ATLANTA — You think you were excited for Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season? You weren’t nearly as excited as us. That’s because Week 1 is the overreaction Super Bowl, baby.

If you just watched the early-window games Sunday and let yourself forget there are still 17 more weeks to go, you might be thinking the Bengals are toast, the Falcons need to bench Kirk Cousins for Michael Penix Jr., Sam Darnold is an MVP candidate and the Saints are going to the Super Bowl. All patently absurd takes, of course, but this is what we live for in this overreactionary weekly space, where we judge a few potential takeaways from the weekend’s games as legitimate or irrational.

Let’s start with a team that won Sunday without scoring a touchdown … because why not?

Jump to:
Could Fields start all year?
Falcons far from the NFC South lock?
Best offense of Mahomes career?
Time to pay Parsons now?
Could Watson get benched?

Justin Fields will keep the Steelers’ starting quarterback job all season

Fields lost a training camp competition to fellow Steelers newcomer Russell Wilson, but then Wilson aggravated his training camp calf injury Thursday and Fields ended up having to start the opener in Atlanta. The Steelers won the game 18-10 thanks to six Chris Boswell field goals. Fields was 17-for-23 for 156 passing yards, rushed 14 times for 57 yards and most importantly did not turn the ball over.

It was a conservative game plan by Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, who eight months ago was the Falcons’ coach and brought with him a healthy respect for the playmakers on his old team’s defense and a strong faith in his new one’s unit. On this day, though, it was good enough. It remains to be seen whether Wilson’s calf will feel good enough this week to allow him to play the Steelers’ Week 2 game against one of his former teams in Denver, but the Steelers are 1-0 with Fields as the starter.

Verdict: OVERREACTION

The main reason Wilson won the competition for the starting job was that the Steelers still don’t fully trust Fields as much as they trust Wilson to process what he’s seeing from opposing defenses and be accurate on short- and midrange throws. They view Fields as a developmental player who has enough skill and experience that they can play him if need be — but he isn’t their top choice just yet.

The game Smith called Sunday proves that. Fields’ average throw in the first half went 3.9 yards downfield, which is half of what he averaged last season in Chicago. As long as the Steelers have edge rusher T.J. Watt — who dominated the second half Sunday and ended the game with a cherry-on-top sack of Cousins and then bowed to the many, many Steelers fans in the crowd for a road game — it might not matter whether Wilson or Fields plays quarterback. But Wilson is Pittsburgh’s choice right now if both guys are healthy, and I believe you will see him in there once his calf is healed.

Someone other than the Falcons will win the NFC South

The flip side of Pittsburgh’s touchdown-free victory was a very disappointing loss for the Falcons — a team most people seem to be picking to win its division. Atlanta is loaded with skill position talent on offense and has a strong offensive line, and the thought was that adding Cousins in free agency would help unlock the potential of the offense. Heck, the Falcons even made two widely praised acquisitions late in the offseason to bolster their defense with veterans Justin Simmons and Matthew Judon. No team in the NFC South has won 10 regular-season games since the Tom Brady Buccaneers did so in 2021, so there’s a justified perception that the division is winnable.

But in a home stadium packed with visiting fans, Cousins and the Falcons’ offense laid a Week 1 egg. Atlanta led this game 10-9 at the half, but Cousins was a meager 3-for-8 for 19 yards, an interception and a lost fumble after halftime. As a team, the Falcons had only 51 second-half yards.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

And this isn’t because I think the Falcons will be this bad all season … I don’t. But I also don’t think we can expect them to waltz to a division title just because Cousins showed up. They need to put this thing together. None of the starters played in the preseason, and Cousins hadn’t played since Week 8 of last season, when he tore his Achilles. This looked like a group that was knocking off some rust, and it might continue to look that way next week in Philadelphia and going forward until everybody gets their feet under them.

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Kirk Cousins throws 2 INTs in Falcons’ debut

DeShon Elliott and Donte Jackson pick off Kirk Cousins to spoil his Falcons debut as the Steelers hold on to win.

Meanwhile, there’s a team in Tampa Bay that has won the NFC South each of the past three years and just beat Washington 37-20 to open the season. New Orleans just dropped 47 points in its opener against Carolina. Cousins and the Falcons would be the first ones to tell you they need to earn it. Sunday was a reminder that the kind of change they’re trying to bring about here doesn’t happen overnight.

This year’s Chiefs offense will be the best one that Patrick Mahomes has ever had

The 2024 season began Thursday night with the two-time defending champion Chiefs holding on to beat the Ravens by a toenail. The game showcased a Chiefs offense that looks a lot faster, a lot smoother and a lot more confident than it did as it muddled through the 2023 regular season.

Rookie receiver Xavier Worthy was electrifying and scored two touchdowns. Second-year wideout Rashee Rice went over 100 yards. Running back Isiah Pacheco looked spry and found the end zone. Travis Kelce is still an impact player. And while Hollywood Brown missed the game due to injury, he will be there eventually and only helps.

