The Buccaneers may be the biggest surprise of the season through Week 1

Photo by Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images

We are taking a look at the biggest surprises from Sunday of Week 1.

The first Sunday of the NFL season delivered in every single way. Football is back and it feels incredible.

Just about everything that happened on Sunday provided a boost of serotonin in some sort of way, but some events were more surprising and shocking than others.

This where we come in. Every week we (Michael Peterson and RJ Ochoa) offer thoughts on the Sunday that was across the NFL through our blend of wit, charm and handsomeness. In the spirit of unveiling the new season to some shocked faces we are starting with things that surprised us the most.

Welcome to The Skinny Post.

The Buccaneers may actually be the kings of the NFC South

RJ:

A week ago when every NFL show was making their picks for divisions and what not it was pretty chalk to see the Atlanta Falcons winning the NFC South. It is Year 2 for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers without Tom Brady and we are all just continually writing them off.

The Bucs made some pretty easy and light work of a Washington Commanders team on Sunday that many people had interesting opinions on. Through the Sunday games, the Bucs offense leads the NFL in EPA/Play according to NFL Pro… maybe they aren’t just some casuals that we should ignore completely?

What’s more is that across the division the Carolina Panthers looked absolutely terrible (they are last in EPA/Play through Sunday) which makes evaluating the New Orleans Saints that beat them a bit difficult. New Orleans may be feisty, though.

But perhaps the Saints will be the only challenger to Tampa as the Atlanta Falcons looked absolutely miserable in their first game in the Kirk Cousins era. Atlanta lost to a Pittsburgh Steelers team that Justin Fields started for in a manner so blah that they didn’t score a single touchdown and won the game with six field goals.

The Bucs! Respect them!

Michael:

I’m so thoroughly impressed by Baker Mayfield and the resurgence he’s having at the helm of the Bucs offense. This was such a strong and clean performance against a pretty good defensive head coach in Dan Quinn! Four touchdowns is no joke and he only had six incompletions? Like you said, the Bucs and Mayfield have demanded the league’s respect in only Week 1.

Also: Mike Evans. That’s it. That’s the whole thought. He’s almost boringly good. A future Hall-of-Famer who has been elite no matter who the quarterback is throwing to him.

I have to eat a little crow here for anyone who read last week’s edition of The Skinny Post because I sure picked the Falcons to win the NFC South. They…uh…did not win Week 1 against a Steelers team that I definitely expected to start slow due to their murky quarterback situation. But I guess I forgot about how good of a coach Mike Tomlin is and the fact they still have All-World edge rusher TJ Watt.

My mistake. Won’t happen again. I promise.

Anthony Richardson nearly beat the Texans by throwing only 9 completions

Michael:

The headline here is a little misleading because Richardson did score three total touchdowns (with one interception) but that doesn’t change the fact that this second-year quarterback who missed most of his rookie season to injury completed less than half his pass attempts and still had his team in a position to win at the end.

Well, it helps when your two touchdowns passes cover 60 and 54 yards, respectively, and you’re a freak athlete who can also lead the team in rushing (9.0 YPC, 56 total yards) and bowl over defenders to score on the ground.

What Richardson is doing is incredible. This was roughly what his stat lines looked like as a rookie before his injury. They’re very good performances by fantasy football standards, but they’re not always going to be the best to help his team win IRL games. I don’t know how sustainable this level of play is either, because you take away one of his long touchdown throws and it’s a pretty middling stat line that would surely be a cause for concern — but for at least this week, the Colts don’t have to worry about that. They still scored 27 and they’ll likely take a look at the defense to try and get it right for Week 2.

RJ:

As someone with a share of Anthony Richardson in his dynasty league of record, I will absolutely be starting him from this point on. I went Trevor Lawrence in Week 1 and was wildly disappointed.

Back to Richardson though… the throw was insane. NextGenStats noted that it traveled 65.3 yards in the air, the third-longest pass in the NGS era. Coincidentally one of the other two was thrown by Baker Mayfield who we have been discussing already.

I don’t think things are quite boom or bust with him, but there is definitely some refining that needs to happen around his game. This is okay! And fine! The Colts can win in the process!

