Ranking QB debuts of NFL Week 1: Aaron Rodgers, Daniel Jones

Wednesday - 10/09/2025 08:04
Can Justin Fields and Aaron Rodgers sustain their great Week 1 play? Ben Solak stacks the top QB newcomers -- and begs the Giants to hold off on Jaxson Dart.
  • Ben SolakSep 9, 2025, 04:25 PM
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      Ben Solak joined ESPN in 2024 as a national NFL analyst. He previously covered the NFL at The Ringer, Bleeding Green Nation and The Draft Network.

Welcome to Week 1! It's been a long time since our weekly Tuesday column, and how I have missed it. There's also nothing like the first few weeks of the NFL season. We don't know anything right now, so each take is new, exciting and potentially egregiously dumb. If Week 1 was destiny, then the Jets and the Steelers would be two of our most high-powered offenses (don't believe that), and Bills-Ravens would be the best game all season (that one's probably true).

On Tuesdays, I try to spin the previous week of NFL football forward, looking at what the biggest storylines mean and what comes next. We'll break down a major trend or two and highlight some key individual players. There will be film. There will be stats (a whole section of them). And there will be fun.

This week, we're going to rank the top Week 1 performances from quarterbacks who joined new teams, take a closer look at the Giants' QB situation and size up a few interesting passing game tendencies we saw Sunday. Let's dive in.

Jump to a section:
The Big Thing: Ranking top Week 1 QB debuts
Second Take: The Giants can't go to Dart just yet
Mailbag: Answering questions from ... you
Next Ben Stats: Wild Week 1 stats

The Big Thing: New (quarterback) faces in new places

Every week, this column will kick off with one wide look at a key game, player or trend from the previous slate of NFL action. What does it mean for the rest of the season? This week, we ranked five of the most intriguing quarterback debuts with their new teams.

1. Geno Smith, Las Vegas Raiders

The Geno Smith-Chip Kelly pairing is going to be appointment television. On Sunday against the Patriots, the Raiders were first in the NFL in explosive pass rate at 26.3%, second in air yards per attempt at 10.3 and second in play-action rate at 34.2% -- all while being blitzed 47.4% of the time. Smith ended the day 24-for-34 for a whopping 362 yards.

That was a lot of numbers. Let me summarize: The Raiders went for big plays and hit them, over and over again.

Smith has always been a fearless field general, and Kelly played into his hand nicely, creating isolation opportunities with deep-breaking routes. Smith is as good as any quarterback in the league at pinning the ball on routes that break deep downfield. He hit Jakobi Meyers on a deep comeback and Tre Tucker on a beautiful out route. But Smith also has the velocity and release speed to fire run-pass options into the intermediate levels of the field, and that works great in Kelly's motion-heavy play-action approach.

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Smith's willingness to stand in the heat of the fire and keep pushing the ball got him in trouble at times with the Seahawks, and it will again in Las Vegas. He took four sacks and threw a pick on one of those deep opportunities. While the Patriots had to add additional bodies with a blitz to get home, future teams won't be as willing to create space downfield. In Week 2, the Raiders will see a polar-opposite defense from what Smith saw on Sunday in the Chargers and defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, who never blitzes and sits in deep zones.

But Smith turns his completions against pressure and blitzes into 20-plus-yard chunks and not 5-yard dump-offs, and that gives his offense the ability to have instant scoring drives. The Raiders' running game was worryingly poor, but one 38-yard catch and run for Brock Bowers set up a third-quarter field goal, and the aforementioned Tucker out-breaker for 28 yards set up a fourth-quarter field goal. Explosives are king in the NFL, and Smith has the sort of mentality that authors them.

To his credit, Kelly did a great job scheming up open receivers as the Patriots devolved into more and more coverage. I'm fascinated to see how this looks in Week 2 against such a different defense, and Las Vegas' offensive line looks as if it could be a limiting factor. But for Smith's part, the Raiders paid a third-round pick and a contract of $37.5 million per year for a solid veteran starter at quarterback; in his first start, he easily cleared that bar. I can't promise the Raiders will be actually good, but again, you're going to want to get these guys on your TV screen.

