders and Jones running free for a strip sack, with Ingram recovering the fumble for a score. There were four fumbles, and Miami was fortunate enough to recover all of them.
Mac Jones (who's now dealing with a back injury) also drove the Patriots to the edge of the red zone on the opening drive of the game, only for a fade to DeVante Parker to result in a tipped interception. I'm not sure Parker isolated against star cornerback Xavien Howard is a great matchup for the Patriots, but it's pretty clear they acquired Parker to have him fill that role in their offense. Jones' throw could have been a little deeper -- and Parker could have done a slightly better job of competing for the pass -- but that sort of throw will usually result an incompletion, not an interception.
Whether the Patriots are better off with Parker on the field is still in question. They had him on the field for every offensive snap Sunday, and despite running 32 routes, he was able to command only two targets, with the other one turning into a 9-yard catch. Kendrick Bourne played just two offensive snaps Sunday, but after forming a relationship with Jones a year ago, he turned one of those two into a 41-yard catch down the sideline.
Lacking a great offensive line, significant offensive playmakers and a quarterback capable of making magic happen with his legs or through improvisation, the Patriots don't have much margin for error on offense. They need to be efficient, take advantage of their opportunities and protect the football. They weren't as inefficient as it might have seemed Sunday, but they went 0-for-3 in those categories.
Tennessee Titans
Week 1 result: Lost 21-20 to New York Giants
Like the Bengals, the Titans are another team that might feel like they established a steady formula for winning games. With running back Derrick Henry in the fold, they have been a dominant team in short yardage and in the red zone, and they've usually been good enough in key moments to pull out close victories. Over the past two seasons, they have gone 13-4 in games decided by seven points or fewer.
Well, the Titans are now 0-1 in those games in 2022. They were in position to pull out another close victory late against the Giants, but New York running back Saquon Barkley muscled through a tackle attempt to convert a 2-point try, and kicker Randy Bullock missed a 47-yard kick on the final snap of the game. This was the sort of game the Titans have won over the past two seasons.
To put it eloquently, the Titans didn't look very Titans-y on Sunday. Henry's 21 carries produced 82 yards, which was more like the local version of Henry we saw in 2021 than the express train of 2019 and 2020. The offense struggled with drops and bizarre playcalling on third down, leading it to convert just three of its 11 opportunities, most of which were in short yardage.
Tennessee faced third-and-4 yards or fewer seven times Sunday. Between 2019 and 2021, they converted those situations 66.5% of the time, which was the second-best mark in the league. They were 1-for-7 against New York, a conversion rate of 14.3%. It's probably bad luck that Henry fumbled a snap out of the Wildcat on third-and-1. It's probably bad decision-making to hand the ball to Chigoziem Okonkwo on a third-and-1 fly sweep when Henry is in the backfield. Teams can sometimes overcome a stuff on third down by going again on fourth down, but the Titans either kicked a field goal or punted on each of those subsequent fourth downs.
The defense let the game slip away with a few big plays. It was able to force quarterback Daniel Jones' weekly strip sack and took away a red zone possession when safety Amani Hooker intercepted a woefully thrown pass. It also allowed the Giants to generate two 60-plus yard plays, which led to two of New York's three touchdowns.
Third-year cornerback Kristian Fulton, who was excellent a year ago, figured into two big plays. On Barkley's 68-yard run, with two Titans ending up in the same gap at the line of scrimmage, Fulton was the force defender and tried to slip around a block from a pulling guard. The move gave Barkley an easy cutback angle and didn't even occupy the blocker, Joshua Ezeudu. Fulton missed his tackle, and Barkley exploded past Hooker in the hole. A last-ditch tackle by safety Kevin Byard saved a score, only for Barkley to finish the drive with a touchdown.
Later in the game, Fulton got burned by a player coming off a torn Achilles. Sterling Shepard never has been known as a downfield threat during his time as a pro, which might be why Fulton got caught looking into the backfield. With the Titans in quarters coverage, he couldn't have expected help for any deep route, but Shepard simply ran past him. Shepard then broke his tackle attempt before running forward for a 63-yard touchdown.
Fulton did later punch out a Barkley fumble at the end of a 33-yard run, but the ball went out of bounds. If anything, the Giants could have benefited even further from Titans largesse, but a muffed punt by Kyle Phillips that handed the Giants a short field led to Jones' interception.
Titans fans will say they were one kick away from winning this game, and that's true. Kickers are going to make 47-yard field goals more often than they miss them in the modern NFL. The Titans probably won't be as bad in short yardage or drop 9% of quarterback Ryan Tannehill's passes again next week, because those are things even bad football teams don't do week after week, and the Titans are a good team.
