6 reasons Week 1 of the NFL season didn’t make sense, and 4 reasons it did

The NFL season is finally upon us, and there were plenty of interesting things that happened in Week 1. Some of them were expected, but others weren’t.

Marshawn Lynch is finally back after a year in retirement. He gave us everything we’ve missed about seeing him on the field, and it was refreshing. The Rams also beat the snot out of the Colts, while the Jaguars did the same to the Texans.

If we would have told you the Patriots and Seahawks would be in last place, while the Jaguars, Rams, and Bills would be in first place after Sunday, you would have thought we were out of our minds. Not even Tony Romo could have predicted it. But all of that is true.

In Week 1, there were also major injuries, coaches on the hot seat, and Catch of the Year candidates. Here’s everything you need to know from an action-filled Sunday, the first of many to come in 2017.

Here are six things that happened Sunday that left us in disbelief — but not in the same way as that Cole Beasley catch against the Giants.

We’ve spent all offseason looking forward to how players would celebrate big plays in Week 1, knowing that the league has relaxed its rules about it. We were left disappointed. There were no notable celebrations on Sunday.

Worse, the networks didn’t do much to share the few celebrations that did happen.

We saw plenty of thrilling plays, but players just got up and got back to work. No dancing, no grandstanding, no celebrations of any sort. This is a departure even from the preseason. That gave us a Marvin Jones double-dutch celebration as well as the celebration that sits atop our current rankings: Taco Charlton making imaginary tacos for his teammates.

We still have two games on Monday night, so here’s hoping that players from the Saints, Vikings, Chargers, and Broncos have some fun celebrations in the works. That just wasn’t the case on Sunday.

It’s Week 1, so every team that wins a game gets to say it’s undefeated and in first place, and every team that loses is tied for last place.

But only three teams ended Sunday all alone at the top of their respective divisions, and they’re far from the usual candidates. The Jacksonville Jaguars and Los Angeles Rams were the only winners from the AFC South and NFC West, respectively.

The Buffalo Bills were the only winner from the AFC East, although the Miami Dolphins haven’t yet had a chance to get a win after the team’s opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was postponed until Week 11 due to Hurricane Irma.

Staying on top can be tough, so it might be a short reign for the teams out to an early lead. But enjoy it while you can, Jaguars, Rams, and Bills fans.

The Jags especially have been waiting a while for this:

The Jaguars dominated the game, which was surprising considering all of the bad things we heard about Blake Bortles all week.

The defense was giving the Texans offense hell. Not only did Calais Campbell play up to his new contract, but A.J. Bouye and Jalen Ramsey locked down DeAndre Hopkins. The box score might not reflect that, with Hopkins having seven receptions and a touchdown, but it was a long afternoon for Nuk and the Texans — who eventually benched Tom Savage for Deshaun Watson.

In relief, Watson completed 12 of 23 passes for 102 yards with one touchdown and one interception. Watson led the Texans to a touchdown on his first drive but wasn’t able to make enough magic to complete a comeback effort in the 29-7 loss.

Bill O’Brien has been known to have a quick trigger when it comes to switching it up at quarterback. He did it in 2015 with the Texans and Ryan Mallett and Brian Hoyer. He also did it in 2016, when he pulled Brock Osweiler for Savage. In 2017, he did it half a game into the season.

The Week 2 starter has yet to be decided.

“I’ll think about it a long time tonight and try to continue to work on Cincinnati and see what the best approach is vs. them,” O’Brien said Sunday.

The Browns season started just about as poorly as it could — a three-and-out that lost 9 yards, then a blocked punt the Steelers fell on in the end zone for a touchdown. From that point forward, Cleveland actually outscored its division rival 18-14, getting major contributions from its young stars in the process.

DeShone Kizer scored a pair of touchdowns (in between getting sacked seven times) and a still-building defense held Le’Veon Bell and James Conner to just 43 rushing yards on Sunday. Second-year wideout Corey Coleman, who missed a big chunk of his rookie season thanks to a broken hand, looked especially valuable, catching five of his six targets and notching a clutch fourth-quarter touchdown in the loss.

