4 NFL teams who have the exact issues we thought they'd have

Week 1 of the NFL season offers us a great opportunity to learn new things about teams and to be surprised by what we see on the football field.

It's also a chance for us to realize that some of our offseason expectations were spot on, and that's what we're here to talk about now — things that happened in Week 1 that made us stop and say "oh, yeah, that went just like we thought it would."

These four NFL teams have issues that were pretty obvious coming into the season and, after one week of play, are still very obvious.

Detroit Lions: The O-line is bad and coaching brain drain is real

Maybe the Lions needed Ben Johnson after all.

With their former offensive coordinator gone to Chicago, the Lions just kind of floundered against the Packers. Sure, some of that is because Green Bay made some very good moves this offseason, but the Lions offense just seemed to lack the creativity we're used to.

Even more than that, though, the expected offensive line struggles manifested in a poor day for Jared Goff, who was sacked four times. He was forced to get the ball out quickly because the line couldn't keep defenders off him, and while it resulted in decent numbers as far as completion percentage, it was a lot of empty completions short of the chains that failed to keep drives sustained.

Up next for the Lions? Chicago, which means the team gets to see up close what Johnson is doing with the Bears offense now.

Tennessee Titans: Cam Ward really needed more help

Remember last year when the Bears took Caleb Williams No. 1 overall and brought him into a situation that was built for success, with three pretty good receivers and a solid run game? I mean, sure, Williams was unable to take advantage of that, but the fact that the Bears tried to make life easy on their No. 1 pick was still very smart.

The Titans, though, appear to just be throwing Cam Ward out to the wolves.

The offseason addition of Tyler Lockett already looks like a bust after he failed to bring in his only target. Calvin Ridley led the team in targets, but second was fourth-round rookie Elic Ayomanor, whose seven targets resulted in two catches for 13 yards.

Outside of Ridley, there's no trustworthy wide receiver on this team. Maybe Ward can just dump the ball off to Chig Okonkwo over and over, but as a whole, this offense just doesn't seem like one that's set up to help a rookie passer.

I mean, look at this!

I selfishly need Cam Ward to be great. He's the best athlete to ever come out of my high school and he deserves a chance to shine in the NFL. The Titans, though, haven't set him up to shine.

Atlanta Falcons: Is this team ever going to fix its pass rush?

The Falcons recorded just one sack on Sunday, and it came because rookie corner Billy Bowman managed to get through a hole in the line on a blitz out of the slot. He and Divine Deablo were credited with a half-sack each, but if you watch the film, you can tell it was Bowman who brought the pressure there.

Which means, then, that the front seven for Atlanta was responsible for no sacks. That seems bad!

But it's also not really that much different than what we expected out of this Falcons defense, which finished 31st in the NFL in sacks last year, marking the second time in the past three seasons the team finished next-to-last in sacks. And before that, the 2021 Falcons were last in sacks with just 18. It's been a rough stretch here for the Atlanta pass rush and it hasn't seemed to improve.

Houston Texans: Oh, you can't bargain bin your way into an offensive line

I'm ready to take a public flogging for my insistence this offseason that the Texans offensive line was going to be better. I trusted that GM Nick Caserio had made the right moves there despite not investing much money in the position and that Houston's line would be decent. Not, like, good, but at least passable.

Then came Week 1 against the Rams and we got to see exactly what we saw last year: C.J. Stroud under constant pressure.

Stroud did a good job getting the ball out when pressured, but it prevented him from having the time to let things develop down the field. We saw that on the stat sheet when looking at the lack of Nico Collins on Sunday, as Stroud just didn't have time to get the ball to his star wideout.

The starting offensive line of Cam Robinson, Laken Tomlinson, Jake Andrews, Tytus Howard and Aireontae Ersery features just one player — Howard — from last year's team. He also happened to be the one bright spot. Tomlinson and Ersery were particularly bad when it came to pass blocking.

Stroud is a good quarterback, but he's not yet at the level where he can succeed if he's given absolutely nothing from his line. Can Houston find a way to fix things on the fly?

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