The Bills are also a good team, and that's who the Titans play next week. Tennessee has had plenty of success against Buffalo over the past few seasons, but we just finished a week in which the Bills looked absolutely terrifying against the defending champions, while the Titans looked sloppy in losing to one of the worst franchises in football.
The issue is that most metrics say the 2021 Titans were an average team with great luck. They were 20th in DVOA and 13th in ESPN's Football Power Index. They thrived by excelling in those spots in which one or two plays have a disproportionate impact on who wins and loses. Sunday was an example of how difficult it can be to sustain that formula from year to year. So was their 2021 playoff loss to the Bengals.
We're only one year removed from Week 1 of last season, when the Titans were blown out by the Cardinals and still managed to finish as the 1-seed in the AFC. They got better and will need to do so again, because great teams don't need last-second field goals to beat the Giants. They need to do a heck of a lot more to beat the Bills.
Green Bay Packers
Week 1 result: Lost 23-7 to Minnesota Vikings
The Packers, too, are counting on Week 1 being an aberration for the second consecutive season. One year after being blown out 38-3 in the opener by the Saints, they were outplayed from start to finish by the Vikings in Minnesota. Receiver Justin Jefferson caught nine passes for 184 yards, former Green Bay edge rusher Za'Darius Smith picked up a revenge sack of Aaron Rodgers and the Vikings cruised to a 16-point victory.
Is this a reason to be worried about the Packers? In the big picture, I don't think so. If there's anything we know about them, it's that they simply don't turn the ball over often. In Week 1 a year ago, they had three giveaways ... and then three more over the ensuing seven games. Sunday's two-turnover showing against the Vikings, courtesy of a Rodgers interception and strip sack, is unlikely to recur. After ranking in the top two for fewest turnovers each of the past four seasons, I'll believe they are subject to the normal laws of turnover regression when I see it.
As incredible as Rodgers has been during his back-to-back MVP campaigns, though, it's naive to pretend he was playing with an NFL-caliber supporting cast Sunday. The Packers have an excellent one-two punch at running back in Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon, and they were down several starters via injury, including wideout Allen Lazard and star linemen David Bakhtiari and Elgton Jenkins.
With that noted, contrast Rodgers' regular starters in 2020 to the guys who lined up in those roles in Week 1:
The 2020 Packers had a superstar at wide receiver in Davante Adams. Marquez Valdes-Scantling earned a meaningful deal in free agency in March, and Lazard has done enough to push into the top wideout role on the current roster when healthy. They had three All-Pro-caliber linemen and two solid starters in Lucas Patrick and Billy Turner. Just two of their five starting linemen Sunday have a full year of starting experience under their belt, and one of those two was Jon Runyan, who left with a possible concussion. Even Robert Tonyan wasn't 100% in his first game back after suffering a torn left ACL last October.
While Rodgers probably would tell you he didn't play his best football, the reality is the players around him weren't up to the task. Christian Watson dropped a would-be 75-yard touchdown on the opening drive, and while that led to snide comparisons to Valdes-Scantling, he drew only three other targets the rest of the way. Sammy Watkins and Randall Cobb combined for five catches and 32 yards while running a combined 55 routes.
Owing to a lack of reliable weapons, questions about the offensive line and a desire to get the ball into the hands of his running backs, Rodgers was throwing at or near the line of scrimmage more often than usual. The Packers throw plenty of short passes, but he averaged just 5.3 air yards per attempt, down more than 2 full yards from his 2020-21 averages. Rodgers attempted five throws more than 15 yards downfield, and with the Watson drop included, he went 1-of-5 for 23 yards with an interception on those passes. The one completion came when the Packers schemed up a (beautiful) fake screen to Romeo Doubs.
The Vikings, playing their first game under new defensive coordinator (and former Green Bay DC) Ed Donatell, forced the Packers to work underneath and stay efficient without making mistakes. They played two deep safeties on 35 of Rodgers's 39 pass attempts. ESPN's automated coverage analysis suggests the Vikings were in zone coverage on 30 of Rodgers's 39 attempts, with those 30 passes generating just 165 yards. They blitzed only about 14% of the time, but the Vikings were able to get pressure at nearly double that rate with their front four before then relying on the robber defenders to peel off and chase down Rodgers when scrambling.
The Packers get the Bears next week, and while I'll get to them in a second, Chicago isn't a fair match for Rodgers & Co. Over the next few weeks, the Packers also get the Giants, Jets and Commanders alongside their marquee matchup with the Buccaneers, so it wouldn't be a surprise if they hit their Week 8 game with the Bills at 5-2. The sky isn't falling.