2. Aaron Rodgers, Pittsburgh Steelers

When the Steelers signed Rodgers, the theory was that he would be good enough to get their otherwise-solid team over the playoff hump. Play great defense, run the ball well (though Sunday was not inspiring to that end) and get a couple of splash throws from the wily veteran.

Well, Pittsburgh has to feel good about that after Week 1. Rodgers had a classic Rodgers-ian throw -- a gorgeous 50-50 ball on the sideline to Calvin Austin III -- but also operated within the bounds of the offense against the Jets. He had nine dropbacks of under center play-action in this game, nearly matching his single-game best (10 snaps) across the past five seasons. Such dropbacks are a staple of an Arthur Smith offense but have largely been spurned by Rodgers, who prefers to keep his eyes on the defensive backfield, which is hard to do when faking a handoff to a running back.

Nifty design here. Watch how the motion from Austin into the formation moves the corner off the line of scrimmage, forcing him to play flat-footed and from depth when Austin explodes out of the backfield. Rodgers hits the run fake, gets his head back around and makes a classic, effortless throw on the move.

pic.twitter.com/hFC6k0Hnq1

— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) September 8, 2025

This was one of Rodgers' eight pass attempts that went for more than 15 yards. It was well-schemed but, obviously, pretty wide open; the corner stumbled in the route stem and never recovered. In fact, seven of Rodgers' eight big throws were the result of a coverage bust (whether it be a miscommunication or a DB falling down) or a missed tackle.

Some of that can still be to the Steelers' credit. The Jets struggled to pass off crossers, which led to an 18-yard DK Metcalf catch-and-run to get into the red zone, and a 22-yard Ben Skowronek touchdown. The receivers had 8.7 and 8.5 yards of separation at the catch, respectively, per NFL Next Gen stats. But the Steelers were going no-huddle on the Metcalf catch, something Rodgers does extremely well. Defensive miscommunications occur more often in the hurry-up offense, which is partly why Rodgers likes it so much.

Generally, the Jets' secondary had a nightmare day. Rodgers picked on 6-foot-1 cornerback Brandon Stephens, who was one of the worst jump ball DBs in the league last season, and he got summarily dunked on by the 5-foot-9 Austin. The Steelers won't play a defensive backfield this mistake-prone very often, and the margins will become accordingly thinner.

So, I'm not over my skis with a Rodgers reemergence, not by a long shot. He certainly is still capable of playing point guard in a smart and efficient passing game built on line of scrimmage audibles and quick releases, but his lack of pocket escapability remains a weighty cap on this offense's ceiling. Rodgers also had the third-highest explosive pass rate on the day (23.5%) while throwing the most screens (30% of dropbacks) and the third-shallowest passes overall (4.5 air yards per attempt). That explosive play rate is not going to stick.

Rodgers is doing the right things and looks more amenable to the system than he did at the end of his Packers days and/or with the Jets. Steelers fans should rightfully take heart. I'm just not sure doing the right things will bear as much fruit every week as it did Sunday.

3. Justin Fields, New York Jets

The excellence of Fields' first game with the Jets is not in what was there but rather in what wasn't there: negative plays.

In Fields' three seasons with the Bears, risk management was his biggest issue. He took a sack on 10.9% of dropbacks -- the highest rate of any quarterback over that stretch -- and held the ball for a league-leading 3.34 seconds per dropback. The ball never came out fast, if it came out at all; his 12.4% scramble rate also led the league, though that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

But Fields always struggled to calibrate the risk to the reward. For every splashy downfield completion or heroic escape, he had two bad sacks and three missed throws. Fields tried too often to be Superman when Chicago's offense needed Clark Kent.

This improved a bit in Pittsburgh -- his interception rate went from 3.1% to 0.6%, for example -- but the Steelers' offense wasn't built for him. It was built for Russell Wilson, and Fields never fit. This offense in New York? This was built for Fields. On Sunday against his former Steelers team, he had nine designed runs, more than all but one game from his Pittsburgh tenure. He was given intermediate and downfield routes from the pocket instead of exclusively seeing them on play-action boots and rollouts. That allowed him to throw from balanced bases and use his premier velocity to hit closing windows.

