EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsWho's ready to put their thinking caps on? Big-time offensive scoring was the story in Week 1 of the NFL season, but Week 2 is now right around the corner. What will it bring?Every Tuesday of the NFL season, I'll turn the page from last week to this week with seven things I think. These aren't full-scale predictions -- those come later in the week. They aren't concrete takeaways off the past week of NFL action, either -- those are fired off on Sunday or Monday. Instead, these are the uncertain things. They are things that might be true, but it'll probably take the next few games for us to really find out. And at the bottom, you'll find a few extra half-thoughts ... just those little inklings I'm unable to shake.This week, I'm starting off with my expectations for the schemer heavyweight fight of the century, my theories on the real skeleton key for the Bills' offense and my worry that the first shutout of the season will come this Sunday.Here are seven things I think for Week 2.Jump to:Ben Johnson is Brian Flores' kryptoniteTexans' offense will win gamesBengals defense is showing promiseKincaid is the Bills' secret sauceTitans will not score in Week 2Lions' have an Achilles' heel on defenseLawrence is league MVP this weekFive extra inklingsI think ... Ben Johnson is Brian Flores' kryptoniteTwo heinous crimes were enacted Sunday by two of football nerddom's favorite coaches.Let's start with Johnson. The Bears scored 59 points against the Panthers on Sunday, which is like if you scored 50 points, and then decided to score nine more points. Both running backs D'Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai ran for 100 yards and two touchdowns and quarterback Caleb Williams added another two scores on scrambles of his own. And for those tracking Williams' accuracy metrics: 72.4% completion percentage with an off-target rate of only 13.8%.Everything worked for the Bears' offense, which barely left first gear against the Panthers. The Bears will face far stiffer competition against the Vikings and Flores, who rendered an unbelievable performance against the Packers in Week 1.The Vikings blitzed Jordan Love on 73.8% of his dropbacks Sunday -- the highest rate at which any quarterback has been blitzed since the 2023 season. The Packers were in a difficult position entering the game: starting left guard Aaron Banks was hurt, and the camp campaign to build up Anthony Belton at the starting right guard spot was abandoned late in the process. The Packers fielded 2024 fifth-round pick Jacob Monk at right guard and 2024 undrafted free agent Donovan Jennings at left guard. It was Jennings' first career start and Monk's second.In an effort to insulate the young guards, the Packers kept more players in to block than any offense over the past few seasons. Love had three or fewer receivers in the route concept on an astonishing 15 dropbacks -- only three quarterbacks have had more such dropbacks over the past five seasons.Flores has little interest in occupying those routes with multiple defenders -- he'd rather throw bodies against the wall of your pass protection and find a weak point. Like water against a dam, it didn't really matter how many players the Packers kept in to protect -- if there was a weak point (which there often was), Flores had a rusher in that spot. His distinctive approach to early down blitzing breaks the rules. It forces opposing offenses to play a different sport than the one for which they're prepared in the other 17 weeks of the season.But Johnson knows Flores well. He called offense against him as the coordinator of the Lions -- twice in 2023, twice in 2024 -- then picked up another two games in 2025 as the head coach of the Bears. Across six matchups, Johnson's team is 5-1 -- the only loss was last season's opener and Williams' first start in Johnson's offense. Over those six games, Johnson's offense doesn't look like a 59-point monster ... but it's clearly better than the average offense against the marauding Vikings coordinator.So what does Johnson do that other teams can't replicate? A few things stick out. The first is communication. Flores' defense requires as much pre-snap coordination between 11 defensive players as any defense in football -- that's why Harrison Smith is back and so valuable to this defense. He can be the coach on the field, changing the playcall after the defense sees the formation.Johnson rises to meet Flores. His offense is as communication-heavy as any in the league, and his group is empowered to make adjustments based on what it sees. Flores wants to get opposing offenses stuck in a bad protection look or run call; Johnson's groups are elite at getting out of such sticky wickets. Williams' pre-snap command, which has reportedly taken big strides through Year 1 and into Year 2, will be tested here.To challenge Flores' reliance on communication, Johnson will randomly snap the football quickly -- no motion, no checking. Immediate