In terms of this offense, though, the difference between Week 1 of 2021 and 2022 is the cavalry might not be there. That team had Adams, with Lazard as the third wideout. Now, Lazard needs to come back and be this team's top wideout. The 2021 Packers had only Bakhtiari for a game, but after his multiple knee surgeries, it's unclear whether Green Bay can ever count on getting back the guy who was perennially one of the league's best left tackles for a long stretch of time.
Rodgers will make it work. Watson will catch a long touchdown. Dillon and Jones will be able to hammer home leads. The Packers won't go 1-for-3 in the red zone and 3-for-11 on third and fourth down each week. As we think about a team with Super Bowl aspirations, though, Sunday was a clear warning that its margin for error on offense is now razor thin.
San Francisco 49ers
Week 1 result: Lost 19-10 to Chicago Bears
How much are you willing to pin on terrible weather? If you're optimistic about new 49ers starting quarterback Trey Lance, the answer is probably quite a bit. Facing a Bears defense that doesn't project to be dominant, Lance and the 49ers simply couldn't do much on the offensive side of the ball. With 11 drives, including three short fields, they scored 10 points. They generated minus-0.18 EPA per play, which ranks 27th out of the 30 teams that have played so far in Week 1. Jimmy Garoppolo was more productive in terms of EPA per play in 42 of his 45 starts with the team.
Like the Patriots, the 49ers had a disproportionate amount of their drives end up in no man's land. Seven of their 11 drives ended somewhere between their own 40-yard line and the Bears' 40, with the Niners failing to convert on fourth down on each of their final three drives. One of the drives that advanced past the 40 ended when Deebo Samuel fumbled, an issue for the star wideout during his All-Pro season a year ago.
Lance also threw an interception on a slant that simply wasn't there, leading safety Eddie Jackson to the throwing lane with his eyes. As a passer, Lance looked a lot like a quarterback who has one year as a starter since his last high school game in 2017. He often seemed overly deliberate in the pocket, and he looked better as pass concepts were simpler. His best play of the day came on a two-man route in the first quarter, when the 49ers went with max protection and gave him a clear throwing lane to find Brandon Aiyuk for 31 yards.
At other moments, Lance seemed to be battling every element of being a pro passer from snap to snap. He is tall and incredibly mobile, but he seemed uncomfortable moving within the pocket and took a coverage sack inside the 5-yard line. His mechanics were inconsistent, leading to missed throws, including what should have been a touchdown pass to Tyler Kroft on coach Kyle Shanahan's famous "leak" pass concept. Lance posted a minus-21.1% completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) in his 2022 debut, the worst mark for any quarterback in Week 1. Chicago's Justin Fields was just behind him at minus-16.8%, suggesting the weather certainly influenced the completion percentages, and the 49ers helped by dropping three of Lance's 28 passes.
As a runner, Lance was more impactful, but many of his carries came late in the game on scrambles, when the 49ers were trailing by nine points and the weather was further deteriorating. They went to designed quarterback draws in long-yardage situations twice, including one in which Lance ran for a first down on third-and-13. Lance took several big hits from Bears linebackers, which again might owe to his inexperience. There was a nifty triple-option look, but while San Francisco ran a wide variety of run concepts, it was more conventional in most cases than we might have expected or hoped given Lance's skill set.
Again, though: How much of this are you willing to put on the rain? It's not difficult to imagine a scenario in which Shanahan took some of the more ballhandling-intensive run concepts out of the playbook, owing to the conditions. Lance also threw downfield more frequently than any quarterback in the league in a small sample a year ago, but he attempted only four passes of 20 or more yards downfield on Sunday. One was a beautiful 44-yard completion to wideout Jauan Jennings on a drive that eventually produced a short field goal from Robbie Gould.
Lance is simply not going to be polished at this point of his career, having thrown right around 400 passes since graduating from high school. He's going to have to survive early in his career by being a better runner, having opportunities schemed up for him in the passing game and hitting big plays frequently enough to make up for missing intermediate stuff.
Lance is capable of doing that in better weather, but Sunday suggested the second-year passer isn't about to go supernova on the league in the way Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes announced in their respective Week 1 sophomore starts. Then again, they weren't playing in a series of puddles in Chicago, either.
Of course, there's the Garoppolo question hanging over Lance's role. The 49ers need to give Lance time to develop. He wasn't great, but they lost this game because of mistakes made by other players on the roster. Samuel fumbled. Defenders Dre Greenlaw and Charvarius Ward extended Chicago's first touchdown drive with third-down penalties. The pass rush couldn't bring down Fields on what ended up as a 51-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Dante Pettis, a former Niners second-round pick. Strange things happen in terrible conditions, and I want to see Lance in better weather in the weeks to come.
