Category: Sports

A modest change to the NFL’s kickoff rules made a massive impact on Week 1, producing the highest single-week return rate in 15 years.

In the league’s first slate of regular-season games since the touchback was moved to the 35-yard line, teams returned 118 of 156 kickoffs for a 75.6% return rate. The last time the NFL had a higher return rate for a single week was Week 17 of the 2010 season.

Last weekend’s games were particularly rare compared to other recent opening weeks. The last time the NFL had a return rate higher than 50% in Week 1 also was 2010 (78.1%).

The NFL overhauled its kickoff prior to the 2024 season after more than a decade of declining return rates, caused largely by rule changes that incentivized teams to pursue touchbacks and lower the number of concussions and other injuries. In 2023, only 21.8% of kickoffs were returned — the fewest since at least 2000 and likely in the modern history of the game. Not a single kickoff was returned in Super Bowl LVIII at the end of that season.

After analyzing a new alignment that first appeared in the XFL during its 2020 season, the NFL’s special teams coaches recommended a new approach for 2024.

Instead of reducing the number of returns, they suggested an alignment that minimized the number of high-speed collisions. The kickoff now begins with most players already standing downfield, rather than running at full speed to get there. They can begin to cover the kick as soon as the ball touches the ground or a member of the return team.

The original 2024 proposal called for touchbacks to be spotted at the 35-yard line, which league rule-makers believed would be a powerful incentive for coaches to kick a returnable ball. But it was changed to the 30-yard line as a compromise in order to generate enough support from owners to approve the rule.

The full-season return rate in 2024 improved to 32.8% but fell well short of the league’s goal. The average drive after a kickoff return started at the 28.8-yard line, and so most coaches preferred the certainty of a touchback in exchange for an additional 1.2 yards.

This spring, however, owners approved a revival of the 35-yard touchback proposal in March. Coaches acknowledged they would be less likely to exchange that certainty for an additional 5 yards of field position, and in Week 1 they followed through.

New York Giants starting linebacker Micah McFadden will have foot surgery and will miss “significant time,” a source confirmed to ESPN.

McFadden is likely to return at some point this season, the source said.

McFadden was injured Sunday while making a tackle on Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels. His right leg was placed in an air cast, and he was taken off the field on a cart.

He was replaced Sunday by second-year linebacker Darius Muasau, who will step into a bigger role in McFadden’s absence.

On Sunday, the Commanders immediately took advantage when Muasau replaced McFadden as Daniels found tight end Zach Ertz matched against Muasau for a touchdown on the next play.

The Giants originally selected McFadden in the fifth round of the 2022 NFL draft. He became a full-time starter in 2023.

McFadden had started 14 games each of the previous two seasons. He racked up over 100 tackles each of those years, including a career-high 107 last season.

His rookie contract is set to expire at the end of the season.

The news that McFadden would miss significant time with his injury was first reported by NFL Network.

CHICAGO — Hello J.J. McCarthy. And welcome back to the Minnesota Vikings defense.

The team’s new era at quarterback began with a rousing comeback victory over its NFC North rival in a 27-24 win over the Chicago Bears.

And for as much attention as McCarthy’s debut will generate — it was the Vikings’ defense that kept the team in the game while the offense struggled.

Bears quarterback Caleb Williams completed his first 10 passes as Chicago took a 10-3 lead in the second quarter, but the Bears’ offense didn’t score again until 2:02 remained in the fourth quarter.

McCarthy accounted for three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, including passes of 13 yards to Justin Jefferson and 27 yards to Aaron Jones Sr., and his 14-yard scramble in the fourth quarter put the Vikings up by 10 and accounted for the final margin.

Here are the most important things to know from Monday night for both teams:

What to make of the QB performance: If you drew up a reasonable but optimistic projection of how McCarthy’s first NFL start would go, this would be it. He looked frenetic in the first half, changing plays frequently and looking unsettled in the pocket. An interception returned for a touchdown in the third quarter seemed to end the game. But McCarthy, who is now 64-3 in games he has started since his sophomore year in high school, settled down in the second half. The takeaway after his first start? McCarthy is a winner.

Trend to watch: The Vikings built the idea of their running game to help McCarthy transition into his role, and it spurred the team during its second-half run. Newcomer Jordan Mason managed only 14 yards in the first half but his hard running broke the Bears after halftime, and he finished with 68 yards on 15 carries. Mason’s emergence coincided with the Vikings’ first two touchdown drives.

Stat to know: The Vikings’ offense needed help in the first half after accumulating only 80 yards and four first downs, and kicker Will Reichard came to the rescue. His 59-yard field goal just before halftime tied a Soldier Field record, a notable achievement given the historically bad weather and field conditions in Chicago, and was the second longest in Vikings history. Minnesota’s record is 61 yards by Greg Joseph, converted indoors at U.S. Bank Stadium in 2022. — Kevin Seifert

Next game: vs. Atlanta Falcons (8:20 p.m. ET, Sunday)

---

For nearly three full quarters, the Ben Johnson era looked as if it would begin by putting the “same old Bears” moniker to bed. Chicago began its season opener at Soldier Field with a touchdown and built a double-digit lead late in the third quarter behind a stout defensive performance.

But missed opportunities by the Bears to distance themselves from the Vikings proved costly. After rattling quarterback J.J. McCarthy in his NFL debut, the Bears’ defense struggled to contain a Vikings offense that scored 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to wrestle away the lead from the Bears.

Monday night was Chicago’s fourth loss in the past four seasons when entering the fourth quarter with a double-digit lead. That’s twice as many as any other team over that span.

For a team trying to leave the failures of last season in the past, the same issues continue to be a problem.

Turning point: The Bears saw a 17-6 lead they built after Nahshon Wright‘s pick-six waste away during a stretch that began late in the third quarter. Williams was flagged for intentional grounding with Chicago at Minnesota’s 34-yard line. Two plays later, Cairo Santos‘ 50-yard field goal attempt went wide right. The Vikings then scored on back-to-back possessions to take the lead.

Wasted momentum: Defensive coordinator Dennis Allen sent the house on third-and-8 early in the third quarter with the Vikings in field goal range. The seven rushers rattled McCarthy into throwing an interception, which resulted in the first defensive/special teams touchdown of the 2025 season. Wright jumped Justin Jefferson‘s route and ran back a 74-yard pick-six to give Chicago a 17-6 lead. It’s the second straight season opener in which the Bears broke open a game with a pick-six.

What to make of the QB performance: Caleb Williams’ 10 straight completions to start the game was the longest streak by a Bears quarterback to start a season opener since 1978 and the most consecutive completions in his NFL career. But things changed dramatically in the second half. He finished 20 of 34 for 191 yards and scored a rushing TD and passing TD. His passer rating was 84.3 and he was sacked twice.

Troubling trend: The Bears were flagged 12 times and racked up 127 penalty yards. Pre-snap penalties were an issue throughout training camp and a trend the Bears couldn’t buck after four false starts in the first half. Two defensive pass interference calls led to points for Minnesota — a 31-yard field goal and the Vikings go-ahead touchdown. — Courtney Cronin

Next game: at Detroit Lions (1 p.m. ET, Sunday)

The College Football Playoff selection committee members will tell you they don’t rank conferences — they rank teams — but the Big Ten and SEC are leading the way in nonconference wins that will impact the committee’s rankings through Selection Day.

According to ESPN Research, the SEC enters Week 3 with a 27-3 nonconference record (8-2 against Power 4 opponents), while the Big Ten is 31-5 (5-3 against Power 4 opponents). The Big 12 is 24-8 but 5-6 against the Power 4, and the ACC is 22-10 but 3-9 against Power 4 teams.

Those results impact the following conference-by-conference playoff breakdown — listed in order of who is projected to have the most teams in the 12-team field.

Below you’ll find one team in the spotlight for each Power 4 league, and another identified as an enigma. We’ve also tiered schools into three groups. Teams with Would be in status are featured in this week’s top 12 projection, a snapshot of what the selection committee’s ranking would look like if it were released today. A team with Work to do is passing the eye test (for the most part) and has a chance at winning its conference, which means a guaranteed spot in the playoff. And a team that Would be out is playing in the shadows of the playoff — for now.

The 13-member selection committee doesn’t always agree with the Allstate Playoff Predictor, so the following categories are based on historical knowledge of the group’s tendencies plus what each team has done to date. Mississippi State, for example, just earned a big nonconference win against Arizona State, so although the Bulldogs probably aren’t ready for the CFP yet, they’re still listed under Work to do to account for the upward trajectory that win provides early.

Reminder: This will change week-to-week as each team builds — or busts — its résumé.

