Nobody was ready to play football in the NFL’s saddest opening Sunday

The Vikings found a way to blow it, and more winners and losers from Week 1.

There was less “Are you ready for some football?!” and more “Is anyone actually ready to play football?” in Week 1 of the NFL of Sunday. With the exception of the 49ers, Dolphins, and Packers nobody really turned up to play at a high level, giving us one heck of a wet fart of a week if you were invested in anything beyond teams winning and losing.

If you’re happy with a Sunday win, enjoy it. Seriously, to the victor go the spoils and you earned the right to a week of preening. That said, this felt like the least indicative week of team performance than any first opening weekend in memory.

Of the 28 quarterbacks who played on Sunday only five managed to throw for more than 250 yards. It was a weird list too: Tua Tagovailoa, Matthew Stafford, Kirk Cousins, Derek Carr, Mac Jones. Offenses around the league struggled to click in any meaningful way, and it made for such a sad week. Highlight reels are left underpopulated, Fantasy Football rosters are in tatters, and God help us the season can go only up from here.

A weird combination of factors went into this happening. This was the first year that the three week preseason really felt like it hurt teams. In addition, an incredible number of coaches decided to hold out their best players for the majority of the preseason schedule, operating under the assumption that they’d be “ready.” Spoiler: They weren’t. It’s not like we expect to see Joe Burrow taking live fire when it’s not important, but an incredible number of quarterbacks simply looked unprepared to face the season — which gave an incredible boost to teams that had good running backs.

Maybe the year of the RB isn’t dead after all?

A special Week 1 shout out belongs to the Minnesota Vikings. If you’ve spent hours like I have watching Secret Base’s “Dorktown: The History of the Minnesota Vikings” then you know that the most dangerous thing for this team is thinking there’s a “gimme,” and they earned the upset of the week by dropping a game to Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers, despite having more than 100 yards of total offense and allowing only one sack.

Minnesota’s second half was one of the most pathetic performances of the week as Justin Jefferson managed to only register two catches for 12 yards in the final two quarters. The otherworldly WR looked despondent on the bench, realizing that the reason this game slipped away was solely because of Kirk Cousins and his three turnovers.

Vikings fans who wanted to know why Cousins wasn’t ranked higher in preseason polls or why Minnesota was a mid-tier team in Power Rankings: Sunday is precisely why,

Let’s go round the league to look at some more winners and losers from Week 1.

Winner: The Dallas defense

The Cowboys chose violence on Sunday Night Football. This team decided it just felt like breaking hearts on national TV and spent three hours brutalizing the Giants’ offensive line.

It’s probably fair to point out how much Evan Neal struggled against the Cowboys’ rush, but this was mostly about the black hole that Micah Parsons created. Every down forced New York to double him in a vain attempt to keep him upright, and that created opportunities for everyone else.

Daniel Jones had his lunch eaten, spit up, and fed back to him — and he had to like it. It was so bad that you almost felt sorry for Jones … almost.

If we’re facing a reality where the Cowboys and 49ers are the defensive class of the NFC it’s going to be so fun when they face off.

Winner: Bijan Robinson

Bijan Robinson is big time fun. Don’t let the stat line fool you on Panthers vs. Falcons because this Atlanta offensive was absolute ass outside of its running backs. Tyler Allgeier deserves props, but this was Robinson’s chance to shine in his first NFL start and he didn’t disappoint.

Robinson is who we thought he was. A prototypical three down back with unreal agility and strength rolled into one package. The Panthers didn’t really have an answers when his number was called, as he either broke ankles or flat out bulldozed any defensive back foolish enough to test him.

Desmond Ridder was absolute garbage on Sunday, but this team has a chance as long as they have their two running backs.

Loser: Brandon Staley

No coach in the NFL is a bigger master of speaking in coaching platitudes and then failing to execute on them than Brandon Staley. There’s no inherent shame in losing in a shootout to the Dolphins, because they’re a damn good team — but the Chargers seemed unequipped to deal with what they were facing.

Miami ran all over the Los Angeles defense, finishing with over 500 yards of offense, including SEVEN passes of over 25 yards. That would be a bad day at the office, but it’s worse when you explicitly tell everyone before the season starts that your focal point is not giving up big plays.

We’ll see how this plays out, but the Chargers need a real “come to Jesus” moment on Staley’s tenure. They simply can’t allow a shabby coach to cause Justin Herbert to waste his career without championship success like they did with Philip Rivers.

Winner: Everything about the 49ers

It’s impossible not to be hyped if you’re a Niners fan. This team was firing on every cylinder, and what on paper might have been a close defensive affair before the game began turned into an absolute blowout.

I think it’s still a little difficult to really ascertain the strength of this team. We’re only one week in and it’s tough to know how much of this was 49ers brilliance, and how much was Steelers ineptitude — but right now I’m leaning on the positive and saying this was all about the dominance of San Francisco from top to bottom.

Brock Purdy continues to look like the real deal. Brandon Aiyuk is quickly emerging as one of the best receivers in the league. A healthy Christian McCaffrey is a world-beater and that’s before we get to that defense.

It’s impossible to know how you attack the 49ers defense. They excel at all three levels and have playmakers ready to turn a game on a dime. It’s going to be so fun to watch this team continue to evolve over the course of the season.

Loser: The Panthers receiving corps

Bryce Young’s struggles in his first NFL game makes for great Reddit fodder for fans of the Texans and Colts with their rookie QBs in Week 1, but if you watched the Panthers’ insipid offensive performance against the Falcons you know how this went down.

Trading away D.J. Moore was always going to leave growing pains, but how the scant weapons he had performed in Atlanta was putrid. D.J. Chark, Young’s favorite receiver in training camp, was out with injury. This left Adam Thielen, Jonathan Mingo and Terrace Marshall to carry the load — or, more aptly, drop the load on their foot before watching them scream while their pants were falling down, causing everyone to point and laugh.

There was only one moment on Sunday where Young got any appreciably separation from his receivers. Marshall managed to get a step on his DB out of man coverage in a play he should have taken all the way to the house, only to bizarrely stutter step in open space. The result was a Young anticipation throw falling three yards out of reach, when it could have been a gimme — had Marshall not stuttered on his route.

If Week 1 was about building confidence for Young it did anything but. We learned his receivers just can’t get it done, and if there’s any hope for 2023 they need Chark back ASAP.

Winner: Chumbawumba ref

He’ll get knocked down, but he’ll get up again.