Observations from Week One In The NFL - Brendan Darr's Blog

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Brendan Darr's Blog

Observations from Week One In The NFL Stuck

Posted on September 11, 2012 at 07:48 PM.

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(Credit: Photo from USA Today)

Week One is in the books in the NFL. Some of your fantasy teams already look terrible. Your Madden Dynasty suffered a major injury. But how are your real life teams doing? I only ask because I bet against the Redskins in last week's NFC preview and I was happily wrong. This negative attitude towards my team shall continue until it no longer works.

1) With that being said, HOW ABOUT THEM REDSKINS? If you only knew how excited Redskins fans are still 48 hours later. You would have thought the fans calling in to local radio were preparing for a Super Bowl Parade today.

Granted, Robert Griffin III had a decent debut. Just 300+ yards, 2 touchdowns and no interceptions. Not too shabby, Bob.

2) One more thought on the Redskins -- In my Stars of the Preseason blog, I said I wasn't sure how Alfred Morris would play this season. Well, now we know he'll be the starter the rest of the season -- or until Mike Shanahan realizes he is, in fact, Mike Shanahan and Roy Helu Jr. gets his shot. Morris led the Skins with 28 carries, 96 yards and 2 touchdowns.

3) The Saints. This was a one game aberration. Or... was it a sign of things to come? Drew Brees proved he couldn't carry this team alone. They abandoned the run game early, and will need to establish that going forward to take pressure off Brees.

4) Unexpected Offense -- Step right up New York Jets and Baltimore Ravens. Both the Jets and Ravens unexpectedly put up 40+ points. Who knew they had that in them? I certainly didn't. Of the two, I think the Ravens have the better chance of keeping up that kind of scoring pace after putting up 44 on a very good Bengals defense. Quarterback Joe Flacco looks like he has had the child locks taken off the offense and he can really open it up. I'd expect to see more of Wide Receiver Torrey Smith in the future as well.

5) Rushing Game? -- There's a question mark after that because six teams had their leading rusher not even hit the 30-yard mark. The Panthers, as a team, finished with 10 -- Yes, TEN rushing yards. Given the talent in that backfield that is unbelievable to me.

6) Last, but certainly not least, the replacement referees. I'm not buying that they were great, let alone good. There were three games this year that were longer than the longest game of last season, and one -- the Saints-Redskins game -- was 20 minutes longer. The replacement refs gave Seattle an extra timeout. They also blew a few other calls, as Mike Pereira pointed out throughout the day on FOX.

Comments

# 1 Bmore Irish @ Sep 11

ravens and redskins, hope these two teams look as good as they did in week 1 by the time week 14 rolls around. thatd make for one hell of a beltway bash. but more importantly, the ravens are much more capable of sustaining that success.

# 2 enice128 @ Sep 12

wow no mention of my cowboys! romo only got sacked i believe on that initial drive which i believe was the second play of the game! he dipped out of a bunch of sack attempts & got the job done throwing 3 tds & only ONE int! more importantly he got the job done on the big 3rd & 10 to put the nail in the coffin for the giants! as they say on fox sports or whatever channel......."C'MON MAN!!!!!!!"