Jump to a conference:
ACC | Big 12 | Big Ten
SEC | Independent | Group of 5

SEC

Bubble watch spotlight: Oklahoma. The Sooners might have the best quarterback in the country with transfer John Mateer, whose true dual-threat ability was on full display in a statement win against Michigan. Mateer led the Sooners in passing and rushing in a performance that bumped them into the early playoff conversation, but if they occupy that No. 12 spot on Selection Day, they’re out. With the projected Big 12 champion and Group of 5 champion looming outside of the top 12, the committee’s No. 11 and No. 12 teams would get bumped out. The more pressing question, though, is whether Oklahoma has sustainability. ESPN’s FPI gives the Sooners less than a 50% chance to beat Texas, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Alabama. Yes, Mateer gives Oklahoma’s offense a dramatic boost and has revived the program’s hopes of returning to national relevance, but the Sooners have to be better around him to prove the computer projections wrong.

The enigma: Alabama. Were the Tide that bad in their loss to Florida State, or are the Seminoles that good? It’s probably a combination of both, but how those teams fare will impact each other’s résumés in the committee meeting room all season. What if Alabama lost on the road to a top-four ACC champion? What if FSU’s big win was against a five-loss Alabama team that spirals down the stretch? Alabama beat down Louisiana-Monroe 73-0 in Week 2. It was the largest shutout for Alabama since 1951. Yes, it was against a weaker opponent, but Ty Simpson still completed all 17 of his passes — the most without an incompletion in a game in SEC history. So no, the performance against FSU wasn’t good, particularly up front, but ESPN’s FPI projects the Tide to win each of their remaining games — except on Sept. 27 at Georgia, which is a coin toss (53.6% chance for the Dawgs). If Alabama is a two-loss team with losses to the ACC and SEC champs … it’s in the playoff.

If the playoff were today

Would be in: Texas (63%), Georgia (62.4%), Tennessee (53%), LSU (26.5%)

Work to do: Ole Miss (59.8%), Alabama (48.6%), Auburn (33.3%), Missouri (26.7%), Texas A&M (20.6%), South Carolina (19.8%), Oklahoma (19.2%), Mississippi State (1.7%)

Would be out: Arkansas (17.7%), Vanderbilt (10.7%), Florida (5.1%), Kentucky (1.3%)

---

Big Ten

Bubble watch spotlight: Illinois. The Illini entered this season with high expectations after returning 18 starters from a 10-win team that finished in the Top 25 last year. Saturday’s win against Duke was the first real step in living up to them: a convincing road victory against a respectable program that won nine games last year. Duke was very generous in this game, surrendering five turnovers, and Illinois was hardly flawless, allowing four sacks before halftime. Illinois avoids Oregon, Michigan and Penn State this year, so it will need to take advantage of the opportunities it has, starting on Sept. 20 at Indiana. The toughest game is Oct. 11 against Ohio State, but Illinois will have home-field advantage. If Illinois loses both of those games, it could be a hard sell in the committee meeting room. The Illini would lose the head-to-head tiebreaker to Indiana, which could be the difference in who gets the at-large bid. If their only loss, though, is to Ohio State, even if they finish as the Big Ten runner-up, the Illini could be this year’s version of 2024 Indiana. Speaking of the Hoosiers …

The enigma: Indiana. Are the Hoosiers a playoff team again? They have a more difficult road to prove it, with three games against ranked opponents (Illinois, Oregon and Penn State) — plus a tricky road trip to Iowa. Last year, Ohio State was the only ranked opponent Indiana faced during the regular season — a 38-15 loss. It didn’t matter, though, because IU beat everyone else it played — soundly. The Hoosiers can’t go 0-3 against the ranked teams on this season’s schedule, though, and expect an at-large bid — especially when the nonconference lineup includes Old Dominion, Kennesaw State and Indiana State. ESPN’s FPI gives the Hoosiers a 61.3% chance to beat Illinois, which would be critical in a debate for an at-large spot. If the Hoosiers lose to Penn State and Oregon, would it be enough to earn a spot as a two-loss team? If they look as dominant as they did last year, then possibly. It would certainly help their case if other Big Ten opponents were above .500 or ranked by the committee.

If the playoff were today

Would be in: Ohio State (82.4%), Oregon (81.5%), Penn State (54.1%)

Work to do: USC (59.3%), Indiana (21.5%), Illinois (14.1%), Wisconsin (2.6%)

Would be out: Nebraska (27.4%), Washington (7.4%), Michigan (4%), Rutgers (3.8%), Minnesota (1.7%), Iowa (0.8%), Maryland (0.5%), Michigan State (0.4%), Northwestern (0%), Purdue (0%), UCLA (0%)

---

ACC

Bubble watch spotlight: Clemson. The Tigers dropped out of this week’s playoff projection after a second week of ho-hum offense. The LSU defense had a lot to do with making Clemson one-dimensional in the season opener, but Troy? Some of it could have been the letdown effect after losing a tough opener at home, but this is a veteran offense that has sputtered and stuttered. Clemson trailed 16-0 before scoring the final 27 points to win and avoid utter embarrassment. The Tigers needed the largest comeback the school has seen since 2020 against Boston College. Clemson earned a spot in the playoff last year as a three-loss ACC champ, so the Tigers certainly aren’t eliminated. They will be, though, if they don’t get that offense moving.

The enigma: Georgia Tech. With Haynes King in the lineup, Georgia Tech is a tough team capable of building upon last year’s seven-win season under coach Brent Key, but is this team capable of being more than a CFP spoiler? Remember, the Jackets beat Miami last year and pushed Georgia to eight overtimes — in Athens. This year, they avoid Miami, Florida State and SMU. Even without King, who was sidelined on Saturday with a lower-body injury, the Jackets beat overmatched Gardner-Webb 59-12 and backup quarterback Aaron Philo got some meaningful reps. The committee will learn more about both Clemson and Georgia Tech on Saturday when the Jackets host the Tigers — a game ESPN’s FPI gives Georgia Tech a 55.9% chance to win. If that happens, Georgia Tech should be favored in every remaining game — except the regular-season finale against rival Georgia. And — gasp — if Georgia Tech is sitting there on Selection Day having played in the ACC title game and with a lone regular-season loss to Georgia, this “enigma” is suddenly a playoff contender. The Jackets would be a lock with the ACC title, and in high consideration as a two-loss runner-up.

If the playoff were today

Would be in: Miami (33.4%), Florida State (22.8%)

Work to do: Georgia Tech (17.1%), Clemson (11.4%), SMU (8.2%)

Would be out: Louisville (5.1%), Virginia (3.2%), Pitt (2.8%), Boston College (1.8%), NC State (1.7%), Cal (0.7%), Duke (0.6%), Virginia Tech (0.5%), Syracuse (0.2%), North Carolina (0%), Stanford (0%), Wake Forest (0%)

---

Big 12

Bubble watch spotlight: Iowa State. The Big 12 winner will earn a spot in the playoff as one of the five highest-ranked conference champions, but the ultimate champ in this wide-open league is anyone’s guess. Right now, ESPN Analytics gives Utah the best chance to win the Big 12 (21.9%), followed by TCU (19.9%), BYU (17.7%) and then Iowa State (9.5%). The Cyclones, though, would have a slight edge with the committee because of two Power 4 wins against Kansas State and rival Iowa. Still, the league isn’t represented in our latest projection of the committee’s top 12. That’s because other teams have better résumés or have looked better (or a combination of both), and because Iowa State’s season-opening win against K-State will be devalued a bit after the Wildcats lost to Army (which lost to Tarleton State!). The committee also looks at opponents’ opponents. ESPN’s FPI projects Iowa State will lose to both BYU and TCU, but this is the kind of conference race that should go into late November — like it did last year. A two-loss Big 12 champ is in, but anything less than a title would open the door for debate.

The enigma: Texas Tech. The boosters have poured money by the bucketful into a highly rated class of 22 transfers. Billionaire Cody Campbell said publicly the school’s collective has raised $63.3 million since it was formed in 2022. And coach Joey McGuire was quoted this summer in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal saying it’s “the best roster I’ve ever been a part of.” Now it’s time to see if they got their money’s worth. So far, the Red Raiders have scored 129 points in two games — albeit against Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Kent State. ESPN’s FPI says Texas Tech will lose two regular-season games — Sept. 20 at Utah and Nov. 8 against BYU. And the Oct. 18 trip to Arizona State is a 50-50 game. If Texas Tech finishes the regular season as a two-loss team — and doesn’t win the Big 12 — it probably won’t have a résumé impressive enough for an at-large bid. If the Red Raiders’ lone loss is a close one in the Big 12 title game, though, it would give the league a strong chance at two CFP teams.