If the 49ers were holding on to Garoppolo to serve as a possible trade candidate, an opening suddenly appeared once Dak Prescott went down with a right thumb injury Sunday night. ESPN's Todd Archer reports Prescott will miss six to eight weeks and undergo surgery, and with Cooper Rush as Dallas' backup, it seems logical the Cowboys would at least call the Niners about Garoppolo. The 49ers and Cowboys are longtime rivals, but they don't play in the same division and aren't on the schedule against each other. I'm not sure the Niners are desperate to trade Garoppolo to Dallas -- or that the quarterback would be willing to waive his no-trade clause for a month of starting work -- but it's at least a possibility that would be worth considering.
If Lance had been incredible Sunday, that call would be easy to take. After seeing him struggle through a frustrating performance, though, can the 49ers realistically trade Garoppolo to the Cowboys? It's not about next week or the week after, but if Lance looks like this guy in midseason, they might be pushed into a change by their locker room. Furthermore, if Lance continues to take so many big hits as a runner, they might be forced to play Garoppolo because their franchise quarterback is injured. Lance will get another week of reps under presumably friendlier conditions at home against the Seahawks next week.
Las Vegas Raiders
Week 1 result: Lost 24-19 to Los Angeles Chargers
Let's finish up with the Raiders, who are only on this list in spirit. They played better than every other team above, and they went up against stiffer competition in the Chargers, who were nearly a playoff team a year ago. I don't believe there's any reason to drastically consider changing how you feel about the Raiders now versus what you felt heading into Week 1 based on what we saw in the opener.
At the same time, this game felt like it confirmed a lot of what I believed about Las Vegas heading into the season, and I'm more pessimistic about this team than most. I'm also not simply referring to the fact it lost a one-score game after going 7-2 in games decided by seven points or fewer a year ago.
From a roster construction perspective, this fit what we expected about the Raiders. Coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler started their retooling of the roster by trading their first- and second-round picks for receiver Davante Adams, and then they added extensions for quarterback Derek Carr and pass-catchers Hunter Renfrow and Darren Waller. That core passing attack looked great for stretches when Carr had time. In his debut, Adams caught 10 passes for 141 yards. Waller added four catches for 79 yards, including a beautiful touch pass from Carr to set up an Adams touchdown. All of that was great.
Carr also threw three interceptions, all on plays in which he didn't get enough on the football. Those throws weren't under pressure, but he also dealt with pass pressure in key situations, including back-to-back strip sacks on Vegas' final drive of the game. An offensive line that didn't get the help it badly needed this offseason allowed Carr to be sacked five times on 42 dropbacks, with Adams taking a sixth sack on an ill-executed trick play.
While the Raiders added Chandler Jones to form a one-two pass-rushing punch with Maxx Crosby, they didn't do much more than take fliers on possible options in the secondary. The front four was able to pressure L.A. passer Justin Herbert more often as the game went along, but the third-year star wasn't sacked once on his 34 dropbacks. The only quarterback who was contacted less frequently than Herbert in Week 1 was Tom Brady on Sunday night.
Whether pressured or unpressured, Herbert picked apart the Raiders in the passing game, going 26-of-34 for 279 yards with three touchdowns. His 87.6 QBR was the second-best mark for any passer on Sunday, trailing only Patrick Mahomes. He was able to do that despite losing Keenan Allen to a second-quarter hamstring injury. The Raiders were able to limit Mike Williams to two catches for 10 yards on four targets, but Herbert coaxed contributions out of DeAndre Carter, Gerald Everett and Tre' McKitty.
Unfortunately for Vegas, it also is now dealing with a stream of injuries. While nobody quite as prominent as Allen went down, McDaniels' team lost cornerback Anthony Averett, running back Brandon Bolden, safety Tre'von Moehrig and linebacker Denzel Perryman to injuries throughout the game. This team already has questions about its depth on defense, so losing starters to injuries in Week 1 makes a difficult situation worse.
A five-point loss to the Chargers isn't the end of the world, but things stay difficult for the Raiders. Over the next month, they get the Cardinals, Titans, Broncos and Chiefs before hitting their Week 6 bye. The schedule gets easier afterward, but finishing off a comeback victory over hated division rivals in what sounded like a de facto home game for Raiders fans in Los Angeles would have been a great start to the season. Now they'll need to go 3-1 or 4-0 against stiff competition to hit their bye week above .500.