Marvin Lewis, winner of zero playoff games in his 14-plus seasons with the Bengals, has been on the NFL’s coaching hot seat so long his ass must be made of asbestos. But 2017 may be his swan song after Sunday’s 20-0 beating at the hands of the Ravens. Andy Dalton suffered through one of his worst games as a pro to start the season. He threw four interceptions, fumbled once, and barely completed more than 50 percent of his passes. Most inexplicably, he threw the ball away on a fourth-and-5 situation, dooming his team to awfulness instead of just mediocrity.

Nobody had high hopes for the Colts without Andrew Luck. That fact didn’t lessen the impact of watching them hit rock bottom in a 46-9 loss to the Rams.

Scott Tolzien started for the Colts but might as well have been the Rams’ best player. He threw a pair of pick-sixes and nearly threw a third had it not been for a facemask by Donte Moncrief. It would have given Tolzien a tie for most pick-sixes in a game.

Tolzien was so bad that he was pulled for Jacoby Brissett, a quarterback the Colts traded for eight days before, in the fourth quarter. Brissett helped put together the only scoring drive for the Colts, after going 2-of-3 for 51 yards. The drive was capped off by a Marlon Mack touchdown.

Things didn’t get better for the Colts after the game, when Chuck Pagano said that they got their asses kicked by the 49ers!

That’s quite the ass-whoopin’, the one where you forgot who you even took it from.

On the other hand, we’re not going to pretend to be shocked that any of the following happened:

Aside from stuffing the box score a little more, you couldn’t really ask more of Marshawn Lynch in his first game back from retirement. Lynch finished the game with 18 carries for 76 yards and one reception for 16 yards. But it was the other things that made it feel like a complete game from Lynch.

Whether it was punishing runs, somersaulting in the air, flipping the bird, or trying to make sure he wasn’t going to get fined for a lack of media time — we got the entire Beast Mode experience.

As Lynch said at his opening presser with his hometown Raiders, “This is actually born and raised and bred pissing in them hallways and running down them alleyways. I really did that, right here and now I get an opportunity to play here.”

He’s going to make the most of it.

As much of a Twitter punching bag Tony Romo was over the course of his NFL career, the general consensus on his broadcasting debut was great.

Romo talked about safety blitzes before the snap, circling it for viewers to see with ease. He explained why certain plays were run and showed proper enthusiasm when the moment was right.

He was even calling plays before they happened:

CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus was happy with the results. “I was pleasantly surprised, because social media by and large is very negative, for everybody, for all announcers and all networks,” he said. “The fact that it was positive is satisfying for me, but I also take it with a grain of salt.”

Romo’s career obviously didn’t end the way he would have liked, but this is a nice fit for him and a way to stay near football.

On Saturday night, No. 3 Clemson held off No. 13 Auburn by sacking quarterback Jarrett Stidham 11 times. The Texans weren’t quite that bad on Sunday, but their performance was a passable impression of that Tigers offensive line.

Tom Savage lasted just one half as the team’s starting quarterback and was sacked six times — or nearly half of his 13 dropbacks. He was replaced by Deshaun Watson after halftime, and the exponentially more mobile rookie wound up getting sacked four more times, including one that resulted in a possession-ending fumble.

With three-time Pro Bowl left tackle Duane Brown holding out, the Texans offensive line had no structural stability whatsoever. If Houston is going to keep Watson upright, it’s time to give Brown the contract he’s angling for.

The Bears drafted Cohen in the fourth round of the 2017 NFL draft out of North Carolina A&T. You may not have heard of him prior to Sunday, but Cohen was the MEAC’s all-time leading rusher with over 5,000 yards.

It was this run in the first half that had people glued to their TVs and devices beaming over the rookie:

Cohen finished the game with five carries for 66 yards on the ground and eight receptions for 47 yards and a touchdown.

After the game, he compared the duo of himself and Jordan Howard to LeBron James and Isaiah Thomas. That’s some high confidence from the rookie.