If the playoff were today

Would be in: Iowa State (12.9%)

Work to do: Utah (27.2%), TCU (24.8%), BYU (22.8%), Texas Tech (11.1%), Baylor (5.7%)

Would be out: Kansas (6.3%), Arizona (3.4%), Arizona State (3.1%), UCF (1.7%), Houston (1.1%), Cincinnati (0.9%), Kansas State (0.7%), Colorado (0.4%), West Virginia (0.1%), Oklahoma State (0%)

---

Independent

Would be in: Notre Dame (24%). This is a team the committee would like better than the computers right now, as the Allstate Playoff Predictor gives Notre Dame the 18th-best chance of getting into the playoff — behind the likes of Auburn, Nebraska and TCU. The close loss at Miami didn’t doom the Irish. A home loss on Saturday to Texas A&M, though, and the Irish are in trouble. ESPN’s FPI gives Notre Dame a 71.2% chance to win at home — and the second-best chance in the country to win out (behind Ohio State). If that happens, and Notre Dame finishes as a one-loss team (possibly to the ACC champs), the committee would consider Notre Dame for one of the top four seeds and a first-round bye. Those spots are no longer reserved for conference champions, so there’s no ceiling anymore for the independent Irish. Without a conference championship game, though, Notre Dame’s résumé has to stand on its own on Selection Day. That’s why a second loss could be so damaging — there’s no opportunity to lock up a spot as one of the five highest-ranked conference champions, and there’s not another chance to impress the committee against a ranked opponent. So, if the Irish start 0-2, even if they run the table, they will have to bank on wins against the likes of Arkansas, Boise State, USC, Navy and Syracuse to earn an at-large bid. It seems … like a stretch.

---

Group of 5

Bubble watch spotlight: South Florida. The Bulls have already defeated the computers, which projected an 0-2 start. Now, with statement wins against Boise State and Florida — two teams that were ranked in the AP Top 25 at the time — South Florida is leading the race for a Group of 5 playoff spot. ESPN’s FPI gives Miami a 72.3% chance to beat South Florida at home on Saturday, but even if the Bulls lose, they will still impress the selection committee with their 2-0 start. If South Florida wins the American Conference, it should earn a spot in the playoff because it’s going to be hard for another Group of 5 champion to finish with a better résumé. Things could get interesting if South Florida runs the table but loses in its conference title game. The committee would consider the Bulls for an at-large spot along with the top Group of 5 champion. With regular-season wins against Boise State, Florida and Miami — especially if the Canes win the ACC — no other Group of 5 team would beat that résumé. Only two weeks into the season, South Florida is already ranked No. 3 in the country in ESPN’s strength of record metric, trailing only Ohio State and Florida State. The selection committee is using a similar metric this season to help evaluate how teams performed against their schedules.

The enigma: Tulane. According to the Allstate Playoff Predictor, Tulane has the second-best chance in the American to reach the playoff (19.8%) behind South Florida. The Green Wave earned a Power 4 win in their opener, albeit at home against an unranked Northwestern team. Tulane has another chance to start to separate itself from the other Group of 5 contenders on Saturday against Duke, but the biggest opportunity will be on Sept. 20 at Ole Miss. This would be even more impressive than South Florida’s win at The Swamp because the Rebels look like a tougher opponent. ESPN’s FPI gives Ole Miss an 87.3% chance to win.

If the playoff were today

Would be in: South Florida (34%)

Work to do: Tulane (19.8%), Memphis (16.6%), UNLV (11.1%), Navy (2.8%)

Gerwyn Price underlined his battling qualities with a series of dramatic comebacks to clinch his fourth Players Championship title of the year on Tuesday.

Price produced a brilliant display to defeat Gian van Veen in the Players Championship 26 final, averaging 109.28 and landing an astonishing 13 maximums to complete an 8-5 victory.

The Welshman was beaten 6-0 by Van Veen in Sunday’s Czech Darts Open quarter-finals, and he appeared to have revenge in his sights as he won the first six legs of Tuesday’s showpiece.

Price landed 122 and 129 checkouts during a blistering early barrage, although he was forced to defy a stunning rearguard from the young Dutchman, who responded with a five-leg blitz of his own.

Van Veen followed up 63 and 98 finishes with a majestic 164 on the bull, before firing in consecutive 15-dart legs as Price began to falter on the outer ring.

However, the three-time Grand Slam champion arrested Van Veen’s charge with a sublime 11-darter in leg 12, before following up another brace of 180s by pinning double five to round off a terrific contest.

“I had to battle there,” reflected Price, who now moves above Van Veen to occupy top spot on the Players Championship rankings.

“Towards the end Gian took out the 164 and I thought: ‘Here we go again’.

“I thought I outplayed him but I couldn’t take my chances, and he was pinning some big finishes with his last dart.”

Price kicked off his campaign with a 108 average in a 6-2 drubbing of Dom Taylor, before coming back off the canvas to stun James Hurrell, who squandered five match darts for a 6-1 win.

Following a routine 6-2 success against Brendan Dolan, Price then overturned 4-1 and 4-2 deficits against Andy Baetens and Wessel Nijman respectively, which set up a semi-final clash against William O’Connor.

The 40-year-old was forced to showcase further brinkmanship against the Irishman, battling back from 5-2 and 6-4 down to triumph, having survived another match dart in the penultimate leg.

Van Veen, meanwhile, registered a hat-trick of ton-plus averages to progress to his third Players Championship final of the year.

The World Youth Champion continued his excellent form at Halle 39, dispatching Ross Smith and Gary Anderson on his way to pocketing the £10,000 runner-up prize.

2025 Players Championship 26 results

Last 16
Danny Noppert 6-5 Martin Schindler
Gary Anderson 6-4 Callan Rydz
Gian van Veen 6-1 Mickey Mansell
Ross Smith 6-3 Nathan Aspinall
Gerwyn Price 6-4 Andy Baetens
Wessel Nijman 6-3 Keane Barry
Bradley Brooks 6-4 Dave Chisnall
William O’Connor 6-5 Damon Heta

Quarter-Finals
Gary Anderson 6-5 Danny Noppert
Gian van Veen 6-3 Ross Smith
Gerwyn Price 6-5 Wessel Nijman
William O’Connor 6-3 Bradley Brooks

Semi-Finals
Gian van Veen 7-4 Gary Anderson
Gerwyn Price 7-6 William O’Connor

Final
Gerwyn Price 8-5 Gian van Veen

Live darts is back on Sky Sports from October 6-12 as the BoyleSports World Grand Prix is held in Leicester. Not got Sky? Stream darts and more with no contract.

Tyreek Hill‘s estranged wife has alleged in court filings that he committed domestic violence, which the Miami Dolphins receiver has vehemently denied.

According to documents obtained by TMZ, Keeta Vaccaro alleges eight separate incidents of domestic violence in filings related to the couple’s divorce case.

Hill’s attorney said in a statement Monday that the allegations are part of a “shakedown,” adding that they are “an attempt to generate bad media coverage” for Hill.

According to TMZ, Vaccaro alleges that the first incident occurred in January 2024, about two months after her marriage to Hill.

Hill has not been criminally charged, and it was unclear as of Tuesday morning whether law enforcement was investigating Vaccaro’s allegations.

Vaccaro filed a petition for divorce on April 8, one day after police reported a domestic dispute between her and Hill.

Hill is in the second year of a restructured three-year, $90 million contract with the Dolphins. The five-time All-Pro player has been at the center of numerous off-field incidents since joining the Dolphins in 2022, including being detained by police last September after being stopped for speeding and reckless driving. The exchange with Miami-Dade police occurred hours before the Dolphins 2024 season opener just outside Hard Rock Stadium.

Hill, 31, also was in a physical altercation with a Haulover Marina employee in June 2023, and a separate lawsuit alleges he broke a social media influencer’s leg that same month.

Week 2 has wrapped up, and the ACC and Big Ten showed they have multiple teams in contention for the College Football Playoff, South Florida beat yet another AP Top 25 team and Oklahoma State suffered its biggest loss in over 100 years.

Is it possible for Oklahoma State to bounce back? How have Mississippi State’s portal pickups helped turn around the program? Is South Florida’s success finally giving the American Conference a reason to smile?

Our college football experts break down key takeaways from Week 2 performances.

Jump to:
CFP race | Oklahoma State
South Florida | Billy Napier
Mississippi State | Potential FCS title game

The ACC and Big Ten are off to strong starts in the CFP race

The ACC runs deeper than Miami and Clemson (welcome back, Florida State), and the Big Ten is stronger than Ohio State, Penn State and Oregon (that’s you, Illinois and Indiana … maybe USC). Meanwhile, in the SEC, Austin Peay stuffed Georgia on the 1-yard line, LSU had its hands full against that pesky Louisiana Tech defense, Florida lost at home to South Florida, and South Carolina needed two punt returns for touchdowns to overcome a sleepy start against South Carolina State.

Based on the latest predictions, if the ranking were today, the ACC would have two top-four teams with first-round byes (predicted ACC champ No. 5 Miami and No. 10 Florida State). The SEC hasn’t won the national title in each of the past two seasons, and it might be even tougher to win it this year with more contenders in the mix — at least early. — Heather Dinich

---

Where have all the Cowboys gone?

