With blowouts littering scoreboards across NFL Week 1, it would appear that the have and have-nots emerged for all to see. Yet the lies are obvious, and closers are the real winners. Don’t believe your eyes.
A number of blowouts littered the NFL Week 1 slate. In another scenario, having heard that news, we would have been prepared to declare 2019 the year of the haves and have-nots. Much like Major League Baseball, perhaps coincidentally or perhaps thanks to the spread of planned/strategic losing throughout all sports, we would see mass separation between the best and worst teams in the league. The middle class would be melting away to nothing.
In that scenario, the have-nots would certainly include the Miami Dolphins and New York Giants, two teams that got rightly ran off the field on Sunday. But it was also supposed to include the likes of Cincinnati, Washington and Arizona.
Those latter three expected losers didn’t end up winning their ballgames, but none of them got manhandled either. If the supposed worst teams in the league are competitive, it kind of destroys the narrative.
Forget the have and have-nots, NFL Week 1 was all about closers. Do we believe the scoreboards and the lies or see the truth of what transpired on the field? Did anyone actually show us their true colors to start the season?
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Two brothers from New York, Dan Salem and Todd Salem, debate NFL Week 1 in today’s NFL Sports Debate.
Todd Salem:
Not helping matters is the fact that a number of the teams that actually received blowouts were not expected have-nots. Pittsburgh wasn’t competitive; Cleveland got handled; Atlanta and Jacksonville couldn’t hang. There were logical arguments that all four of those clubs would make the playoffs this season. They all still might, which again blows a hole in the narrative that 2019 would be the year of haves and have-nots. Instead, it looks like just another unpredictable year.
Arguably, the sport’s best characteristic is that so much changes season to season. We know teams will jump from last to first and drop from first to last. Nothing about this offseason has been predictable anyway. We had multiple star-player holdouts (one still ongoing), an earth-shattering retirement and the single weirdest character arc of my lifetime. Why should the play on the field then become neat and tidy?
It is obviously too early to make any future deductions that hold water other than saying Miami won’t make the postseason. NFL Week 1 just sets the stage for our annual narrative. It does nothing more. But this year’s Week 1 didn’t even reach that mark. I don’t know what narrative to place on it.
Player empowerment doesn’t feel like the right narrative when contracts are still not guaranteed and everyone is replaceable; even newly minted franchise quarterbacks. Haves and have-nots isn’t right either. Everyone is again looking up at the New England Patriots. Could it be as simple as that? Chasing the champs yet again.
Dan Salem:
We both know that September football is a bunch of fake-outs and misdirection. Nearly half of the playoff field will barely escape the month with a .500 record. Its basically the real preseason, so what can we deduce from NFL Week 1 this year?
We are living in a world of have and have-nots but it’s even more than that. It’s a bunch of average teams and then closers. The closers either blew out their competition or came on strong in the second half to win.
Look at Buffalo, New Orleans and Philadelphia. All three were down early and needed big second halves to secure a Week 1 victory. New England has been the ultimate closer and took it to a deteriorating Steelers team from the first whistle to the last. There is a lot of crucial information to be gleaned from Week 1, just don’t write off any team that actually showed something at some point.
There are only a handful of teams we can legitimately write off this season already. Miami is obvious. The Cardinals and Lions are both forgettable as well. One or the other had a chance to be decent, but because they fought hard to a tie, it’s obvious neither is actually very good.
We can also feel pretty good about writing off Tampa Bay, the New York Giants and Denver. Although, it’s possible that the Giants and Buccaneers opponents are both really good. This means that perhaps they aren’t as bad as they looked.
The point is, don’t start pulling your hair out over a Week 1 result. I’m looking at you New York Jets fans. Don’t start throwing a Super Bowl party either. New England Patriots fans, that means you.
Slow starts and awful starts get corrected every season by at least one or two teams. Great starts also melt away faster than the leaves falling off the trees, so stay tuned for week two. It will speak volumes about the real have and have-nots, the real closers and also-rans.
While I certainly wish my football team won its first game, I’m not freaking out. Only the tanking Dolphins and humiliated Steelers can realistically be crying in the corner.