snaps. The Bears had 19 quick snaps against the Vikings in Week 11 -- that's snaps in which less than two seconds elapse between the line getting set and the ball being snapped. It was the most they had in any game last season, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. Second most? The 17 such snaps in Week 1 ... also against Flores.The second is formational. The Lions loved condensed sets under Johnson, and the Bears have continued that approach. Condensed sets are typically a bad idea against blitz-heavy teams. When you spread out the field, it's easier to identify suspicious defensive alignment that reveals who's blitzing from where. Against Flores and the Vikings, there's no point in trying to riddle things out -- the blitzes are too frequent and too varied. You'll think you're right, you'll actually be wrong, and then you'll be dead in the water.So Johnson turns into the skid. He gets as condensed as possible against Flores -- in 2025, no offense had more condensed formations in any game than the Bears in Week 11 against the Vikings, with an average formational width of only 17.7 yards. Teeny tiny formations allow Johnson to throw the ball on out-breakers into tons of space, to stress the Vikings' cornerbacks who are typically insulated by trap coverages and quick throws. It also allows Johnson to meet Flores' duplicity and disguise with the beautiful simplicity of the running game. With lighter players such as Joshua Metellus and Dallas Turner on the edge against double-teams from extra tight ends and condensed wide receivers, the Bears can grind out physical yardage and set up the play-action pass. Does Flores have an answer to this approach? Yes ... but not on the chalkboard. The Vikings' first three picks in the 2026 NFL draft were trench picks: defensive tackle Caleb Banks in the first round, on/off-ball linebacker hybrid Jake Golday in the second round and another defensive tackle in the third round in space-gobbler Domonique Orange. Any defense that plays in a division with the Bears needs to be serious about its run defense -- doubly true for Flores, who will never get to third-and-long against Chicago unless he has some run-stuffing hog mollies up front to slow down Swift and Monangai.Johnson won Assistant Coach of the Year in 2024. Second place in voting was Flores. When Flores was a young defensive assistant cutting his teeth in New England, Johnson was doing the same in Miami on offense -- twice a year, they saw each other. These two have circled their matchups like heavyweight fighters for years now, and on Sunday, we finally get another 90-second dance in the ring. Bring your popcorn.I think ... the Texans' offense will win some games this yearThe Texans' defense was a machine last season, and it entered 2026 with all of the Super Bowl hype. Houston just needed an offense that could do enough to win those games in which the defense struggled.Sunday was one such game. The Texans gave up 36 points to the Bills and lost. So did the offense fail to clear its low bar? Technically, yes. But I think the underlying signs were encouraging.In the first game of Nick Caley's second season as the Texans' offensive coordinator, Houston was efficient. Explosiveness has never been an issue for C.J. Stroud-led offenses, but efficiency has been a problem. Against the Bills in a Week 1 loss, the Texans had an offensive success rate of 45.7% -- the ninth-best Stroud start. They had a first down conversion rate -- how many of their first-and-10s became a new first-and-10 or a touchdown -- of 78.1%, the sixth-best Stroud start.Despite all of the offseason discussion around Stroud, the Texans' spike in Week 1 efficiency was not about the quarterback at all -- it was about the running game. With new running back David Montgomery and offseason additions Keylan Rutledge and Evan Brown along the offensive line, the Texans had a 60% success rate on runs between the tackles against the Bills, their second-best number in Stroud's career. On third/fourth down with 2 or fewer yards to go, the Texans had six runs and five conversions -- they hadn't had more than three in a game since 2023. Over the past three seasons combined, they were 25th in first down rate and 28th in stuff rate in the same context. They couldn't reliably get to a new set of downs. Now they can.The presence of a functional running game is radically new. Houston ranked 31st in rushing success rate and EPA per rush over the past three seasons combined. It keeps Stroud from feeling as if he needs to make every play a haymaker, which draws out the worst of his play, as we saw last postseason. It also slows down the pass rush. Stroud was pressured on 21.4% of his dropbacks Sunday, per NFL Next Gen Stats.The fourth-year quarterback still committed two brutal mistakes on pressured dropbacks -- a sack-fumble in his own territory that set up a Bills field goal and the sack-fumble to end the game. The Texans paid for right guard Ed Ingram largely because of his impact as a