There’s no shame in losing to Oregon in Eugene, just ask the defending national champion Ohio State Buckeyes, who lost there last year.

But Oklahoma State being noncompetitive against any opponent on any field is embarrassing for coach Mike Gundy and a proud program boasting so much success over the past two decades.

The Ducks smoked the Pokes 69-3 — Oklahoma State’s most-lopsided loss since 1907, the same year Oklahoma gained statehood.

It felt even worse than that final score indicated. Oregon scored two touchdowns on its first three plays. The Ducks had eight touchdowns before the end of the third quarter — while Oklahoma State completed just seven passes and produced only six first downs (until a final garbage-time drive).

Afterward, Ducks coach Dan Lanning and his players noted they took issue with Gundy calling out Oregon’s roster’s robust budget earlier in the week. Ducks QB Dante Moore said they wanted to keep a “foot on their necks.”

Lately, Gundy seems to be generating more headlines than wins. Last season, on the way to a last-place Big 12 finish, he apologized for suggesting critical fans “can’t pay their own bills.” Then, amid a clash with the school’s regents last December, Gundy fired his staff and agreed to a reduced salary and reduced buyout. Now what?

Under Gundy, since 2005, the Cowboys had been one of college football’s most consistent programs — a perennial winner. But this abrupt downturn — 10 straight losses to FBS opponents — appears to have no end in sight. And Gundy, the nation’s second-longest tenured coach, faces a lot of tough questions with no easy answers. — Jake Trotter

---

South Florida highlights strong start for the American

As longtime commissioner of the American Conference, Mike Aresco constantly fought for the league to be viewed as a power conference, mostly to no avail. The past few years have been tough. UCF and Houston left for the Big 12, and SMU bolted for the ACC. The American saw the Mustangs immediately make the first 12-team College Football Playoff and then Mountain West champion Boise State land a coveted automatic qualifying spot instead of its own champ.

Aresco is undoubtedly smiling right now, along with current American commissioner Tim Pernetti, as the league has made a significant splash early in the 2025 season.

South Florida, which won seven games in each of the past two seasons under coach Alex Golesh, is carrying the conference’s banner after wins against Boise State and Florida, beating ranked opponents in consecutive weeks for the first time in team history. The Bulls had never won at Florida, and they take one of the nation’s most impressive profiles into this week’s game at No. 5 Miami. Imagine if South Florida takes down the Gators and Hurricanes in back-to-back weeks.

The league also got a nice lift from Army, which responded from a brutal home loss to Tarleton State by shocking Kansas State in the Little Apple. Coach Jeff Monken’s team has fallen off from last year’s 12-win perch, but Saturday’s win stabilized things a bit for Army.

Other opportunities await for teams in the American, including Tulane, which already has a definitive win against a Power 4 opponent (Northwestern) and faces Duke — and former Green Wave quarterback Darian Mensah — and Ole Miss the next two weeks. There are some long shots, such as Navy‘s annual matchup with Notre Dame and Temple hosting Oklahoma this coming week, as well as more realistic win chances like Memphis hosting Arkansas on Sept. 20.

Things are never smooth-sailing for leagues like the American during the early part of the season, but thanks to South Florida and others, the highlights are piling up. — Adam Rittenberg

---

Is Billy Napier done at Florida?

There was no loss more costly Saturday than No. 13 Florida’s 18-16 defeat to South Florida in The Swamp. Once again, the Gators did seemingly everything they could to give away the game late in the fourth quarter.

After USF missed a 58-yard field goal try, the Gators got the ball back with less than three minutes to play. Instead of running the ball and milking the clock, Florida coach Billy Napier called two passing plays. The Gators failed to pick up a first down and used about 20 seconds before punting.

After the Bulls took over at their 11-yard line, Florida’s defense committed two huge penalties to give USF a chance to win. A pass-interference penalty gave USF some breathing room, and then Florida defensive lineman Brendan Bett spat on a Bulls offensive lineman, drawing another 15-yard penalty and an automatic ejection. The Bulls had two big passing plays to get into field goal range, and Nico Gramatica kicked a 20-yarder at the buzzer to win.

The loss dropped Napier’s record at UF to 20-20, and he’s only 14-7 at home. All of the momentum Napier gained from the four-game winning streak to end the 2024 season is gone. Athletics director Scott Stricklin gave Napier a vote of confidence last year and it paid off. Stricklin received a three-year contract extension in June, so it will be his decision on whether Napier returns in 2026. Napier would be owed about $20.4 million if he’s let go.

Barring a miracle, it will not get better. The Gators still play eight teams that are ranked, including four straight starting with Saturday’s trip to No. 3 LSU. They play at No. 5 Miami, host No. 7 Texas and travel to No. 19 Texas A&M. The Gators will face No. 4 Georgia, No. 20 Ole Miss, No. 22 Tennessee and No. 14 Florida State later in the season. Ouch. — Mark Schlabach

---

Mississippi State’s portal-heavy turnaround is coming together

Mississippi State has lost 15 of its past 16 SEC games. Jeff Lebby took on a daunting rebuild for his first head coaching job and has gone through two long offseasons of reconstructing his roster to catch up to his conference peers.

On Saturday night, the Bulldogs achieved a magical signature win that inspires hope. Mississippi State rolled to a 17-0 lead over No. 12 Arizona State and nearly blew it, giving up 20 unanswered points. But a tough goal-line stop in the final two minutes, forcing the Sun Devils to kick a go-ahead field goal, gave the Bulldogs a chance to play for the win. Blake Shapen did just that on a third down with 30 seconds left, torching the defending Big 12 champs with a 58-yard bomb to speedy receiver Brenen Thompson for the win.

The Bulldogs won this game with 16 starters who joined this program via the transfer portal. Shapen came in from Baylor and stayed with Lebby after a season-ending injury last year. His top receivers, Thompson (Oklahoma transfer) and Anthony Evans III (Georgia), burned the Sun Devils with career-best performances. Seven former transfers started on a defense that held one of the Big 12’s top QBs, Sam Leavitt, to 82 passing yards.

It’s a historic triumph for this rebuilding program, the Bulldogs’ first nonconference home win over a ranked opponent since 1991, and one that Lebby hopes is proof that this team is trending in the right direction. The Bulldogs are working with explosive playmakers and better depth, and now this group has some hard-earned confidence. Mississippi State could easily be 4-0 entering SEC play with positive momentum and an opportunity to keep surprising everyone. — Max Olson

---

FCS national championship preview?

Please allow for this brief foray into the world of FCS football because it’s a worthy detour. No. 2 South Dakota State traveled to No. 3 Montana State on Saturday for what could be a preview of the FCS national championship game, and it did not disappoint.

South Dakota State — the 2023 national champion under new Washington State coach Jimmy Rogers — fell behind in overtime, but responded by scoring two touchdowns on its next three plays to escape Bozeman with a 30-24 double-OT win. It was the Jackrabbits’ second win against a Big Sky opponent to start the season after dominating Sacramento State 20-3 in their opener. South Dakota State quarterback Chase Mason, who backed up new Iowa quarterback Mark Gronowski the past two seasons, was excellent, completing 17 of 25 passes for 190 yards with 3 touchdowns.

Mason outdueled former Stanford and Syracuse quarterback Justin Lamson, who landed at Montana State after initially announcing he was transferring to Bowling Green in the offseason. If the Ohio State-Texas matchup was the premier nonconference game of the FBS schedule, then this game was the equivalent for FCS: two of the best teams from the two best conferences. — David Hale

Welcome to Week 1! It’s been a long time since our weekly Tuesday column, and how I have missed it. There’s also nothing like the first few weeks of the NFL season. We don’t know anything right now, so each take is new, exciting and potentially egregiously dumb. If Week 1 was destiny, then the Jets and the Steelers would be two of our most high-powered offenses (don’t believe that), and Bills-Ravens would be the best game all season (that one’s probably true).

On Tuesdays, I try to spin the previous week of NFL football forward, looking at what the biggest storylines mean and what comes next. We’ll break down a major trend or two and highlight some key individual players. There will be film. There will be stats (a whole section of them). And there will be fun.

This week, we’re going to rank the top Week 1 performances from quarterbacks who joined new teams, take a closer look at the Giants’ QB situation and size up a few interesting pass-game tendencies we saw Sunday. Let’s dive in.

Jump to a section:
The Big Thing: Ranking top Week 1 QB debuts
Second Take: The Giants can’t go to Dart just yet
Mailbag: Answering questions from … you
Next Ben Stats: Wild Week 1 stats

The Big Thing: New (quarterback) faces in new places

Every week, this column will kick off with one wide look at a key game, player or trend from the previous slate of NFL action. What does it mean for the rest of the season? This week, we ranked five of the most intriguing quarterback debuts with their new teams.