The Jets' offense wasn't just built to his strengths; it also hid him from his weaknesses. Tanner Engstrand, who called perhaps the best game of any new coordinator (offense or defense), committed to protecting Fields from the third-and-longs that invite the quarterback's worst tendencies. The Jets called a run on 58.1% of their plays, producing a run rate 21.3% over expectation given the downs and distances they faced, per NFL Next Gen Stats. That would have been the ninth-heaviest game for designed runs in the NFL last season.

The commitment to the ground game insulated Fields from clear passing downs on which the fearsome Steelers pass rush could tee off. Fields had six third-down dropbacks and needed to gain an average of 4.6 yards -- the shortest distance to the sticks on third down for a start in his career. He converted three of the six, and he also converted a fourth-and-1 for a touchdown.

Again, this was about insulation. The Jets handed the ball off on a third-and-11 and a third-and-17 -- a hugely cautious approach that will continue to hurt them in close games. But just as they are cognizant of Fields' particular demons, so is he, and he looked sharper managing the pocket than he ever did in Chicago. Watch Fields pick his way through tight spaces here, always with two hands on the ball, while keeping his head up and looking for throwing opportunities.

Thought Justin Fields did a great job avoiding negatives.

Great pocket management here: two hands on ball the whole way, doesn't run into the Heyward contain, patiently finds an alley, good throw on move.

As an aside: look at the recovery athleticism on Fashanu (74). Wheew. pic.twitter.com/ekR0cq2Si8

— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) September 8, 2025

Fields is not a fixed player -- not yet, anyway. He is still a tick later to his reads than he should be, though he has the ball velocity to make up for it. He tunneled Garrett Wilson a few times too many, but that's defensible, given the rest of the Jets' wide receiver room. Still, for the first time since Fields entered the league, it really seems as if an offensive coach is willing to tailor the system and playcalling to leverage Fields' strengths and color around his weaknesses. This shouldn't have been hard elsewhere, even though it was in both Chicago and Pittsburgh. But things make sense now under Engstrand in New York.

One offseason and one start won't fix a quarterback entirely. But this is how the reclamation process started for Sam Darnold with Minnesota and Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay, by putting them in offenses that worked for them, letting their confidence build and expanding their responsibilities over time. A good foundational stone was laid in New York in Week 1. Keep building in Week 2.

4. Daniel Jones, Indianapolis Colts

It's difficult to overstate how badly the Dolphins' secondary played Sunday. Cornerback Jack Jones had multiple coverage busts on the first drive. Miami struggled tremendously in zone coverage by allowing receivers to get wider than their widest defender. Colts running back Jonathan Taylor motioned out wide and had an 18-yard catch-and-run on a checkdown because nobody traveled with him. Mo Alie-Cox had a 20-yard catch-and-run on a quick out because, again, the flat defender just gave him unimpeded access to the sideline. These are worse than preseason mistakes. These are second-half-of-a-preseason-game mistakes.

By the second quarter, when it became evident that his defensive backfield had no shot, coordinator Anthony Weaver started to crank up the blitz in the hope of disrupting Jones and causing a turnover. This kind of worked. Jones' success rate was 65% (preposterously good) without additional rushers as compared to only 56% (just really good) when Weaver sent extras. The issue for Miami was how well Colts coach Shane Steichen called the offense, giving Jones quick options (2.33 seconds time to throw against 16 blitzes) to a variety of strong yards-after-catch receivers.

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That's the story of the Colts-Dolphins game: a woefully undermanned secondary running into a deep pass-catching corps with a strong schemer at head coach. I cannot generate any meaningful takeaways about the starting quarterback, good or bad. Jones had a classic point guard game. He threw well to his first read when open, including a beautiful deep out-breaker to Adonai Mitchell with anticipation, but didn't do much damage through his progressions. He was fine as a scrambler, as always.

Jones avoided negative plays -- no picks, one sack -- which was and will remain his primary emphasis as he keeps the starting job from Anthony Richardson Sr. Jones also found his outlets fast, so any concern he might still be digesting the Steichen playbook should be dispelled. But the Colts' offense was barely hassled this game. Even with all that blitzing, Jones was pressured on only six of his 33 dropbacks.