run blocker ... but he gave up the first-and-goal quick pressure to Deone Walker that set the Texans behind the sticks. With Braden Smith hurt, Trent Brown manned the right tackle spot -- another superior run blocker to pass protector. He gave up the quick pressure to Greg Rousseau that ended the game.The Texans draw a Bengals team in Week 2 that, like the Bills, wants to play from two-high shells and drop into zone coverage. Buffalo forced two turnovers by Houston; Cincinnati took four from Tampa Bay in Week 1. If Houston continues to struggle with pass protection and ball security on key passing downs, the improvements in the running game won't mean much.But for the bulk of that game, Stroud looked like his old self: calm, poised and aggressive. He drilled a beautiful touchdown to Nico Collins in the middle of the field in a play that was emblematic of much of his outing; Stroud threw 50.0% in-breaking routes against Buffalo, more than any other quarterback in Week 1. If Stroud can be the playmaker with his arm that he has been for much of his career in tandem with a more effective running game, the Texans should have the offense they've long needed to pair with their elite defense -- a balanced approach that gives them ability to hang in shootouts with the league's best offenses.Buffalo was the first test of that. Cincinnati is another great offense with a gettable defense. Bengals QB Joe Burrow has a wicked quick time to throw -- over 70% of his passes were out in under 2.5 seconds against the Buccaneers. That quick game will neutralize the Texans' pass rush some, and Houston's offense will again be called upon to pick up some of the slack. It was nine yards away from answering the call in Week 1, and I find myself full of belief it will answer the call in Week 2 and the games to come.I think ... four takeaways isn't the story of the Bengals' defenseGo out and buy yourself a defense. It's just that easy. Pay Bryan Cook and get a forced fumble on Bucky Irving. Pay Dexter Lawrence II, and he'll get the pressure that forces the checkdown to Irving that ends in the Cook fumble. Pay Boye Mafe and get another forced fumble on Baker Mayfield.The Bengals forced and recovered four fumbles Sunday in a win over the Buccaneers. In the previous five seasons, there were only seven games of four-plus fumble recoveries. The Bengals also got high-value takeaways: One recovery was a scoop and score, another was in the end zone to prevent a Buccaneers touchdown, and two more were on the Buccaneers' side of the 50-yard line. The Bengals generated 18.6 expected points on fumbles in this game, the 16th-highest in a single game in the past 20 years.It's easy to see a performance like that and scream "regression" from the mountaintops. And there will be regression because fumble luck is just that -- luck. But we can see the forest through the trees and take a look at how the Bengals' defense performed outside of the fumbles. And the outcome is interesting.The Bengals put a blanket on top of the Buccaneers. Mayfield threw 50% of his passes behind the line of scrimmage -- a number that was well higher before garbage time. It's only the 13th game with at least half of the pass attempts behind the line over the past three seasons, and five of the 13 were backup quarterbacks. Cincinnati turned Mayfield -- typically one of our more downfield passers -- into a checkdown machine.How? Team effort. The Bengals consistently found quick penetration from a variety of sources. Veteran defensive tackle Jonathan Allen got a red zone sack on a twist with Lawrence. Rookie second-round pass rusher Cashius Howell drew a flag on a play-action pass protection. Mafe flushed Mayfield into multiple quick scrambles. The Bengals' defensive backfield, as it did last season under defensive coordinator Al Golden, mixed man and zone coverage looks with a ton of middle-of-the-field help. It's hard to get a bead on what coverage the team is in on any given down.Perhaps the Buccaneers wanted to test how well the Bengals would tackle, as Cincinnati was among the league's worst teams for missed tackle rate last season. There were a few odd early checkdowns from Mayfield -- like this second-and-10 in which he has Emeka Egbuka on the option route out of the backfield ... but passes on it to hasten to the RB checkdown. Whatever the agent behind this shallow approach, the Bengals tackled well all game. If Cincinnati can be trusted to affect the pocket and tackle in space this season, then the defense is mightily improved. But that isn't enough. The Buccaneers still had a dropback success rate of 52.8% -- better than the Bengals' offense on the day. Mayfield completed 82.1% of his passes and had a 38.9% first down/touchdown rate, ninth among Week 1 passers. Only Lamar Jackson and the Ravens (173 yards) had more YAC than the Bucs (168).When I first watched this film, I was impressed by how well the Bengals covered downfield (and still am). I think DJ Turner II and Dax Hill form one of the better