The Geno Smith-Chip Kelly pairing is going to be appointment television this season. On Sunday against the Patriots, the Raiders were first in the NFL in explosive pass rate at 26.3%, second in air yards per attempt at 10.3 and second in play-action rate at 34.2% — all while being blitzed 47.4% of the time. Smith ended the day 24-for-34 for a whopping 362 yards.

That was a lot of numbers. Let me summarize: The Raiders went for big plays and hit them, over and over again.

Smith has always been a fearless field general, and Kelly played into his hand nicely, creating isolation opportunities with deep-breaking routes. Smith is as good as any quarterback in the league at pinning the ball on routes that break deep downfield. He hit Jakobi Meyers on a deep comeback and Tre Tucker on a beautiful out route. But Smith also has the velocity and release speed to fire run-pass options into the intermediate levels of the field, and that works great in Kelly’s motion-heavy play-action approach.

Smith’s willingness to stand in the heat of the fire and keep pushing the ball got him in trouble at times with the Seahawks, and it will again in Las Vegas. He took four sacks and threw a pick on one of those deep opportunities. While the Patriots had to add additional bodies with a blitz to get home, future teams won’t be as willing to create space downfield. In Week 2, the Raiders will see a polar-opposite defense from what Smith saw on Sunday in the Chargers and defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, who never blitzes and sits in deep zones.

But Smith turns his completions against pressure and blitzes into 20-plus-yard chunks and not 5-yard dump-offs, and that gives his offense the ability to have instant scoring drives. The Raiders’ running game was worryingly poor, but one 38-yard catch and run for Brock Bowers set up a third-quarter field goal, and the aforementioned Tucker out-breaker for 28 yards set up a fourth-quarter field goal. Explosives are king in the NFL, and Smith has the sort of mentality that authors them.

To his credit, Kelly did a great job scheming up open receivers as the Patriots devolved into more and more coverage. I’m fascinated to see how this looks in Week 2 against such a different defense, and Las Vegas’ offensive line looks as if it could be a limiting factor. But for Smith’s part, the Raiders paid a third-round pick and a contract of $37.5 million per year for a solid veteran starter at quarterback; in his first start, he easily cleared that bar. I can’t promise the Raiders will be actually good, but again, you’re going to want to get these guys on your TV screen.

---

When the Steelers signed Rodgers, the theory was that he would be good enough to get their otherwise-solid team over the playoff hump. Play great defense, run the ball well (though Sunday was not inspiring to that end) and get a couple of splash throws from the wily veteran.

Well, Pittsburgh has to feel good about that after Week 1. Rodgers had a classic Rodgers-ian throw — a gorgeous 50-50 ball on the sideline to Calvin Austin III — but also operated within the bounds of the offense against the Jets. He had nine dropbacks of under center play-action in this game, nearly matching his single-game best (10 snaps) across the past five seasons. Such dropbacks are a staple of an Arthur Smith offense but have largely been spurned by Rodgers, who prefers to keep his eyes on the defensive backfield, which is hard to do when faking a handoff to a running back.

Nifty design here. Watch how the motion from Austin into the formation moves the corner off the line of scrimmage, forcing him to play flat-footed and from depth when Austin explodes out of the backfield. Rodgers hits the run fake, gets his head back around and makes a classic, effortless throw on the move.

pic.twitter.com/hFC6k0Hnq1

— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) September 8, 2025

This was one of Rodgers’ eight pass attempts that went for more than 15 yards. It was well-schemed but, obviously, pretty wide open; the corner stumbled in the route stem and never recovered. In fact, seven of Rodgers’ eight big throws were the result of a coverage bust (whether it be a miscommunication or a DB falling down) or a missed tackle.

Some of that can still be to the Steelers’ credit. The Jets struggled to pass off crossers, which led to an 18-yard DK Metcalf catch-and-run to get into the red zone, and a 22-yard Ben Skowronek touchdown. The receivers had 8.7 and 8.5 yards of separation at the catch, respectively, per NFL Next Gen stats. But the Steelers were going no-huddle on the Metcalf catch, something Rodgers does extremely well. Defensive miscommunications occur more often in the hurry-up offense, which is partly why Rodgers likes it so much.

Generally, the Jets’ secondary had a nightmare day. Rodgers picked on 6-foot-1 cornerback Brandon Stephens, who was one of the worst jump ball DBs in the league last season, and he got summarily dunked on by the 5-foot-9 Austin. The Steelers won’t play a defensive backfield this mistake-prone very often, and the margins will become accordingly thinner.

So, I’m not over my skis with a Rodgers reemergence, not by a long shot. He certainly is still capable of playing point guard in a smart and efficient passing game built on line of scrimmage audibles and quick releases, but his lack of pocket escapability remains a weighty cap on this offense’s ceiling. Rodgers also had the third-highest explosive pass rate on the day (23.5%) while throwing the most screens (30% of dropbacks) and the third-shallowest passes overall (4.5 air yards per attempt). That explosive play rate is not going to stick.

Rodgers is doing the right things and looks more amenable to the system than he did at the end of his Packers days and/or with the Jets. Steelers fans should rightfully take heart. I’m just not sure doing the right things will bear as much fruit every week as it did on Sunday.

---

The excellence of Fields’ first game with the Jets is not in what was there but rather in what wasn’t there: negative plays.

In Fields’ three seasons with the Bears, risk management was his biggest issue. He took a sack on 10.9% of dropbacks — the highest rate of any quarterback over that stretch — and held the ball for a league-leading 3.34 seconds per dropback. The ball never came out fast, if it came out at all; his 12.4% scramble rate also led the league, though that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

But Fields always struggled to calibrate the risk to the reward. For every splashy downfield completion or heroic escape, he had two bad sacks and three missed throws. Fields tried too often to be Superman when Chicago’s offense needed Clark Kent.

This improved a bit in Pittsburgh — his interception rate went from 3.1% to 0.6%, for example — but the Steelers’ offense wasn’t built for him. It was built for Russell Wilson, and Fields never fit. This offense in New York? This was built for Fields. On Sunday against his former Steelers team, he had nine designed runs, more than all but one game from his Pittsburgh tenure. He was given intermediate and downfield routes from the pocket instead of exclusively seeing them on play-action boots and rollouts. That allowed him to throw from balanced bases and use his premier velocity to hit closing windows.

The Jets’ offense wasn’t just built to his strengths; it also hid him from his weaknesses. Tanner Engstrand, who called perhaps the best game of any new coordinator (offense or defense), committed to protecting Fields from the third-and-longs that invite the quarterback’s worst tendencies. The Jets called a run on 58.1% of their plays, producing a run rate 21.3% over expectation given the downs and distances they faced, per NFL Next Gen Stats. That would have been the ninth-heaviest game for designed runs in the NFL last season.

The commitment to the ground game insulated Fields from clear passing downs on which the fearsome Steelers pass rush could tee off. Fields had six third-down dropbacks and needed to gain an average of 4.6 yards — the shortest distance to the sticks on third down for a start in his career. He converted three of the six, and he also converted a fourth-and-1 for a touchdown.

Again, this was about insulation. The Jets handed the ball off on a third-and-11 and a third-and-17 — a hugely cautious approach that will continue to hurt them in close games. But just as they are cognizant of Fields’ particular demons, so is he, and he looked sharper managing the pocket than he ever did in Chicago. Watch Fields pick his way through tight spaces here, always with two hands on the ball, while keeping his head up and looking for throwing opportunities.

Thought Justin Fields did a great job avoiding negatives.

Great pocket management here: two hands on ball the whole way, doesn’t run into the Heyward contain, patiently finds an alley, good throw on move.

As an aside: look at the recovery athleticism on Fashanu (74). Wheew. pic.twitter.com/ekR0cq2Si8

— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) September 8, 2025

Fields is not a fixed player — not yet, anyway. He is still a tick later to his reads than he should be, though he has the ball velocity to make up for it. He tunneled Garrett Wilson a few times too many, but that’s defensible, given the rest of the Jets’ wide receiver room. Still, for the first time since Fields entered the league, it really seems as if an offensive coach is willing to tailor the system and playcalling to leverage Fields’ strengths and color around his weaknesses. This shouldn’t have been hard elsewhere, even though it was in both Chicago and Pittsburgh. But things make sense now under Engstrand in New York.

One offseason and one start won’t fix a quarterback entirely. But this is how the reclamation process started for Sam Darnold with Minnesota and Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay, by putting them in offenses that worked for them, letting their confidence build and expanding their responsibilities over time. A good foundational stone was laid in New York in Week 1. Keep building in Week 2.

---

It’s difficult to overstate how badly the Dolphins’ secondary played on Sunday. Cornerback Jack Jones had multiple coverage busts on the first drive. Miami struggled tremendously in zone coverage by allowing receivers to get wider than their widest defender. Colts running back Jonathan Taylor motioned out wide and had an 18-yard catch-and-run on a checkdown because nobody traveled with him. Mo Alie-Cox had a 20-yard catch-and-run on a quick out because, again, the flat defender just gave him unimpeded access to the sideline. These are worse than preseason mistakes. These are second-half-of-a-preseason-game mistakes.

