NFL Week 1 Winners and Losers: Carson Wentz and the No Fun League
The first week of the NFL season is in the books this year, but who were the real winners and the actual losers?
We made it guys. The first week of the NFL season has already come and gone, and school is back in session. Already seasons are on the brink and Super Bowl paths have seemingly opened, all this after 60 minutes of action.
It’s way too early on in the season to tell who is really going to be contending for the Super Bowl, but we’ve already been able to sort out who the real winners and losers of the first week were. Let’s live outside of the box score a little, since that’s where the real battles are won and lost anyways.
Winner: Howie Roseman, Eagles (M)VP of Operations
There are few men in the NFL who have gone from looking as stupid to as brilliant as Roseman has. The pendulum will swing back the other way, inevitably, but for now Roseman is on top of the world.
The Chip Kelly experiment was one that should have cost him his job in Philly. It didn’t and he has somehow come out on the other end of things. Roseman and company rebounded from trading up to the No. 2 pick in this year’s draft — a laughable offense — to acquiring a first-rounder for Sam Bradford. Oh yeah, Carson Wentz looks like he might be the real deal. It’s one week but dammit if he didn’t make all of us eat our words.
Can you say Executive Of The Year?
Loser: Anyone Still Trying To Figure Out What A Catch Is
Jesus, when will it end. People who thought they were clever on Twitter trolled Dez Bryant for having a touchdown overruled because he didn’t complete the process of a catch. It was pretty clear that he didn’t catch the ball, but that wasn’t what threw us all off.
Later in the afternoon, T.Y. Hilton made a spectacular one-handed catch that looked like it should have been overruled since the ball came out. But Ed Hochuli ruled that because Hilton completed a roll (he didn’t) the catch counts.
Wut.
This isn’t even funny anymore. It’s like sunburn that never heals. Like the meaning of life, man is destined to never know what the hell constitutes a catch.
Winner: The ‘No Fun Police’
The week started with Cam Newton getting rocked into another dimension, and officiating only got worse from there. The play that saw Newton get taken out with a helmet-to-helmet hit was negated thanks to a far less severe penalty by the Panthers.
This then turned into the theme of the weekend. Newton’s hit — which was everything the NFL should be trying to avoid with the CTE scandals — wasn’t actually flagged, officially. But when Gerald McCoy sacked Matt Ryan and then danced with a fellow Buccaneers defender, this was a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
Ditto for when Chandler Jones danced in the general vicinity of his teammate after sacking Jimmy Garoppolo.
It’s a two-fold problem. On the one hand, the league is basically saying that destroying the brain of its players is as bad as dancing after a play. But these ‘choreographed celebration’ penalties are just B.S. Players officially can’t high-five each other or dance within arms-length of a fellow player or they risk a 15-yard, drive-altering penalty.
Goodell is too busy spouting off about how he’s missing the point over the national anthem protests. Let’s cut him some slack.
Power Ranking of Pain Sad, Sadder, Saddest
2. Colts
If you’re a Colts fans and you feel good about what you saw on Sunday, time to start following soccer.
3. Falcons
Not only did the Falcons lose, but they did so in front of about six people. Way to Rise Up, Atlanta.
4. Bears
Kevin White and Alshon Jeffery are great receivers. Too bad Jay Cutler is their only hope for success.
5. Chargers
You don’t blow a 24-3 lead and not lose all hope in your season. Joey Bosa had the right idea after all.
Sad: Robert Griffin III’s career is probably over. Let’s take a minute to ponder just how sucky that is. He could have been so great but Mike Shanahan had to go and screw it all up.
Sadder: Can we stop these dual Monday Night Football games in Week 1? No one wants to listen to Chris Berman mouth breath his way through games that are never any good.
Saddest: The AFC South remains the worst thing about the NFL. The Jaguars put together the best performance of the week and still lost. Why does that division still exist?
Things That Will Definitely Happen in Week 2
Let’s close out with a look ahead at somethings that will definitely happen next week in the NFL.
We’ll have to see how right or wrong these end up being when Week 2 of NFL action kicks off on Sunday. Stay safe out there, America.
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