young CB duos in the league. Upon second watch, I wonder if the Buccaneers played too far into the Bengals' hands and should have done more to test downfield windows. The young linebackers can still be moved in coverage, slot corner is a question, and safety Jordan Battle doesn't have great traits defending the pass in space.Houston is next on the docket for Cincinnati, and as much as the Bengals won their game thanks to fumble recoveries, the Texans lost their game thanks in large part to two fumbles lost. The Texans are far from a perfect offense. Their reliance on Nico Collins at receiver should invite shadow coverage from Turner as Golden forces Stroud to beat him with other pass catchers. The theory in Cincinnati -- that the Bengals can force longer dropbacks and consistently pressure opposing quarterbacks -- should work against a Texans offensive line that's only average in pass protection. But without four fumbles, that formula might produce harsher results.The Bengals' defensive overhaul is only in its infancy. The unit should deservedly play with confidence after Week 1 -- especially the new faces. What the defense is in Week 2 won't be what it is by Week 18. I'm excited to see it in a game without historic fumble production.I think ... Dalton Kincaid is the Bills' secret sauceThe Bills made waves when they traded a second-round pick for Bears receiver DJ Moore. And Moore made waves in his first game with Josh Allen: 5 catches, 100 yards and a score -- not to mention a 46-yard pass interference penalty he drew that set the Bills up at the 1-yard line.But Moore wasn't Buffalo's leading receiver in the win over the Texans. It was Kincaid with five receptions for 130 yards. It was the most receiving yards of his career and the most in a game for any Bills tight end since 1967.It's easy to forget how high of hopes the Bills had for Kincaid when they drafted him with at No. 25 in 2023. We were in the throes of the flex tight end revolution thanks to a few historically productive years from the Chiefs' Travis Kelce, who finished the 2022 season third among all players in total receptions and eighth in total yards. Mark Andrews was the primary pass catcher for another AFC contender in Baltimore. The Bills wanted some of that.Kincaid was not an immediate success, which glared relative to the rookie sensations of Kyle Pitts Sr. (2021) and Sam LaPorta (2023). We used to say tight ends took time to develop. But if rookies were hitting faster ... why did Kincaid have only 1,100 yards and four touchdowns across his first two seasons as a pro?Whatever the reason, Kincaid's 2024 season was impeded by a PCL injury in Week 10. He played 66.6% of the team's snaps in the weeks before the injury and 43.2% in the games after he returned. That number was even lower (38.8%) in the 2025 season, when Kincaid was limited because that PCL continued to cause him issues. After a full offseason to recover, he entered the 2026 season unabated.One week down, one week healthy. Kincaid played 72% of the offensive snaps in Week 1, his most in a game since Week 9 of 2024 -- the game before his PCL tear. The Bills had at least two tight ends on the field for 50% of their snaps, fourth among league offenses in Week 1.Only these multi-TE sets ... are not multi-TE formations. Kincaid is truly a big receiver by both alignment and usage. He was in a tight end alignment on only three of his 22 routes (13.6%). Only the Panthers' Darren Waller and the Bengals' Mike Gesicki -- both of whom played half as many snaps -- were detached from the tackle more often in Week 1. No tight end took a greater number of snaps out wide than Kincaid's 15.Take a look at this play. Kincaid starts out in a wide alignment, then motions into the formation as the ball is snapped. He gets a free release from the stack and hits the line of scrimmage with momentum. He clears safety Reed Blankenship, who's playing to Kincaid's low hip and is worried about a crossing route. But Kincaid, who can eat up ground and change direction like a wideout, bends this route back to the corner while outdistancing Blankenship -- resulting in an easy pitch and catch downfield. The reason Blankenship is so worried about the crosser is because Kincaid can run them -- and run away from corners when he does so. Here, Kincaid is in a snug alignment in 13 personnel. Out of the two-minute warning and still trailing, the Bills go for a two-man route combo off play-action -- all their chips in on Moore on a clear out and Kincaid on a crosser. Kincaid beats Kamari Lassiter to the spot, survives contact and makes another defender miss. Thanks in large part to this play, Kincaid ended the day with 42 total yards after the catch and 20 YAC over expectation, by NFL Next Gen Stats' model -- the most YAC over expectation of a single game in his career. The only reason the Bills' recent 12 and 13 personnel obsession works is because Kincaid has legitimate receiver skills. It isn't just the ability to run past a defensive back