By the second quarter, when it became evident that his defensive backfield had no shot, coordinator Anthony Weaver started to crank up the blitz in the hope of disrupting Jones and causing a turnover. This kind of worked. Jones’ success rate was 65% (preposterously good) without additional rushers as compared to only 56% (just really good) when Weaver sent extras. The issue for Miami was how well Colts coach Shane Steichen called the offense, giving Jones quick options (2.33 seconds time to throw against 16 blitzes) to a variety of strong yards-after-catch receivers.

That’s the story of the Colts-Dolphins game: a woefully undermanned secondary running into a deep pass-catching corps with a strong schemer at head coach. I cannot generate any meaningful takeaways about the starting quarterback, good or bad. Jones had a classic point guard game. He threw well to his first read when open, including a beautiful deep out-breaker to Adonai Mitchell with anticipation, but didn’t do much damage through his progressions. He was fine as a scrambler, as always.

Jones avoided negative plays — no picks, one sack — which was and will remain his primary emphasis as he keeps the starting job from Anthony Richardson Sr. Jones also found his outlets fast, so any concern he might still be digesting the Steichen playbook should be dispelled. But the Colts’ offense was barely hassled this game. Even with all that blitzing, Jones was pressured on only six of his 33 dropbacks.

If there’s a victory lap to be taken in the Jones-Colts marriage, it’ll come down the road. This was certainly a good day at the office, but I’m confident Richardson also could have scored 33 points against the Dolphins’ defense on Sunday. (And QB3 Riley Leonard would have gotten a solid 27 points himself.)

Next week for the Colts? The Broncos’ defense. That’s a little stiffer test.

---

The stat sheet was not kind to Ward on Sunday. He had a dropback success rate of 17.7%. That ranks 1,101st out of 1,105 QB games since the start of the 2023 season.

The film is far kinder. Ward just missed on a couple, including an overturned bobble to tight end and fellow rookie Gunnar Helm on the right sideline and a pair of third-down completions that each ended a yard short of the sticks. That’s not to mention two drops by leading receiver Calvin Ridley (who arguably should have been given a third); both would have been first downs.

That said, Ward has plenty to clean up — not surprising after a rookie quarterback’s first start against a defense like that of the Broncos. Inexcusable consecutive sacks in the fourth quarter knocked Tennessee out of field goal range in a one-point game, and both were avoidable if Ward had dirted the ball or played with more urgency. Ward also left seven points on the table in the red zone when wide receiver Van Jefferson got open as expected on a pseudo rub route — but Ward already had dropped his eyes and entered scramble mode. This play is designed for Jefferson, and the ball should have been thrown.

pic.twitter.com/WYIdQhCfys

— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) September 8, 2025

Overall, I remain bullish on Ward’s NFL future. At Miami, Ward was an instinctive passer. He remains so in the NFL, where he is throwing with anticipation. And an understanding of how coverages will develop. He made multiple plays against pressure in this game that demonstrated preposterous poise for a veteran, let alone a rookie.

He is almost too chill at times. He was sacked — very nearly for a safety — because he snapped the ball on a diminishing play clock without alerting his offensive line of the urgency. Right tackle JC Latham was late out of his stance, and while that’s more on Latham, Ward is the leader of the offense and will learn to account for those things.

The high-difficulty throws were abundant on Sunday, and the easy arm talent was apparent. The Titans are a young team with plenty of issues to rectify, including pre-snap alignment confusions and blown assignments in the running game. As that improves over the course of the season, the team will catch up to Ward’s talent and look more put together in the passing game.

Second Take: Start Russell Wilson for as long as you can

ESPN’s “First Take” is known for, well, providing the first take on things — the instant reactions. Second Take is not a place for instant reactions but rather the spot where I’ll let the dust settle before taking perhaps a bit of a contrarian view.

I understand how frustrating Sunday was for Giants fans. A final score of 21-6 belies how close that game was overall. The Giants’ defense was disruptive and opportunistic, and the offense had … well, opportunities to score points, at least.

But yes, it was bad. Wilson had a completion percentage of only 45.9% — 12.7% below expectation, per Next Gen Stats — which is really worrisome when considering that more than 30% of his pass attempts were behind the line of scrimmage. Wilson had one pass attempt more than 20 yards downfield, which is malpractice — the one thing he still does really well is the moonball.

Wilson’s lack of downfield passing is defensible, to a degree. He was under constant duress. He was pressured on 16 of his 45 dropbacks (35.6%), and eight of those were classified by Next Gen Stats as “quick” pressures — pressures in under 2.5 seconds. The Giants rolled back the same starting offensive line from last season and received the fruits of that labor, as the interior of John Michael Schmitz Jr., Jon Runyan and Greg Van Roten struggled mightily with Washington’s defensive tackle duo of Daron Payne and Javon Kinlaw.

But Wilson’s start was defensible only to a point. He was erratic in the pocket, late to many reads and generally inaccurate. After only one start, there are already rumblings from the fan base to see first-round rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart. And I’m here to say unequivocally, emphatically: No. Not yet.

It will hurt Dart’s development to put him behind this line. The Giants aren’t impactful in the running game, which will stick Dart behind the sticks, and there are no high-level pass blockers available at the moment. Critically, the Giants’ offensive line is not going to get better overnight or during the season, either — these are largely veteran players. We might see fifth-round rookie Marcus Mbow, for whom there has been some good camp buzz, at some point. But this is a below-average line through and through.

Why not play Dart now, then, just get him out there? It’s going to be bad either way — better to get him some experience, learn how to work around the line, iron out the other rookie wrinkles and get ready for a productive and exciting 2026.

Because Andrew Thomas should still come back.

The Giants’ franchise left tackle had an offseason procedure to remove a screw from his foot. That screw was in place because Thomas has been battling foot injuries for years now, and foot injuries are nasty little things — always nagging and requiring constant maintenance. Thomas practiced Friday before the Washington game but wasn’t able to go. His status for this Sunday is still to be determined. Backup left tackle James Hudson III, in his stead, had perhaps the roughest day of the lot in Week 1.

While the Giants will have pass protection issues no matter what, the difference between an elite blindside protector and an unreliable one is enormous. There are the obvious reasons — it’s called the blind side for a reason! — and there are the not so obvious ones. Brian Daboll can only scheme around so much; if he has to contend with a rookie quarterback and shaky pass protection from the right and the left, his playbook becomes extremely limited. If he can set it and forget it at left tackle with Thomas, it’s easier to deploy more offensive resources to assist Dart.

Also think about the sort of offense Daboll wants to run with Dart — all those nifty RPOs we saw in the preseason. Because Dart is right-handed, most of those run-pass options are also right-handed. The back is lined up to the quarterback’s right, and the read and route are on the quarterback’s right. There is a lot a coach can do to expose unblocked edge rushers to that side of the formation; less so to the opposite side.

Throw Dart out there now and he’s going to get sacked a bunch. Throw him out there later and it’ll probably happen then, too. But the best shot the Giants have at a functional offense lies in Thomas, the one blue-chip offensive lineman they currently have — and they’re not even sure he’s healthy yet. Get him on the field, see if he can get right. Then deploy Dart.

Yes, the Wilson games are going to be bad in the meantime. But guess what? You knew that. We all knew that. We’ve all watched Wilson the past few seasons. This is something to endure — hopefully the last thing to endure before a glorious young quarterback takes over and revolutionizes the franchise. But the team is not yet ready for him. Wait, take your last dollop of medicine, and pray that Thomas gets right.

From y’all

The best part of writing this column is hearing from all of you. Hit me on X (@BenjaminSolak) or by email (benjamin.solak@espn.com) anytime — but especially on Monday each week — to ask a question and potentially get it answered here.

From Chris: I need you to tell me Drake Maye will be OK.

Drake Maye will be OK.

This was one of Maye’s worst games as a pro. He started pushing in the second half against Las Vegas, which led to poor decisions and accuracy sprays. I will say that there were a few disagreements between Maye and his receivers on route depth and breaks, which was an annoying feature of last season’s offense that I believed would get cleaned up with the new coaching staff.

The Pats get a Week 1 pass. — a lot of teams were sloppy in Week 1, as is always the case — but this is precisely the sort of thing Mike Vrabel was hired to clean up. The only two pass catchers that Maye has any chemistry with right now are Kayshon Boutte and Hunter Henry. I’m fascinated to see what rookie Kyle Williams looks like when he gets on the field more often.

Patriots fans should be the first to remember not to overreact to Week 1, however. Remember last season? When Jacoby Brissett led New England to a win over the Bengals? This was a bad Maye game, but in four weeks, it’ll feel like a meaningless Maye game. So yes, Maye will be OK.

