ClutchPoints
The NFL is back! Week 1 delivered in the best way, with great games coming down to the wire in all four primetime windows and throughout the Sunday slate.
Some teams with high expectations soared through their openers. The Green Bay Packers looked like the Super Bowl contenders everyone was hoping for in a destruction of the Detroit Lions after the Micah Parsons trade. The Bills and the Ravens played one of the best regular season games you’ll ever see on Sunday night, with Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson ascending to another planet while going blow-for-blow with each other.
On the flip side, not everyone left Sunday with a smile. The Miami Dolphins embarrassed themselves in a disastrous loss to the Colts, while the Texans still couldn’t protect C.J. Stroud in a loss to the Rams. The Broncos escaped with a win over the Titans despite a poor day from Bo Nix and the offense.
Were those dreadful showings enough to make the losers list? Here is the worst of the worst from Week 1.
For 55 minutes on Sunday night, watching the Baltimore Ravens was football heaven. Lamar Jackson was a walking explosive play through the air while producing a scramble that somehow took him from 25 yards in the backfield to a third-and-10 conversion, all while making Chris Collinsworth mutter some inaudible noises into his headset. Derrick Henry was still very big and very fast, outrunning a helpless Bills defense that had no answers for it.
Then, with five minutes to go in the game, the Ravens remembered that they are in fact the best team in the NFL, not at football, but at losing games that make you stare at your TV for a half-hour afterwards and wonder: How did they just lose that game?
Something out of the Ravens’ control kickstarted the collapse when Keon Coleman was right there to reel in a bizarre tipped fourth-down pass for a touchdown to cut the lead to eight. Then Baltimore fell into the same sort of implosion that has plagued it more than any other team over the last few seasons.
Derrick Henry, normally an invincible iron man, fumbled at the worst possible time to set up another Buffalo touchdown, cutting the lead to just two. Then, John Harbaugh decided to punt the ball on fourth-and-3 instead of giving Jackson another crack at closing the game out.
They just lost the game was the only thought rolling through my head the second the punter stepped on the field for Baltimore, and Josh Allen proceeded to march the Bills right into chipshot field goal range to seal the improbable victory. This loss may not matter, or it may be the reason the Ravens are back in Buffalo in January instead of in front of their home fans.
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