Biggest NFL Week 1 Overreactions
By Kim Myers
Welcome to the first Overreaction Monday in the NFL. The NFL is really the only sports league where each week it’s either the best you’ve ever seen or the worst you’ve ever seen. There is no middle-ground. The reactions following week 1’s games are no different. Here we go from one extreme to another.
Peyton Manning on pace to throw for 100+ touchdowns this season.
It’s easy to overreact to a blowout like the Broncos gave the Ravens on the Thursday night opener to the NFL season. Peyton Manning tied a league record with 7 touchdown passes and TE Julius Thomas was a surprise with five catches for 110 yards and two touchdowns. The easiest thing to do would be assume Peyton and his offense will be in sync like this for every game and Julius Thomas is the new “It” tight end in the league. Calm down, it’s just week 1.
Geno Smith is the new “Broadway (Insert QB’s first name here)” in New York
Monday morning NY Jets QB Geno Smith was getting heralded for his “gritty and tough” play in the game-winning drive in the final seconds of their game against the Tampa Bay Bucs. Geno Smith was hit out of bounds by LB Lavonte David on a run he was trying to get a first down and a clock stoppage. The Jets ended up benefitting from the 15 yard penalty to put them in Nick Folk’s field goal range to knock in the 48-yard game-winning field goal with 2 seconds left on the clock. So Smith gets all the credit instead of Folk, or even saying that they lucked out with that penalty because Smith and the Jets were so ineffective the whole day there wasn’t a whole lot of confidence he could get them into field goal range without that penalty. Good thing that reality for the Jets will come in the form of a Thursday night game in Foxboro.
Terrelle Pryor is the new savior in Oakland
This overreaction comes out of pure desperation that town has for something or someone worth rooting for in the Silver & Black so you can kind of understand how Terrelle Pryor not being horrible in his starting NFL debut could garner some recognition for him. Pryor rushed for an impressive 112 yards on Sunday but I wouldn’t expect that to be a regular occurrence for him all season long.
Reggie Bush is the difference in Detroit
It was thought of as an odd move for the Lions to acquire Reggie Bush this offseason to be their featured running back because he just isn’t thought of as a traditional between-the-tackles type back but he did manage a monster game in week 1 against Minnesota both receiving and rushing. Will it last though? I’ll put it to you this way; the Lions got the same type of production out of Kevin Smith once upon a time. Did that last?
The Steelers are done
Ok this one might be a little true. Full disclosure I am a Steelers fan. If you think the average NFL is prone to overreaction, you ain’t seen nothing till you witness the city following a Steelers loss, and especially an ugly one like we witnessed on Sunday. Unfortunately the Steelers lost their Pro Bowl center Maurkice Pouncey to a season-ending knee injury within the first four minutes of their loss to the Titans. Ben Roethlisberger was then harassed the remainder of the game and was sacked 5 times. Without a solid offensive line it may not make a difference if the Steelers can resurrect their running game once Le’Veon Bell is healthy because Ben could be decapitated by then. Ok maybe that’s a little overreacting too. See what Week 1 does to you?
The Eagles offense is the future of the NFL
I honestly didn’t see this coming from the Eagles. Vick looked like he was 10 years younger and the offense was running the Redskins defense ragged all night. Not only did they have the tempo but they had the execution and that was impressive. Unfortunately, this offense has got Vick going down with some type of season-ending-injury in a few weeks written all over it. Hopefully for Eagles fans, Nick Foles runs the offense just as well as Vick did against Washington.
The NFL format just lends itself to overreaction. With only 17 weeks and 16 games in the season it’s very easy to say that the very next game is always the most important game of the season. There is very little room for errors so it’s easy to blow things out of proportion. But at the same time, the last three Super Bowl winners had at least 7 other teams with better regular season records than them so it’s not always do-or-die every week. We can calm down a little. Until next week.