If there's a victory lap to be taken in the Jones-Colts marriage, it'll come down the road. This was certainly a good day at the office, but I'm confident Richardson also could have scored 33 points against the Dolphins' defense on Sunday. (And QB3 Riley Leonard would have gotten a solid 27 points himself.)

Next week for the Colts? The Broncos' defense. That's a little stiffer test.

5. Cam Ward, Tennessee Titans

The stat sheet was not kind to Ward on Sunday. He had a dropback success rate of 17.7%. That ranks 1,101st out of 1,105 QB games since the start of the 2023 season.

The film is far kinder. Ward just missed on a couple, including an overturned bobble to tight end and fellow rookie Gunnar Helm on the right sideline and a pair of third-down completions that each ended a yard short of the sticks. That's not to mention two drops by leading receiver Calvin Ridley (who arguably should have been given a third); both would have been first downs.

That said, Ward has plenty to clean up -- not surprising after a rookie quarterback's first start against a defense like that of the Broncos. Inexcusable consecutive sacks in the fourth quarter knocked Tennessee out of field goal range in a one-point game, and both were avoidable if Ward had thrown the ball away or played with more urgency. Ward also left seven points on the table in the red zone when wide receiver Van Jefferson got open as expected on a pseudo rub route -- but Ward already had dropped his eyes and entered scramble mode. This play is designed for Jefferson, and the ball should have been thrown.

Overall, I remain bullish on Ward's NFL future. At Miami, Ward was an instinctive passer. He remains so in the NFL, where he is throwing with anticipation. And an understanding of how coverages will develop. He made multiple plays against pressure in this game that demonstrated preposterous poise for a veteran, let alone a rookie.

He is almost too chill at times. He was sacked -- very nearly for a safety -- because he snapped the ball on a diminishing play clock without alerting his offensive line of the urgency. Right tackle JC Latham was late out of his stance, and while that's more on Latham, Ward is the leader of the offense and will learn to account for those things.

The high-difficulty throws were abundant Sunday, and the easy arm talent was apparent. The Titans are a young team with plenty of issues to rectify, including pre-snap alignment confusions and blown assignments in the running game. As that improves over the course of the season, the team will catch up to Ward's talent and look more put together in the passing game.

Second Take: Start Russell Wilson for as long as you can

ESPN's "First Take" is known for, well, providing the first take on things -- the instant reactions. Second Take is not a place for instant reactions but rather the spot where I'll let the dust settle before taking perhaps a bit of a contrarian view.

I understand how frustrating Sunday was for Giants fans. A final score of 21-6 belies how close that game was overall. The Giants' defense was disruptive and opportunistic, and the offense had ... well, opportunities to score points, at least.

But yes, it was bad. Wilson had a completion percentage of only 45.9% -- 12.7% below expectation, per Next Gen Stats -- which is really worrisome when considering that more than 30% of his pass attempts were behind the line of scrimmage. Wilson had one pass attempt more than 20 yards downfield, which is malpractice -- the one thing he still does really well is the moonball.

Wilson's lack of downfield passing is defensible, to a degree. He was under constant duress. He was pressured on 16 of his 45 dropbacks (35.6%), and eight of those were classified by Next Gen Stats as "quick" pressures -- pressures in under 2.5 seconds. The Giants rolled back the same starting offensive line from last season and received the fruits of that labor, as the interior of John Michael Schmitz Jr., Jon Runyan and Greg Van Roten struggled mightily with Washington's defensive tackle duo of Daron Payne and Javon Kinlaw.

But Wilson's start was defensible only to a point. He was erratic in the pocket, late to many reads and generally inaccurate. After only one start, there are already rumblings from the fan base to see first-round rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart. And I'm here to say unequivocally, emphatically: No. Not yet.

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Stephen A.: Jaxson Dart should start in Week 3

Stephen A. Smith contends that Jaxson Dart should start at quarterback for the Giants sooner rather than later.

It will hurt Dart's development to put him behind this line. The Giants aren't impactful in the running game, which will stick Dart behind the sticks, and there are no high-level pass blockers available at the moment. Critically, the Giants' offensive line is not going to get better overnight or during the season, either -- these are largely veteran players. We might see fifth-round rookie Marcus Mbow, for whom there has been some good camp buzz, at some point. But this is a below-average line through and through.