or break a tackle. Kincaid tracks the football down the field better than almost any other tight end. Since the start of last season, he has averaged 9.8 air yards per target, second to Gesicki. He has a 14.4% first down rate on routes and a 10.3% explosive reception rate on routes. Those rate stats benefit some from Kincaid's limited snap count in 2025, but the point still stands. He does the thing that players at the tight end position aren't supposed to be able to do: create big plays.Watch this catch over Derek Stingley Jr., an All-Pro corner. Watch Kincaid jockey for positioning as the ball enters its arc, figure out where it's landing with plenty of time to reposition, then elevate and win the ball in the air. This is Tee Higgins-esque behavior. Tight ends don't do this. In that Moore is the shiny new receiver in Buffalo, it is easy to attribute any and all offensive improvement from the Bills this season to his appearance. But I would argue it is the skill set of Kincaid -- who can 1) keep the Bills in multi-TE sets and 2) make WR-esque plays down the field -- that clarifies Moore's role. The Bills were in 13 personnel on 20 snaps against the Texans on Sunday. On eight of those snaps, Moore was the lone receiver. Running 13 personnel forces opponents into base defense and single-high coverages. It makes them predictable and easier to pass against, and Moore feasts at that table -- but only because Kincaid laid it out for him.This particular stressor is interesting as we enter Week 2, in which the Bills play the Lions on "Thursday Night Football." Over the past few seasons, no defense in the league more willingly plays base defense than Detroit (though the Lions were in base only 26% of the time in Week 1, a new wrinkle from defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard). The Bills will still invite that base defense by lining up in multi-TE sets. And this time, when Kincaid is the widest receiver in the formation, he won't have to contend with Stingley or Lassiter ... he'll get Rock Ya-Sin and D.J. Reed instead. The Lions' defense just gave up 410 passing yards to Tyler Shough and the Saints. What do you think they'll do to Josh Allen?Four years after the Bills picked Kincaid, we might finally get a view of what they envisioned for him. And if he continues producing explosive receptions at a 70% snap rate, he -- along with Moore -- will reintroduce the verticality the offense has lacked these past few years. If there's another level to find in the Joe Brady-Josh Allen pairing in Buffalo, it's through Kincaid.I think ... the Titans score 0 points in Week 2I cannot remember a team that looked less functional on offense in Week 1 than the Tennessee Titans in Sunday's loss to the Jets. I went back and looked at the past few seasons of Week 1 travesties -- Russell Wilson's Giants had six points in 2025; Daniel Jones' Giants had six points in 2024; Jones' Giants also had zero points in 2023; oh my goodness, are all of these just Giants games? -- and I still don't remember seeing something I found this particularly offensive.The Titans looked as if they had never played together before. Second-year quarterback Cam Ward was consistently out of time with his receivers, and his trademark laissez-faire approach in the pocket spelled disaster as he tried to hit open receivers in time. Both tackles were brutal in pass protection, while fifth-round rookie Fernando Carmona predictably struggled in his first career start at right guard.Offensive tackle JC Latham, one of the league's most penalized players in 2025, started off 2026 with two more flags. Running back Tyjae Spears dropped a 2-yard pass that hit him so squarely it almost bisected him. Rookie receiver Carnell Tate didn't make an effort to catch a third-down crossing route that looked somewhat catchable. Second-year receiver Elic Ayomanor turned Ward's best throw of the day into an incompletion by jumping for a ball he didn't need to and getting shoved out of bounds for his elevation.What was coordinator Brian Daboll up to? I simply cannot tell. Ward had three dropbacks with three or fewer routes in the concept -- that's a play with at least seven players in pass protection -- and yet Ward was pressured on all three dropbacks.There was a fake reverse shot play that I just have to show you. The run-action is meant to manipulate the linebackers and defensive backs to the wide side of the field ... but the routes break to the other side of the field. What's the point of the fake if it doesn't move anyone you need moved? I thought Daboll would be good for Ward because he would encourage him to scramble more, and he did -- Ward had four scrambles, tying his season high from his rookie year. But I also thought Daboll would open up easy-access completions in the RPO game. Ward missed the first RPO offered to him -- a swing route to Wan'Dale Robinson -- so badly it skipped off the turf and the Titans largely passed on RPOs after that.After watching the way the Titans' offensive