---

From Dan: Is there any reason I shouldn’t be completely out on Bryce Young? I’m hearing lots of excuses from some fans/media, and of course it’s not all his fault. But what reasons should I have to believe that he could be a QB that leads a team to the playoffs? Because I’m struggling to find them.

I want to answer this with caution. Last year, in this very Week 1 column, I wrote about how rough Young looked in the season opener and how I did not see an NFL future for him. What sort of offense could work around a quarterback that fearful of pressure, that unwilling to throw over the middle, that lacking premier physical traits?

Of course, Young was benched, then came back and had a decent finish to 2024. It wasn’t anything revolutionary, but it was better than I thought an offense could be built around Young. My foot was firmly in my mouth.

So you shouldn’t be completely out for that reason. We have seen it work for Young at times — the Week 18 game against Atlanta, along with Week 12 against the Chiefs. Dave Canales can do enough with Young that, in theory, a team with a great running game and great defense could get over the hump.

But the Panthers do not have a great running game and certainly don’t have a great defense. As we saw against the Jaguars, Young still harbors plenty of that erratic, undersized, overwhelmed passer we saw for much of 2023 and 2024. It’s a thin needle to thread, building a team around a QB who has to throw with so much anticipation but also mostly outside of the numbers. The passing game becomes one-dimensional and predictable.

Last year I said a flat “no” on Young. Hopefully I’m a year wiser now. So it’s not a hard “no.” But I remain very dubious.

---

From Steve: Would love to know your thoughts on this Seahawks offense. With the amount of shotgun and lack of under-center play-action, it felt like the ghost of Ryan Grubb possessed Klint Kubiak to sabotage a very winnable game!

I agree, Steve! The shotgun/under center rates were roughly even from the 2024 Saints (Kubiak’s last stop) to the 2025 Seahawks, but it was the lack of play-action that really stood out — especially since the game was always in a neutral state and the threat of the run was always live. Next Gen Stats had Sam Darnold executing a run fake on only 8.0% of his pass attempts in Week 1, lower than every quarterback save for Spencer Rattler.

This isn’t just a Kubiak expectation. Yes, the Saints had a play-action fake on 20.7% of their dropbacks last season under Kubiak, but Darnold was at 27.0% with the Vikings. And this is where he ate. On play-action dropbacks last season, Darnold was second only to Lamar Jackson in passer rating and 10th in total EPA generated. Anyone watching Darnold’s film from last season and theorycrafting a new offense to fit his skill set in Seattle would have underlined play-action as an integral cog in the system.

Yet it wasn’t there on Sunday — bemusing. I have a couple of half-baked theories. One is that the WR room featuring Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Cooper Kupp lacks a good vertical element, which limits the concepts Kubiak could run off hard play-action. I find this explanation totally uncompelling; just get rookie Tory Horton onto the field. Perhaps Kubiak wanted to zag and catch 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, who is well acquainted with the Shanahan-Kubiak offense, by surprise. I find this less compelling than the first.

No idea. Sometimes Week 1 prompts more questions than answers.

---

From John: Can I sue Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane for emotional damages for thinking this Bills secondary is good enough to stop (or at least slow down) great offenses?

I am not authorized to give out legal advice in this column.

Next Ben Stats

NFL Next Gen Stats are unique and insightful nuggets of data that are gleaned from tracking chips and massive databases. Next Ben Stats are usually numbers I made up. Both are below.

82.7%: That was wideout Jaxon Smith-Njigba‘s market share of the Seahawks’ receiving yards Sunday against the 49ers. He had 124 of the team’s 150 receiving yards.

Sadly, this is not as rare as I thought. Courtland Sutton had 100% of the Broncos’ receiving yards in Week 4 last season, when he had 60 yards in torrential conditions against the Jets. Another Bronco — Noah Fant — had the only reception in the infamous 2020 Kendall Hinton game, when the Broncos had no active quarterbacks due to COVID-19 unavailability. Both of these were fairly exceptional, though. The last regular game in which a receiver dominated production at this level was in 2015, when Sammy Watkins had 168 of Tyrod Taylor‘s 181 passing yards in a 33-17 Bills win over the Dolphins.

While this is excellent for JSN fantasy managers, it’s bad news for Seattle. Sam Darnold did not look comfortable moving off of Smith-Njigba, and offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak struggled to get secondary receivers going with screens or misdirection. Veteran free agent Cooper Kupp did not look particularly sudden (two catches for 15 yards), but he should at least see more underneath volume moving forward.

---

2.8 seconds: According to NFL Next Gen Stats, that was Lions quarterback Jared Goff‘s time to throw when Micah Parsons was on the field for the Packers on Sunday. When he was off the field? 3.36 seconds. A half-second difference on the time-to-throw scale is substantial.

There’s some bias here. Parsons was playing later in the game, when the Lions were already behind and Goff started leaning on the quick game in garbage time. But still, you couldn’t watch that game and not feel Parsons’ presence — Goff certainly did. Parsons played only 45% of the snaps after a sudden trade two weeks ago and a lingering back issue; I expect him to be closer to 65% for a huge Thursday night game against the Commanders.

Another significant snap count note, adjacent to the Parsons one: 2023 first-rounder Lukas Van Ness, who has been a fine-but-not-spectacular player for Green Bay over his first two seasons, took eight of his 35 snaps aligned on the interior — the most for a single game in his career. His half-sack, shared with Rashan Gary, was the result of his bull rush over Lions left guard Christian Mahogany. Watch for these sort of sets as the season goes on — a ton of pocket-collapsing power and three players who can excel on twists and stunts. Scary group if you’re an opposing QB.

3rd and 6. Lukas Van Ness (90) gets the interior alignment with Gary and Parsons on the outside.

Van Ness puts Mahogany on skates while Parsons long-arms Sewell into Goff’s lap. Gary cleans up. pic.twitter.com/Nc6qxWJKFd

— Benjamin Solak (@BenjaminSolak) September 8, 2025

---

84%: That’s the Raiders’ pass rate with tight end Brock Bowers on the field in Week 1 against the Patriots.

Bowers played only 50% of the snaps Sunday. He did leave with an injury in the fourth quarter, but in the first three quarters, he was still on the field for only 71.7% of the team’s plays. Fellow tight end Michael Mayer took 56.5% of the snaps, and Ian Thomas took another 19.6%. If that 71.7% number had held for the whole game, Bowers would have been 20th among league TEs this week in snap rate — just between Harold Fannin Jr. and Drew Sample.

It’s not the end of the world if Bowers isn’t on the field for every snap, but the Raiders do need to be careful establishing such a strong tendency for Bowers’ usage. That 84% pass rate is wicked high. It exceeds even the seasonlong numbers of Mike Gesicki (85.3%) and Jonnu Smith (79.3%) from last season — solid receiving tight ends but rotational players in their respective systems.

It’ll probably regress down as the season goes on, but it’s worth watching.

---

8: That’s how many games the Ravens have lost in the past five seasons in which they had a win probability above 90%. The next closest team has five.

The games are as follows:

There are two things that bear underlining. In the same time frame, the Ravens have the fourth-most games in which they hit that 90% threshold; they’re just winning those games at an 83.3% clip instead of the 90% clip you might expect. In other words: It is objectively good that the Ravens are building big fourth-quarter leads, even if it is objectively bad that they blow them. The goodness and badness don’t cancel each other out here, though. It is collectively, overall, bad.

The second thing is six of these eight games came in the first month of the season. Of course, the Ravens have lost heartbreakers later in the season that failed to meet our 90% win probability threshold, but when it comes to their particular knack for choking away big leads, this seems to be an early-season issue. Is it a lack of late-game focus or situational management that gets ironed out as the season goes on? I’m not sure. Just thought it was worth the flag.

Great game last night, though. Let’s do that again in January.

Terence Crawford made a big, bold splash in becoming a boxing world champion for the first time. He dethroned lightweight titlist Ricky Burns in March 2014 in the Scotsman’s backyard, walking into a hornet’s nest to the sound of ear-splitting singing and hand clapping in Glasgow to dominate the hometown hero. As an unfazed 26-year-old, Crawford appeared to have a long, glorious future ahead of him with the WBO 135-pound title.

Barely a year and just two title defenses later, though, Crawford was gone from the lightweight division. He moved up five pounds and immediately made his impact felt by the junior welterweights — or at least the one in the ring with him in April 2015, fighting for the championship. Thomas Dulome hit the canvas three times on the way to a sixth-round TKO that earned Crawford the vacant WBO 140-pound title. With two belts in the trophy case, “Bud” was off and running on a full-speed-ahead career that, a decade later, has seen him move up again and again to win championships in four weight classes.