Why not play Dart now, then, just get him out there? It's going to be bad either way -- better to get him some experience, learn how to work around the line, iron out the other rookie wrinkles and get ready for a productive and exciting 2026.

Because Andrew Thomas should still come back.

The Giants' franchise left tackle had an offseason procedure to remove a screw from his foot. That screw was in place because Thomas has been battling foot injuries for years now, and foot injuries are nasty little things -- always nagging and requiring constant maintenance. Thomas practiced Friday before the Washington game but wasn't able to go. His status for this Sunday is still to be determined. Backup left tackle James Hudson III, in his stead, had perhaps the roughest day of the lot in Week 1.

While the Giants will have pass protection issues no matter what, the difference between an elite blindside protector and an unreliable one is enormous. There are the obvious reasons -- it's called the blind side for a reason! -- and there are the not so obvious ones. Brian Daboll can only scheme around so much; if he has to contend with a rookie quarterback and shaky pass protection from the right and the left, his playbook becomes extremely limited. If he can set it and forget it at left tackle with Thomas, it's easier to deploy more offensive resources to assist Dart.

Also think about the sort of offense Daboll wants to run with Dart -- all those nifty RPOs we saw in the preseason. Because Dart is right-handed, most of those run-pass options are also right-handed. The back is lined up to the quarterback's right, and the read and route are on the quarterback's right. There is a lot a coach can do to expose unblocked edge rushers to that side of the formation; less so to the opposite side.

Throw Dart out there now and he's going to get sacked a bunch. Throw him out there later and it'll probably happen then, too. But the best shot the Giants have at a functional offense lies in Thomas, the one blue-chip offensive lineman they currently have -- and they're not even sure he's healthy yet. Get him on the field, see if he can get right. Then deploy Dart.

Yes, the Wilson games are going to be bad in the meantime. But guess what? You knew that. We all knew that. We've all watched Wilson the past few seasons. This is something to endure -- hopefully the last thing to endure before a glorious young quarterback takes over and revolutionizes the franchise. But the team is not yet ready for him. Wait, take your last dollop of medicine, and pray that Thomas gets right.

From y'all

The best part of writing this column is hearing from all of you. Hit me on X (@BenjaminSolak) or by email ([email protected]) anytime -- but especially on Monday each week -- to ask a question and potentially get it answered here.

From Chris: I need you to tell me Drake Maye will be OK.

Drake Maye will be OK.

This was one of Maye's worst games as a pro. He started pushing in the second half against Las Vegas, which led to poor decisions and accuracy sprays. I will say that there were a few disagreements between Maye and his receivers on route depth and breaks, which was an annoying feature of last season's offense that I believed would get cleaned up with the new coaching staff.

The Pats get a Week 1 pass. -- a lot of teams were sloppy in Week 1, as is always the case -- but this is precisely the sort of thing Mike Vrabel was hired to clean up. The only two pass catchers that Maye has any chemistry with right now are Kayshon Boutte and Hunter Henry. I'm fascinated to see what rookie Kyle Williams looks like when he gets on the field more often.

Patriots fans should be the first to remember not to overreact to Week 1, however. Remember last season? When Jacoby Brissett led New England to a win over the Bengals? This was a bad Maye game, but in four weeks, it'll feel like a meaningless Maye game. So yes, Maye will be OK.

Catch up on NFL Week 1

• Takeaways, questions from all games »
• Barnwell: What was real, what wasn't? »
• Graziano: Overreacting to Week 1 »
• Fantasy football winners and losers »
• Full Week 1 scoreboard » | More »

From Dan: Is there any reason I shouldn't be completely out on Bryce Young? I'm hearing lots of excuses from some fans/media, and of course it's not all his fault. But what reasons should I have to believe that he could be a QB that leads a team to the playoffs? Because I'm struggling to find them.

I want to answer this with caution. Last year, in this very Week 1 column, I wrote about how rough Young looked in the season opener and how I did not see an NFL future for him. What sort of offense could work around a quarterback that fearful of pressure, that unwilling to throw over the middle, that lacking premier physical traits?

