Close, but still so far away. Last week, I made the bold call that the New Orleans Saints would open the season with a win over the Detroit Lions. The Saints tried, but just couldn't quite complete the comeback, failing on a potential game-winning 2-point conversion attempt in overtime.
What bold prediction will I almost get right this week? Here are three that definitely could happen, if things wind up breaking right for these teams.
Baker Mayfield blows up against the Browns
The Cleveland Browns are not a good football team. In Week 1, Deshaun Watson showed us how true that is on the offensive side by posting a complete stinker against the Jaguars, while the defense let Trevor Lawrence throw four touchdown passes. In Week 2, we're going to see the same thing again, this time at the hands of former Browns No. 1 overall pick Baker Mayfield.
Mayfield was drafted in 2018 and spent four seasons with the Browns before the sides parted ways. In 2022, he opened his post-Browns career with a 26-24 loss to his former team, the only time he's faced them. That was when he was quarterbacking a very poor Panthers rosters, though; now, Mayfield is in Tampa, where he's in a much better position to have a huge revenge game against the Browns.
In Week 1, Mayfield was 23-for-28 for 216 yards, but didn't end up throwing a touchdown. The volume might look close to the same in Week 2, but the yardage will be above 300 and the touchdown number will be at least two, though I'd predict three of them for Mayfield against a Browns team that has a very, very good chance to finish with the NFL's worst record.
Cooper Rush makes a case to be the permanent starter
The offseason for the Atlanta Falcons was all about who'd start at quarterback between Tua Tagovailoa and Michael Penix Jr., with some people suggesting the team should just turn to UDFA rookie Jack Strand instead. So, because the NFL tends to be weird as hell, the Week 1 starter for the team was...Cooper Rush?
It wasn't a great start for Rush, who threw for 143 yards and was picked off twice, but he gets the start again this week against the Carolina Panthers with Penix out. And, well...the Panthers defense is coming off a nightmare loss to the Chicago Bears that saw the team somehow lose by 22 points in a game where it scored 37 points. How do you do that?
Rush is a solid journeyman quarterback, and he's going to show that against the Panthers. While I don't think the Falcons will keep him as the starter once Penix is back, I think Rush plays well enough this week that it becomes a discussion point. I also think that if Tagovailoa is healthy before Penix is, the Falcons will opt to start Rush over him in Week 3.
Dallas' defense lets it down once again
The Dallas Cowboys defense was bad in 2025 after trading away Micah Parsons, but improvement was expected this season. The team invested heavily on that side of the ball, including using two first-round picks, a third and a fourth on defenders. But in Week 1, it didn't look like any of that mattered.
Dallas opened its season with a 28-20 loss to the New York Giants, struggling to get stops through the air and on the ground. The team allowed the second-most first downs in the league and the seventh-most yards in that Week 1 defeat, and now they face another divisional foe, the Washington Commanders.
Washington lost in Week 1 as well, falling 24-22 to the Eagles. Not a huge shock there, as quarterback Jayden Daniels was still shaking the rust off. This week against the Cowboys, that rust will be fully gone. The Dallas run defense will also allow Jacory Croskey-Merritt to surpass his career high of 111 rushing yards in a game. It's possible that Dallas is able to get the offense going and comes away with a shootout victory, but that's the only way the Cowboys win this game.
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