Mahomes has a lot more places — and a lot more fun places — he can go with the ball than he did a year ago. Consider that 188 of his 291 passing yards came after the catch Thursday. And if the Kansas City defense is half as good as it was last season, the first three-peat in Super Bowl history is on the table.

Verdict: OVERREACTION

Yes, I believe the Chiefs will have a better offense than they did in 2023. Yes, I enjoyed watching Worthy in his debut. But guys, he had three touches. The Ravens outgained the Chiefs by 99 yards. As fun as the Chiefs looked in this game, they were an Isaiah Likely toenail and a 2-point conversion away from being 0-1.

I’m not picking against the Chiefs; I picked them to win the Super Bowl. They’re great, and they deserve all of the benefit of all of the doubt. But if you’re going to tell me this is a better offense than the ones early in Mahomes’ career — which had Tyreek Hill, Kareem Hunt and prime Kelce — I’m going to need you to show me more than one game.

The Cowboys should sign Micah Parsons now to avoid falling into their same old traps

The Cowboys began Sunday by signing quarterback Dak Prescott to a massive new contract extension just hours before their season was set to kick off. It made Prescott the highest-paid player in NFL history and includes $231 million in guaranteed money. This ended the “Why won’t they just sign Dak?” saga two weeks after the Cowboys ended the “Why won’t they just sign CeeDee Lamb?” saga and got their season underway without the uncertainty and encumbrances that come with unsettled contract situations.

Then Parsons, the star of their defense, went out and celebrated Prescott’s new deal by devouring Deshaun Watson and the Browns’ offense. He had a sack, eight pressures and four tackles in the 33-17 win. Parsons is beginning his fourth year, which means he became eligible for an extension this offseason for the first time. The Cowboys picked up his fifth-year option for 2025, and with the Lamb and Prescott deals more pressing, they kind of moved Parsons’ extension to the back burner.

Dallas has the option for 2025 and franchise tags available for 2026 and 2027 if it were to come to that. So it has time with Parsons. But the Cowboys will have to work around the Prescott and Lamb deals for cap purposes whenever they do sign Parsons.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

I mean, if any team should understand the concept of the cost only going up the longer you wait, it’s this one, right? Parsons might be the best defensive player in the league right now. Like Lamb, he’s a first-round pick who has played like a long-term building block. You secure players like that, period, and most teams would tell you that you shouldn’t wait to do so.

Parsons is probably going to want to be the league’s highest-paid non-quarterback whenever he does get his big extension, and right now that distinction belongs to Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson at $35 million per year. If Parsons puts up an 18- or 20-sack season, it’s only going to get more costly to sign him. And keep in mind that if the salary cap keeps going up, other players will be signing big deals in the meantime. So if the Cowboys believe Parsons will be there and dominating for them in the long term, they should absolutely try to sign him now. But their history tells us they probably won’t.

Jameis Winston will be the Browns’ starting quarterback by Halloween

The Browns did a lot to try to improve their offense around Watson this offseason. They brought in a new offensive coordinator in Ken Dorsey and traded for receiver Jerry Jeudy. They revamped their entire offensive philosophy with the idea of putting Watson in better positions to succeed. And they believed that him coming into the season healthy and with everything they’ve put around him would allow him to finally deliver on the promise they saw in him when they traded for him and gave him a fully guaranteed $230 million contract. And sure, he might just do that.

But Sunday, that is not what happened. Watson looked abysmal, going 24-for-45 for 169 passing yards, one touchdown throw and a pair of interceptions. He finished 0-of-9 on passes thrown 15 or more yards downfield and averaged 2.6 air yards per pass completion, the lowest mark of his career. Parsons and the Cowboys’ defense had a lot to do with that, and the Browns are having major health issues right now on their offensive line that won’t last all season. But you can blame circumstances only to a point, and Watson didn’t do much of anything to make the situation better.

It was an ugly start to a season for which Cleveland has a ton of hope, and when you lose in Week 1 in a way that reminds everybody of what was wrong last season, that’s fertile ground for negative overreaction.

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Deshaun Watson fires to Jerry Jeudy for a Browns TD

Deshaun Watson zips one over to Jerry Jeudy in the end zone for a six-yard Browns touchdown.

Verdict: OVERREACTION

It looked bad, I am not arguing that. But the Browns are heavily invested in Watson and need him to play well in order to feel confident about their short- and long-term future. He will get a long leash as the starter. Left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. will return from injury and play at some point. And the Browns won’t be going up against Parsons every week. This is a team that won 11 games last season and went to the playoffs with five different starting quarterbacks. The Browns are deep, talented and well-coached, and it’s possible they just played their worst game of the season.

The Browns will keep giving Watson every chance to show he can be the player they’re paying him to be for them. If they get to the end of this season and he still doesn’t look like the answer, well, then they have some tough questions to answer.