Of course, Young was benched, then came back and had a decent finish to 2024. It wasn't anything revolutionary, but it was better than I thought an offense could be built around Young. My foot was firmly in my mouth.

So you shouldn't be completely out for that reason. We have seen it work for Young at times -- the Week 18 game against Atlanta, along with Week 12 against the Chiefs. Dave Canales can do enough with Young that, in theory, a team with a great running game and great defense could get over the hump.

But the Panthers do not have a great running game and certainly don't have a great defense. As we saw against the Jaguars, Young still harbors plenty of that erratic, undersized, overwhelmed passer we saw for much of 2023 and 2024. It's a thin needle to thread, building a team around a QB who has to throw with so much anticipation but also mostly outside of the numbers. The passing game becomes one-dimensional and predictable.

Last year I said a flat "no" on Young. Hopefully I'm a year wiser now. So it's not a hard "no." But I remain very dubious.

From Steve: Would love to know your thoughts on this Seahawks offense. With the amount of shotgun and lack of under-center play-action, it felt like the ghost of Ryan Grubb possessed Klint Kubiak to sabotage a very winnable game!

I agree, Steve! The shotgun/under center rates were roughly even from the 2024 Saints (Kubiak's last stop) to the 2025 Seahawks, but it was the lack of play-action that really stood out -- especially since the game was always in a neutral state and the threat of the run was always live. Next Gen Stats had Sam Darnold executing a run fake on only 8.0% of his pass attempts in Week 1, lower than every quarterback save for Spencer Rattler.

This isn't just a Kubiak expectation. Yes, the Saints had a play-action fake on 20.7% of their dropbacks last season under Kubiak, but Darnold was at 27.0% with the Vikings. And this is where he ate. On play-action dropbacks last season, Darnold was second only to Lamar Jackson in passer rating and 10th in total EPA generated. Anyone watching Darnold's film from last season and theorycrafting a new offense to fit his skill set in Seattle would have underlined play-action as an integral cog in the system.

Yet it wasn't there on Sunday -- bemusing. I have a couple of half-baked theories. One is that the WR room featuring Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Cooper Kupp lacks a good vertical element, which limits the concepts Kubiak could run off hard play-action. I find this explanation totally uncompelling; just get rookie Tory Horton onto the field. Perhaps Kubiak wanted to zag and catch 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, who is well acquainted with the Shanahan-Kubiak offense, by surprise. I find this less compelling than the first.

No idea. Sometimes Week 1 prompts more questions than answers.

From John: Can I sue Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane for emotional damages for thinking this Bills secondary is good enough to stop (or at least slow down) great offenses?

I am not authorized to give out legal advice in this column.

Next Ben Stats

NFL Next Gen Stats are unique and insightful nuggets of data that are gleaned from tracking chips and massive databases. Next Ben Stats are usually numbers I made up. Both are below.

82.7%: That was wideout Jaxon Smith-Njigba's market share of the Seahawks' receiving yards Sunday against the 49ers. He had 124 of the team's 150 receiving yards.

Sadly, this is not as rare as I thought. Courtland Sutton had 100% of the Broncos' receiving yards in Week 4 last season, when he had 60 yards in torrential conditions against the Jets. Another Bronco -- Noah Fant -- had the only reception in the infamous 2020 Kendall Hinton game, when the Broncos had no active quarterbacks due to COVID-19 unavailability. Both of these were fairly exceptional, though. The last regular game in which a receiver dominated production at this level was in 2015, when Sammy Watkins had 168 of Tyrod Taylor's 181 passing yards in a 33-17 Bills win over the Dolphins.

While this is excellent for JSN fantasy managers, it's bad news for Seattle. Sam Darnold did not look comfortable moving off of Smith-Njigba, and offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak struggled to get secondary receivers going with screens or misdirection. Veteran free agent Cooper Kupp did not look particularly sudden (two catches for 15 yards), but he should at least see more underneath volume moving forward.

2.8 seconds: According to NFL Next Gen Stats, that was Lions quarterback Jared Goff's time to throw when Micah Parsons was on the field for the Packers on Sunday. When he was off the field? 3.36 seconds. A half-second difference on the time-to-throw scale is substantial.

