Week 1 is the best kind of football chaos. We get big performances, wild comebacks, and a few final scores that make us rethink everything we thought we knew. Then the numbers hit the standings, and suddenly we're supposed to know which teams are actually good and which ones just caught the right breaks on Sunday.

That's what makes the opening week so tricky. Every team has spent months preparing for one opponent, but nobody has much current film on a new offense or defense. A couple of turnovers can flip an entire game.

Still, there were plenty of performances worth taking seriously.

Some of it was real. Some of it was just the kind of Week 1 weirdness that goes away once opponents have some useful film. The fun part is figuring out which is which.

Baltimore And Walker Made This Easy

Baltimore's Offense Was Built to Travel

The Ravens are the easiest breakout to believe in because almost everything behind their 41-23 win over Indianapolis looked like something they can do again.

Baltimore didn't just catch the Colts in a couple of busted coverages and spend the rest of the afternoon hanging on. Declan Doyle's offense piled up 506 yards and averaged 7.9 yards per play. The one early drive that didn't end in a touchdown actually did for a moment, before a holding penalty wiped it out. Lamar Jackson finished with 324 passing yards and another 40 on the ground. Derrick Henry ran for 144 yards and three touchdowns. Zay Flowers had 150 receiving yards before halftime.

No, those numbers aren't showing up every week. But the way Baltimore got there can.

Doyle moved Flowers around instead of leaving him outside all afternoon against Indianapolis' best corner. Flowers had lined up out wide on nearly 68% of his career snaps, but that dropped to 36% on Sunday. Baltimore put him in the slot, sent him out of the backfield, and gave him cleaner releases. His 54-yard touchdown started with him lined up next to Jackson, getting into open space and turning a six-yard catch into a sprint through the secondary.

The run game made just as much sense. Henry carried 19 times from under center and picked up 130 yards on those plays. Baltimore mixed in play-action, boots, and unbalanced formations, forcing the same defenders to worry about too many things at once. When the Colts' edge defenders stopped crashing so hard on Henry, the cutback lanes opened up. The Ravens weren't just winning because they had better players. Every answer created another problem for Indianapolis.

The new-look offensive line gave us something to feel good about, too. Baltimore ran for 202 yards against a front built around DeForest Buckner and Grover Stewart. Henry got a whopping 110 yards before contact, so this wasn't just a future Hall of Famer dragging himself through a bunch of missed tackles. Rookie guard Vega Ioane and first-time starting center Jovaughn Gwyn helped Baltimore move people, even with the offensive line getting flagged six times.

The injuries to Flowers and rookie receiver Ja'Kobi Lane are worth watching. Flowers' hamstring is the bigger concern, especially since it bothered him during camp. Still, Baltimore created 10 explosive plays with ideas that should travel and three stars who have been doing this for a long time.

Kenneth Walker Already Looks Like Kansas City's Answer

Walker might be even easier to believe in.

Kansas City gave their new running back 23 carries and six targets in his first game, and he turned all that work into 191 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns. His 173 rushing yards were a career high. He forced 14 missed tackles, ripped off a 60-yard touchdown, and caught the shovel pass Andy Reid apparently pulled out of a 1920's playbook for another score.

Patrick Mahomes threw just 27 passes in the win. Walker touched the ball or was targeted 29 times. That workload tells us almost as much as the highlights do. The Chiefs didn't ease him into the offense. They handed him the keys.

Denver definitely helped. The Broncos missed 28 tackles, and they gave up 247 yards after those missed tackles. Both numbers are absurd, but Walker's not going to be able to do that every Sunday. His 7.5 yards per carry probably aren't something to expect every week, either.

But making defenders miss isn't some new trick Walker pulled out for Week 1. That's been his game for years. He broke 61 tackles last season and finished with 664 yards after contact. He's ranked first or second in missed tackles forced per carry in each of the past three seasons. So even though Denver made life easier, Walker still had to make people miss and finish the runs.

