The biggest NFL overreactions after one game and what they actually mean

They say overreacting is just reacting with a worse PR department. That uh, could be true, but it's also true that a number of takes after a single day of NFL football could be filed in the needing-some-settle-down-juice drawer. So which is which?

We're going to run through some of my overreactions, which you may or may not have experienced injected into your brain by the mysterious forces of emotionally potent oversimplifications at some point this afternoon, and decide if they are indeed an overreaction or actually something we should send to the printers for immediate publication. Alright (Dak Prescott voice) here we go, set hut!

The Chicago Bears dropped a nuke on the Carolina Panthers in their maiden voyage to go break the NFL scoring record as head coach Ben Johnson wants them to, but is it fair to immediately anoint them the best offense in football and potentially in NFL history? Probably.

The Bears kicked the crap out of the Panthers, sure, but they also did it in an understandable and not necessarily replicable way. They ran for 291 yards, having both D'Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai over 100 yards in a crushing rushing (bars) attack. But while a running game is schemed up, that kind of scoring output is only possible on the ground when the defense is utterly overmatched. I don't think the Bears have the kind of air raid required to really break the kinds of records the 2007 Patriots and 2013 Broncos have in the bank.

The worst-kept secret of the 2025 Chicago Bears Cinderella run was that they led the NFL in turnover margin by quite a lot. It's one of those NFL maxims that is always true: if you win the turnover margin by a lot, you win a lot more games than you probably should. So what did the 2026 Bears immediately do? That's right: win the turnover margin in Week 1. Maybe this is just a thing.

I mean, he's going to fall off eventually, but Derrick Henry refuses to give us any sense of when that will be. When the Baltimore Ravens signed Henry to a two-year, $16 million deal, nobody was like "wow, I bet the Ravens are going to get 3+ years of RB1 production out of him." But Henry continues to just bludgeon teams well into his 30s. This is just absurd stuff.

Henry really took the Ravens from a talented team making scary propositions to a franchise with a terrifying identity: they are going to run the ball straight at yo' face and then when you sell out to stop it they're going to have one of the most creative quarterbacks in NFL history make something else happen. It's kinda messed up how good Henry continues to be, and the Ravens have a hysterically easy schedule this season that might see that gameplan reach its peak.

If you blinked, you might have missed the Jaguars take a 31-0 lead over the officially screwed Cleveland Browns and become the only AFC South team to win in Week 1. They looked to be legitimately humming, causing the corpse of Deshaun Watson to further degrade and raising questions about if Trevor Lawrence, who threw four touchdowns, has finally lived up to the hype?

I mean ... maybe, but they're not suddenly better than the Houston Texans, a team that brought the Buffalo Bills to the brink today and whose offense finally looks like they could keep up with their sterling defense. It wasn't an ideal defensive performance, I know, but Josh Allen was in superman mode and there's only so much you can do about that. The Texans had every chance to win that game, including a dropped interception that would have salted it away.

I like the Jaguars more than the logical part of my brain would like to admit, but they did win 13 games last year and looked great in Week 1. They still have a little something to prove, though, since it's possible the Browns are just the worst team in the history of ever. That is very much in play.

There are Week 1 losses you can chalk up to conditioning, to the lack of preseason preparation or to simple bad luck. Then there are losses that feel ordained by almighty God because certain franchises are condemned for eternity. The Chargers loss to the Cardinals was that kind of loss, and I'm concerned.

The Cardinals are not good. The Chargers, conversely, should be good but looked a touch discombobulated running Mike McDaniel's intricate and newly installed offense. Meanwhile, their talented defense got repeatedly baptized by Jacoby Brissett and Kendrick Bourne. That's probably not going to cut it in the AFC West.

There's a chance this is the Raiders-over-Patriots result from 2025 (a convincing Week 1 win), and we all look back on it and laugh after Justin Herbert hoists the AFC Championship trophy in January. But there's also a chance this is just more traditional Chargers football, and nobody wants to see that.