line struggled against the Jets (they made Kingsley Enagbare look like Maxx Crosby), I cannot bear the idea of the Titans' upcoming game against Philadelphia. The Eagles' front was as dominant as ever against a poor Commanders line in Week 1 -- it collected 19 pressures, a single-game best in the Vic Fangio era, despite the fact that starting edge rusher Jonathan Greenard wasn't even healthy enough to play.I have no idea what to hang my hat on with this Week 1 Titans performance. They blew assignments and blocks in the running game. They went no-huddle but couldn't disrupt the defense with pace. They found no YAC and couldn't get the ball to athletes in space. There's nothing here.The Titans are 7-point underdogs to the Eagles with a projected total of 39.5 points, according to DraftKings. That means the sportsbook is projecting the Titans to score around 15.5 points. Under, under, under.I think ... the Lions' secondary is going to be an Achilles' heelThe Lions face the Bills on "Thursday Night Football" this week. Two teams that won in the final seconds of Week 1. Two teams that have made postseason runs recently but have not played on a Super Bowl Sunday -- and are desperate to do so. Gimme, gimme, gimme.I have my suspicions about both defenses after one week of NFL action. The Bills blew a few coverages and run fits in their first game under coordinator Jim Leonhard, and their lack of size in the back seven is notable. But their warts pale in comparison to the nasty boil that is the Lions' secondary.Detroit got the drop on the Saints with a nickel-heavy, zone-heavy approach -- a zag from its defensive identity. In the first half (i.e. before the game script was clear pass for the Saints), the Lions were in zone coverage on 87.5% of the Saints' dropbacks, higher than any game last season under Kelvin Sheppard save for a Week 18 contest in which they were already mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. Of their 34 defensive plays, 20 were in nickel personnel -- their second highest of any game under Sheppard.This zone-heavy approach worked well to protect the Lions' older corners, D.J. Reed and Rock Ya-Sin, from chasing receivers all across the formation. In the absence of Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch (both on the physically unable to perform list), the Lions had Chuck Clark, Avonte Maddox and Thomas Harper playing the safety and nickel roles -- not the sort of talent you want isolated in man coverage against slots and tight ends, either.Then the Saints circled the wagons in the locker room and adjusted. Quarterback Tyler Shough had a towering 325 passing yards in the second half and overtime combined. Since the 2010 season, only 11 quarterbacks have been so prolific after the halftime break.Shough's first big completion out of the halftime locker room (after a pick and two sacks to open the third quarter) was a scramble drill play. The Lions were well positioned, but once Chris Olave broke downfield, it became a footrace between him and Reed -- a losing proposition for Detroit. Detroit's corners were playing with a ton of cushion -- in part to trap underneath throws with driving defensive backs and sinking linebackers, but also to give their corners room to deal with the speed of Olave and rookie receiver Bryce Lance, a 4.3 player. Reed averaged 7.1 yards of pre-snap cushion, per NFL Next Gen Stats; Ya-Sin was just behind him at 5.9 yards. Last season, Ya-Sin was the second-closest CB to the line of scrimmage (4.0 yards of cushion), and Reed was well closer than average (5.2 yards).No matter what sort of scheme you run or cushion you deploy, speed liabilities at cornerback will come back to get you. The Bills don't have a particularly fast group of receivers, but it's this sort of out-of-structure play that Josh Allen will create far more often -- and far more successfully -- than Shough did.So, this is a shift, and it's to insulate the safety play. I'm not sure how tenable it is. The Saints' ability to get free access on slants in the second half was a big part of their comeback. Olave and Lance both got open on deep stop routes, as well, as the Lions' secondary kept a careful umbrella over any vertical routes. Against a quarterback with Allen's velocity on Thursday, those windows will be wide open. Of course, against a quarterback with Allen's aggressiveness, Sheppard's clever zone coverage calls also could generate big negative plays. But the Lions had two picks, a sack-fumble recovered and four more sacks against the Saints -- and still, New Orleans was a two-point try away from an upset.The Lions are 1-0 after one week without Branch and Joseph -- that's a huge win. I'm just mightily worried about their ability to stay afloat against a more developed quarterback and deeper passing attack.I think ... Trevor Lawrence is the league MVPDo I really have an opinion about the league MVP through one week of the season? Absolutely not. But the mind wanders into such fantasies when the