Week 1 is almost in the Books! The Afternoon games.

The season started with a game few saw coming with the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs losing to the visiting Detroit Lions and then continued into the early games that saw the highly regarded Bengals get ran out of Cleveland by the Browns. Well the surprises were not over as we move into the late games for the day. 

Let's start with a classic divisonal matchup with the Green Bay Packers making the short trip to Solider Field to face the Chicago Bears. Many have said that Justin Fields was ready to be considered an elite QB and Jordan Love has proven nothing and the Packers were looking to rebuild. Well, 38-20 Packers shows that may not be the case. 

In reality neither QB lit up the stats but Love did come away with 3 TDs and 245 yards on just over 50% passing. Fields countered with 1 TD, 1 INT and 216 yards passing. He added 59 yards on the ground but also put the ball on the ground once. 

Next lets look at another divisional matchup as the Las Vegas Raiders travel to take on Sean Payton and the Denver Broncos.  The talk of the league has been that the Raiders will be the worst team in the League and Broncos will be much improved. Well, Jimmy Garoppolo had a point to make as he lead the Raiders to a surprising 17-16 win. The Broncos meanwhile with a lot of hype coming into the season didn't look much different with a ploding and inept offense that averaged 6.6 yards per completion that breaks down to 27 completions for a total of 177 yards. 

Philadelphia opened their defense of the NFC Championship on to road against a pesky New England Patriots team that kept the game in doubt to the last 10 seconds when a 4th down pass to rookie WR Kayshon Boutte was ruled incomplete when Replay showed he only had one foot in bounds. That turnover let the Eagles take the Victory Formation and end the game. The take away from the game from my view though is I fell better about the Patriots and worse about the Eagles after this game.

The LA Chargers faced the Miami Dolphins and did what the Chargers do best, lose close games. Tua Tagovailoa lit up the score board with 466 yards passing, good for the 5th most in Dolphins history, and connected with Tyrek Hill for 215 yards and 2 TDs on 11 catches. 

If Tua has time to stand and throw this is going to be a very hard Miami offense to slow down. On the other side Austin Ekeler did his part with one of the best days for a Running Back this week with 164 yards from scrimmage. 

To wrap up the afternoon games, the Rams are better with Matt Stafford playing. Bold statement right. A healthy Stafford lead the Rams to a 30 to 13 win over the Seattle Seahawks. No Cooper Kupp, no problem in week one. The Rams Defense showed up holding Geno Smith and the Hawks to only 112 in the air and star WR combo DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett to a combined 57 yards passing. 

The week continues Tonight and Monday then it's onto week 2. There is a long 16 weeks ahead with plenty of changes coming.