Kansas City signed him for this exact reason. The Chiefs had only three runs of at least 20 yards all last season. Walker had 10 by himself, then ran for 135 yards and won Super Bowl MVP with Seattle. Kansas City responded by giving him a three-year deal with $28.7 million guaranteed. This wasn't some random one-week experiment that happened to hit.

Chicago And Shough Gave Us Something To Build On

Was Chicago's Offense Really 59-Points Good?

Chicago isn't scoring 59 points every week, and that's fine. I don't need the Bears to do that to feel a lot better about where this offense is headed.

They finished with 552 yards, ran for 291, and scored a franchise-record eight touchdowns in the opener. D'Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai both topped 100 rushing yards. Caleb Williams completed 21 of 29 passes for 269 yards and two touchdowns, then added 65 yards and two more scores on the ground. The Bears scored 14 points in every quarter and finished the game on a 28-6 run after Carolina tied it at 31.

Of course, there was plenty of help along the way. Carolina gave Chicago three takeaways, including a muffed punt that set up a short field. A roughing-the-passer penalty kept a drive alive when they were facing third-and-20. The Panthers also let Monangai turn one well-blocked run into a 61-yard touchdown.

Six rushing scores and nearly eight yards per carry aren't exactly a weekly blueprint.

The part I liked most was how in control Williams looked. Ben Johnson pointed to the checkdowns and throwaways after watching the film. Those plays don't make the highlight reel, especially after a 59-point game, but they're exactly what Chicago needs from their quarterback. Williams has always been able to escape a bad play and make a ridiculous throw on the move or take off when coverage takes away the call. If he's also willing to turn a dead play into a five-yard gain, this offense becomes a lot harder to knock off schedule.

The concern is on the other side of the ball. Carolina scored 37 points and let Bryce Young throw for 361 yards. Somehow, this game was still tied midway through the third quarter. A great offense can cover for a shaky defense for a while, but that gets a lot harder once the schedule gets tougher.

So, yes, I believe the Bears can have one of the best offenses in the NFC. I just need to see the whole team hold up before I treat 59 points as proof that Chicago's suddenly the team to beat.

Tyler Shough's Comeback Made the Breakout Feel Real

Shough's case is messier, which is exactly why I found it so convincing.

New Orleans didn't get some polished, mistake-free version of the young quarterback. Shough threw two interceptions, lost a fumble on a sack, and helped the Saints fall behind Detroit by 21 points. He took five sacks and needed 56 attempts to get to 410 yards. If we wanted to sell this as a clean breakout, we'd have to conveniently ignore a lot.

But his response is the part that stuck with me.

Shough threw for 325 yards after halftime and into overtime, the most in the second half and overtime of a game in Saints history. He brought New Orleans all the way back to tie the game with 1:07 left and answered Detroit's overtime touchdown with one of his own. The Saints lost 31-30 after their two-point try failed, but he finished with three touchdown passes, and Chris Olave set a career high with 182 receiving yards because Shough kept giving his best player chances to make something happen.

That performance also fits what we saw from him as a rookie. Once Shough took over in Week 9 last year, he completed 67.6% of his passes for 2,384 yards, 10 touchdowns, and a 91.3 passer rating. Over the final five weeks, he completed nearly 70% of his passes for 1,316 yards, five touchdowns, and two interceptions. He led all rookie quarterbacks in completion percentage, passer rating, wins as a starter, and third-down passer rating.

So no, I'm not expecting 400 yards every Sunday. The Saints shouldn't need 56 throws from him, either. The offensive line has to stop putting him in obvious passing situations, and New Orleans needs more than 76 rushing yards when a young quarterback's playing on the road. Shough also has to clean up the early mistakes instead of constantly proving he can overcome them.

Still, the Saints may have found their answer at quarterback for a while. Shough had already shown he could run the offense efficiently when things were under control. Week 1 showed he wouldn't completely fall apart when everything went sideways.

Baltimore's defense will give him a much tougher test this week, but the traits behind that comeback looked real, even if the box score got a little weird.