Jaguars' offense cruise controls its way to a 34-point outing against a not-insignificant Browns defense in Week 1.Lawrence's lightbulb flicked on midway through his first year in coach Liam Coen's offense. The trade acquisition of Jakobi Meyers and midseason breakout of Parker Washington sure helped. With a new cadre of wide receivers, the Jaguars pushed the ball downfield at league-leading rates after their Week 8 bye. Lawrence was fourth in the league in air yards per attempt (9.7) and third in the percentage of his pass attempts that were at least 10 yards downfield (41.2%).Against the Browns in Week 1, he picked up exactly where he left off with 11.2 air yards per attempt, 47.8% of his throws were at least 10 yards downfield and a whopping 56.5% of his throws went beyond the sticks.Lawrence can have disastrous outcomes when he's just blindly throwing first reads into tight coverage -- we saw plenty of those games in the past five years -- but with a great schemer in Coen and a talented pass catching group, he's a total flamethrower. And as Lawrence plays with more confidence in structure, he makes better plays outside of structure, where his escapability and throw-on-the-move talent has always been underappreciated and underused. His best play of the day was his fourth touchdown -- a second-and-19 scramble drill in which he shows off just how well he can drive the football when moving to his left. I don't think the Browns' defense is a pushover in 2026 without Myles Garrett -- Denzel Ward, Jared Verse, Carson Schwesinger and Grant Delpit are all still pretty good players. But maybe it is, and every quarterback will walk all over it. Here are the Jaguars' next five opponents: Broncos, Patriots, Bengals, Eagles and Texans. Three of the league's four best defenses from last season ... and the Bengals and Patriots are far from pushovers. If the Jaguars and Lawrence are for real, we're only a few games from knowing so for sure.Five things I might thinkI might think ... that the Bears should trade for Joey Porter Jr. The Steelers' corner sat out Week 1 as he and the team continue to stare each other down amid contract extension talks. If the Steelers really do want to trade him -- and my sense so far is that they don't -- I think the Bears are the right team to make the call. Chicago has the future cap space necessary to give Porter a big long-term deal and should do anything and everything it can to build a halfway-decent defense around this stupendous offense.I might think ... that the 13 personnel hype met expectations. In all the excitement around new coaches and final results, nobody has really checked on our favorite offseason schematic trend: 13 personnel, or three-TE sets. There were 160 total snaps of 13 personnel across the league this week, the most such snaps since the start of the 2007 season (as far back as my database goes). For some teams (like the Bills above) it makes so much. For others, it doesn't really. I think we see this number fall back down to earth by midseason.I might think ... the Ravens' offense already peaked. The Colts' defense was high on my list for Potentially Awful Groups in 2026 -- and boy was it Sunday. We haven't seen enough football yet to accurately apportion credit to the Ravens' offense and blame to the Colts' defense for the Ravens' 41 points. Baltimore might not see such smooth sailing for the rest of the season -- doubly so if Zay Flowers' hamstring continues to flare up regularly. The Ravens were thin at receiver before they lost rookie Ja'Kobi Lane to injured reserve because of a fractured wrist.I might think ... the same about the Giants' offense. Speaking of defenses worthy of suspicion, the Cowboys' coverage woes carried over from 2025 to 2026 in their "Sunday Night Football" loss to the Giants. Brian Schottenheimer openly lamented multiple coverage busts by "young players" in his postgame news conference. New York was able to burn clock and limit the second half to only five total possessions -- tied for the least second-half drives in a game over the past 15 seasons. I thought Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart looked quite sharp and the offensive line looked ferocious, but I'd like to see them in a game in which the opposing defense has a bit more spine.I might think ... the Cardinals are going to be good(ish). The story coming out of the Cardinals' upset win over the Chargers as 9-point favorites is all about Justin Herbert's bad performance and the failed promise of the Mike McDaniel offense. I'm far more interested in Jacoby Brissett ripping in-breakers to Kendrick Bourne, Michael Wilson and Trey McBride. Arizona and new head coach Mike LaFleur were hitting the McVay classics flawlessly in Week 1. The Cardinals have a solid line that should produce a more exciting running game as rookie Jeremiyah Love's ankle sprain heals. Long term, the quarterback position will be a limiting factor. But the Cardinals are not a Dolphins/Browns tier team -- not even close.