It feels like we are going to see stupid amazing throws like Richardson’s throughout the course of his career and I am very fine with it.

Life is impossibly sad for the New York Giants

RJ:

What if I told you that Daniel Jones has thrown more pick-sixes than touchdowns since he signed his extension with the Giants? I just did and it is true. Amazingly.

To be clear, I don’t necessarily fault Jones and didn’t fault the Giants for paying him at the time. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place and quarterback purgatory is not a place that anyone wants to be.

But that was over a year ago and Jones really disappointed in his first season under the deal. All Saquon Barkley stuff aside… committing to him again in 2024 was just a sunk cost fallacy come to life. This is not tenable. They got absolutely destroyed on Sunday.

It is a devastating thing when your season is over at the very beginning and it feels like that is where the Giants are. As a Dallas Cowboys fan… what a shame!

Michael:

Half of my household is a Vikings fan so we were watching this one in the morning, which was a great way to kick off the first day of the regular season. In the fantasy league my wife and I share (shoutout our team “General Booty’s Vi-Queens”) we have both Justin Jefferson and Aaron Jones. They both played very well and…we still lost (shoutout the three players with 20+ points on our bench!).

But back to the Giants.

Yeah, they looked very bad! Rookie wideout Malik Nabers was a bright spot in this game for New York as he led the team with 66 receiving yards on five catches. His 25-yard reception was also the longest play of the day for the Giants. As explosive as we know Nabers is, it’s a shame the Giants offensive line couldn’t hold up long enough for Daniel Jones to connect with him on a deep shot.

Defensively, I thought they started well. The Giants have built a bit of an identity on the defensive side of the ball, but that identity quickly went by the wayside as the offense continued to spin its tires which forced them to play an inflated number of snaps. Sam Darnold also played the cleanest game of his career which only further demoralized that unit.

I do feel for the fanbase who had many of the franchise’s biggest legends on hand for the season opener. The boo birds showed themselves very early on which apparently rubbed Dexter Lawrence the wrong way as he had some words for them postgame.

Are any NFL coaches already on the hot seat following Week 1?

Michael:

It’s obviously super early but who has the time to wait these days. We can speculate all we want. This is OUR column!

If I had to highlight a coach who could already be feeling the warmth of his seating increasing, I think Panthers head coach David Canales is that guy. When he was hired, I could see the vision, but I don’t think anyone would have been the right call for the level of rebuild that team actually needs.

Canales was coming off a strong season as offensive coordinator for the Bucs where he had the aforementioned Baker Mayfield playing some of the best ball of his life. Tampa Bay made it to the playoffs and even won a game. It was easy to see why the architect of their passing attack would be wanted by a team with a young quarterback who underperformed as a rookie based on high expectations.

Unfortunately, this team showed in Week 1 that they have plenty of other issues outside of quarterback Bryce Young, but that also doesn’t mean he isn’t one of the biggest reasons for their debacle on Sunday. After an entire offseason to work with Young, seeing him go out there and complete 13-of-30 passes with no touchdowns and two interceptions is a really, really tough look. The defense also gave up 47 points. Even if Young looked good, that side of the ball didn’t play anywhere near well enough.

We’ll see how they improve from Week 1 to Week 2, but they’ll get another tough, gritty team in the Chargers next week. Oh, and they may have lost budding star defensive tackle Derrick Brown to a season-ending injury.

RJ:

If you had asked me this a week ago, I would have said Dennis Allen in New Orleans which makes the Canales pick all kinds of ironic.

Obviously it is tough to pick which coaches are on the hot seat, but I’ll say that I do wonder if the Antonio Pierce situation in Las Vegas isn’t short-lived. They got outdone by a Chargers team that refused to throw the ball. Losing like that in 2024 is a tough scene.

Similarly, at what point do we start saying all the way out loud that things in Denver under Sean Payton are not and have not ever been even kind of impressive? Again, we are one week in and he obviously has enormous pull within the organization. They have clearly done a lot to build everything in his image. But if they flounder all season long with no Russell Wilson to make the poster for the dysfunction… don’t the arrows start pointing at Payton?

Time will tell. It feels so good to have actual football to overreact to.