Minnesota And Arizona Need Another Test

Minnesota's 29-Point Surge Needs More Context

Minnesota's final score looked much more convincing than their afternoon actually was.

Carson Wentz came on for Kyler Murray after Murray was knocked out cold in the first quarter, then helped the Vikings out of a 22-10 hole with 29 unanswered points. Wentz completed 12 of 19 passes for 133 yards and three touchdowns. Minnesota scored touchdowns on four consecutive possessions, tying the longest streak by any NFL team since at least 2000.

It also came with nearly every kind of boost an emergency quarterback could ask for. A 68-yard kickoff return finally flipped the energy. Green Bay committed three defensive penalties on one drive, including one that erased a Wentz interception. The Vikings' defense then came up with a fumble recovery at the Packers' 1-yard line and an interception that gave the offense the ball at the 14. Minnesota scored 39 points despite being outgained 419-239.

That doesn't make Wentz's performance fake. It makes jumping to conclusions dangerous. Three touchdowns on 133 passing yards is not something you can consistently live with. Two of the four touchdown drives covered a total of 15 yards.

The Vikings turned opportunities into points, which good teams have to do, but Green Bay did most of the work to create those opportunities.

Wentz can keep Minnesota functional. He started five games for them last season and completed 65.1% of his passes for 1,216 yards, though the six touchdowns came with five interceptions and an 85.8 rating. His first three starts were much better before a shoulder injury got to him, which only adds to the wider point: the Wentz experience can change quickly. One week he can step into a mess and look completely comfortable. The next can be sacks, forced throws, and the kind of turnover that flips a close game.

Murray's timetable is now controlled by the concussion protocol, and I'm not expecting him to be ready for this one. If Wentz starts against Chicago, we'll learn a lot more when he has to keep pace without three short fields coming in one quarter. I believe in Kevin O'Connell, Justin Jefferson, and that defense. I'm just not ready to believe the version of Minnesota we saw during that 29-point avalanche is something they can ask for every week.

Did Arizona Catch Lightning In A Bottle?

Arizona's the one I'm most tempted to talk myself into.

The Cardinals went on the road and beat the Chargers 26-14. They looked like a team that knew exactly what they wanted to do. They held the ball for more than 37 minutes and won the yardage battle 393-268. Jacoby Brissett completed 27 of 37 passes for 277 yards, one touchdown, and no interceptions. Trey McBride caught nine passes for 95 yards, Kendrick Bourne added eight for 75, that rebuilt offensive line kept Brissett clean for most of the afternoon. On defense, Arizona held Justin Herbert to 209 passing yards and forced two turnovers.

That's a really encouraging first game for Mike LaFleur, especially after he took over a three-win team that finished last season with nine straight losses. Arizona added 18 players and changed a ton of their staff, but the Cardinals looked more connected than a Chargers team with much higher expectations. They won third down, controlled the clock and, most importantly, didn't give the game away.

Those are usually signs of a well-coached team, not just a team that caught a few breaks.

Still, let's not get carried away. This was a 16-14 game in the fourth quarter before Simi Fehoko blocked a punt and Arizona took over three yards from the end zone. The Cardinals reached the red zone four times and had to settle for three field goals. Brissett was steady, but the offense only managed two touchdowns. The difference between a respectable team and a real playoff threat will come down to whether Arizona can finish those long drives without asking Chad Ryland to keep bailing them out with field goals.

That's why I'm still in wait-and-see mode with the Cardinals. I believe they're competent. I believe LaFleur's built an offense that can protect Brissett and get Trey McBride involved. I just don't know if there's enough explosiveness here, or if a defense with this many new pieces can play this cleanly every week.

The defending champion Seahawks coming into Arizona should tell us a lot. If the Cardinals can control that game without needing two turnovers and a blocked punt to swing things their way, I'll be ready to move them up.

For now, they were excellent in Week 1. They just haven't proved this is who they are yet.

All stats courtesy of Fantasy Points Data.

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