There's some bias here. Parsons was playing later in the game, when the Lions were already behind and Goff started leaning on the quick game in garbage time. But still, you couldn't watch that game and not feel Parsons' presence -- Goff certainly did. Parsons played only 45% of the snaps after a sudden trade two weeks ago and a lingering back issue; I expect him to be closer to 65% for a huge Thursday night game against the Commanders.

Another significant snap count note, adjacent to the Parsons one: 2023 first-rounder Lukas Van Ness, who has been a fine-but-not-spectacular player for Green Bay over his first two seasons, took eight of his 35 snaps aligned on the interior -- the most for a single game in his career. His half-sack, shared with Rashan Gary, was the result of his bull rush over Lions left guard Christian Mahogany. Watch for these sort of sets as the season goes on -- a ton of pocket-collapsing power and three players who can excel on twists and stunts. Scary group if you're an opposing QB.

84%: That's the Raiders' pass rate with tight end Brock Bowers on the field in Week 1 against the Patriots.

Bowers played only 50% of the snaps Sunday. He did leave with an injury in the fourth quarter, but in the first three quarters, he was still on the field for only 71.7% of the team's plays. Fellow tight end Michael Mayer took 56.5% of the snaps, and Ian Thomas took another 19.6%. If that 71.7% number had held for the whole game, Bowers would have been 20th among league TEs this week in snap rate -- just between Harold Fannin Jr. and Drew Sample.

It's not the end of the world if Bowers isn't on the field for every snap, but the Raiders do need to be careful establishing such a strong tendency for Bowers' usage. That 84% pass rate is wicked high. It exceeds even the seasonlong numbers of Mike Gesicki (85.3%) and Jonnu Smith (79.3%) from last season -- solid receiving tight ends but rotational players in their respective systems.

It'll probably regress down as the season goes on, but it's worth watching.

8: That's how many games the Ravens have lost in the past five seasons in which they had a win probability above 90%. The next closest team has five.

The games are as follows:

  • 2021 Week 1 at Raiders: Baltimore hit a go-ahead field goal with 42 seconds left while the Raiders had no timeouts; it ultimately lost in overtime.

  • 2022 Week 2 vs. Dolphins: Baltimore gave up 28 fourth-quarter points.

  • 2022 Week 4 vs. Bills: Baltimore led 20-3 at the two-minute warning of the first half; it still lost 23-20.

  • 2022 Week 12 at Jaguars: Baltimore was up 19-10 and had the Jaguars facing a fourth-and-8 with less than nine minutes left ... and lost. (Like Sunday night's opener, this game also included a fourth-quarter fumble, this time by Gus Edwards.)

  • 2023 Week 3 vs. Colts: Baltimore sacked Gardner Minshew for a safety to go up 19-16 just before the two-minute warning, but it then had to punt the ball away and ended up losing in overtime.

  • 2023 Week 10 vs. Browns: Baltimore led 31-17 with 11 minutes left. Lamar Jackson threw a fourth-quarter pick-six in this one, though it was batted at the line. (Does that make anyone feel better?)

  • 2024 Week 2 vs. Raiders: Baltimore led 23-13 with 12 minutes left. It managed to lose in regulation.

  • 2025 Week 1 at Bills: Baltimore encountered Josh Allen.

There are two things that bear underlining. In the same time frame, the Ravens have the fourth-most games in which they hit that 90% threshold; they're just winning those games at an 83.3% clip instead of the 90% clip you might expect. In other words: It is objectively good that the Ravens are building big fourth-quarter leads, even if it is objectively bad that they blow them. The goodness and badness don't cancel each other out here, though. It is collectively, overall, bad.

The second thing is six of these eight games came in the first month of the season. Of course, the Ravens have lost heartbreakers later in the season that failed to meet our 90% win probability threshold, but when it comes to their particular knack for choking away big leads, this seems to be an early-season issue. Is it a lack of late-game focus or situational management that gets ironed out as the season goes on? I'm not sure. Just thought it was worth the flag.

Great game last night, though. Let's do that again in January.

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