That is not even close to the most division titles won by a fighter in boxing history, a distinction held by eight-weight champion Manny Pacquiao. But Crawford’s pursuit of bigger and better things has transcended physical size to embrace a different sort of immensity. He has been a pound-for-pound elite ever since the Burns fight, with all 18 of his bouts since then having had at least one title on the line, including a 2017 knockout of Julius Indongo that made Crawford the undisputed junior welterweight champion.

In July 2023 Crawford was in one of the biggest fights boxing had to offer. He was a slim betting favorite in a showdown with fellow welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr., but Crawford turned it into a one-sided showcase. He knocked down Spence three times and scored a ninth-round stoppage that made Crawford the undisputed welterweight champion and the first four-belt titlist at two weights.

Crawford could add a third undisputed title on Saturday (Netflix, 9 p.m. ET) when he challenges Canelo Alvarez, who holds all of the belts at super middleweight. That is the division for 168-pounders, a full 14 pounds heavier than the limit at junior middleweight, where Crawford is champion, but has competed only once. So Crawford is moving up not one but two weight classes to challenge the biggest star in boxing.

This is an impressive undertaking, but not unprecedented. Canelo was once a junior middleweight champion as well, and before winning his current belts, he unified three titles in the division in between, middleweight. He also won a light heavyweight title (175 pounds) when he defeated Sergey Kovalev by 11th-round KO in 2019. So Canelo knows what it feels like to fight in bigger weight classes. He just doesn’t know what it’s like to make that hefty climb in one fell swoop.

Through boxing’s long history, few fighters have done what Crawford is setting out to do. But the sport has seen its most notable names step up in big ways. Here are some memorable examples.

---

Henry Armstrong vs. Barney Ross

May 31, 1938, at Madison Square Garden in New York
Weighing the stakes: Armstrong, the champion at featherweight (126 pounds), challenged Ross for his title at welterweight (147 pounds), which was two divisions heavier at the time but in today’s boxing would be four divisions up from featherweight.

He fought nearly a century ago, but Armstrong remains a distinguished figure in the sport. He ensured that during a nine-month span, making history that has yet to be duplicated. First, Armstrong knocked out Petey Sarron on Oct. 29, 1937, to become featherweight champion. The following May 31, he beat Barney Ross for the welterweight title, skipping right over lightweight. Not for long, though. Less than three months after winning the 147-pound belt, he dropped to 135 to beat Lou Ambers on Aug. 17 for the lightweight title. At that point, Armstrong reigned simultaneously in three weight classes, something no one has done since.

Armstrong vs. Ross is especially notable in light of the changing landscape of boxing. Those two fought when there were just eight weight classes (heavyweight, light heavyweight, middleweight, welterweight, lightweight, featherweight, bantamweight and flyweight). Nowadays, men’s boxing has 17. In today’s boxing, Armstrong would be jumping four weight classes to get to Ross. Spoiler alert: Eighty-seven years later, no one has bettered that moxie.

---

Sugar Ray Robinson vs. Joey Maxim

June 25, 1952, at Yankee Stadium in New York
Weighing the stakes: Robinson, the champion at middleweight (160 pounds), challenged Maxim for his light heavyweight (175 pounds) title.

New York City was in the midst of a record-breaking heatwave, and the temperature in the ring under the outdoor lights reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit. It was so oppressively hot that referee Ruby Goldstein had to be replaced after Round 10 by Ray Miller and was helped groggily from the ring. The heat also wore down Robinson, who in the early parts of a fight scheduled for 15 rounds, appeared to be on his way to adding Maxim’s light heavyweight title to the middleweight title he already had. But Robinson gradually withered in the severe conditions and under the heft of Maxim, 15 pounds heavier and leaning on him at every opportunity. “Sugar Ray,” well ahead on all the scorecards, staggered to his corner after Round 13 and could not answer the bell for the 14th.

It was the only stoppage defeat among Robinson’s 201 fights over a 25-year pro career. And what a career it was. Robinson went into the Maxim bout with a record of 132-2-2 after having run off a 91-fight unbeaten streak that lasted over eight years (from Feb. 19, 1943 to July 10, 1951). He retired after falling short against Maxim, only to return nearly three years later to regain the middleweight championship and further build a legacy that is widely recognized as the greatest in boxing history.

---

Michael Spinks vs. Larry Holmes 1

Sept. 21, 1985, Riviera Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas
Weighing the stakes: Spinks, the champion at light heavyweight (175 pounds), challenged Holmes for his heavyweight (over 205 pounds) title.

Holmes was one small speed bump away from matching Rocky Marciano’s heavyweight record of 49-0. It was a “small” speed bump because the challenger, Spinks, was stepping up from the 175-pound division, where he was champion. At weigh-ins for the heavyweight title bout, Holmes stepped on the scale at 221.5 pounds, while Spinks had bulked up to an even 200 for the 15-round bout.

The 48-0 Holmes was an enormous betting favorite, having made 19 successful defenses of the heavyweight title, one of them a knockout of Spinks’ big brother, Leon, four years earlier. But Spinks utilized elusive footwork to avoid Holmes’ power while landing just enough offense to win narrowly on all three scorecards (143-142, 143-142 and 145-142). Spinks became the first light heavyweight champion to win the heavyweight title, and the victory made Michael and Leon the first brothers to be heavyweight champs.

---

Thomas Hearns vs. Dennis Andries

March 7, 1987, at Cobo Hall in Detroit
Weighing the stakes: Hearns, the champion at junior middleweight (154 pounds), challenged Andries for his light heavyweight (175 pounds) title.

Hearns had tried moving up in weight from 154 to 160 pounds for a championship less than two years before and had made history — just not the kind of history a fighter dreams of. Back in 1985, Hearns challenged Marvin Hagler for the undisputed middleweight title, and the bout is remembered as one of the greatest in boxing history. Their ferocious back-and-forth in Round 1 was heart-stopping. But by the third round, it was Hearns who was stopped, chased on wobbly legs across the ring and flattened.

Now Hearns was making another move up, this one was even bigger. Rather than taking on a middleweight or even a super middleweight, he challenged Andries for the title at 175 pounds. But Andries did not bring the violence that Hagler had, and Hearns and that big right hand of his were at their brutal best. He knocked down Andries six times, including four in Round 6 (leading to a rare 10-5 score). On a night when Hearns became light heavyweight champion, “The Hitman” was the one doing the hitting.

---

Roy Jones Jr. vs. John Ruiz

March 1, 2003, at Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas
Weighing the stakes: Jones, the champion at light heavyweight (175 pounds), challenged Ruiz for his heavyweight (over 200 pounds) title.

Jones was too fast for the middleweights, super middleweights and light heavyweights, he had faced throughout his career. How was a heavyweight, especially a slow-footed Ruiz, supposed to keep up? This was easy work for Jones, who used hand speed and slick footwork to control the fight, staying out of danger and finding the target with his own offense. Jones earned a lopsided decision (118-110, 117-111 and 116-112) to become the first former middleweight champion in over a century to win the heavyweight belt.

Jones did not remain at heavyweight after this fight, and despite weighing in at just 193 pounds to face the 226-pound Ruiz, Jones never looked the same after dropping back down to light heavyweight. He eked out a majority decision over Antonio Tarver later in 2003 but then lost three in a row, including twice to Tarver. Moving up to heavyweight took its toll on Jones.

---

Amanda Serrano vs. Heather Hardy

Sept. 13, 2019, at Madison Square Garden in New York
Weighing the stakes: Serrano, the champion at junior bantamweight (115 pounds), challenged Hardy for her featherweight (126 pounds) title.

This was a leap of 11 pounds and three weight divisions, but it was nothing new for Serrano, who had already joined Manny Pacquiao as the only boxers to win championships in seven weight classes. It wasn’t all upward movement for Serrano, either, as she had dropped 17 pounds for a 2017 title shot at bantamweight (118 pounds) just a few fights after winning the belt at lightweight (135).

By the time this fight came along two years later, Serrano had bounced around and won title bouts at junior featherweight (122 pounds), junior welterweight (140 pounds) and junior bantamweight (115 pounds). Then she made the big move to challenge Hardy, and Serrano was up to the task, dominating her Brooklyn long-time friend.

---

These aren’t exact fits, but still …

David Haye vs. Nikolai Valuev: Nov. 7, 2009, at Nuremberg Arena in Germany

Haye was the reigning cruiserweight champion, so challenging Valuev for the heavyweight title involved a move up just one weight class. But the true size disparity became evident when Haye stepped into the ring with Valuev, a 7-footer who weighed in at 316 pounds. Haye is not a small man — he’s 6-foot-3 and hit the scale at 217 — but the promoter’s “David vs. Goliath” hype was only slightly hyperbolic. When these two boxers went toe to toe, it appeared to be an optical illusion. How could they both be in the same weight class? But as fighters, Haye and Valuev were well matched, and their title bout, while not action-packed, was tightly competitive for all 12 rounds. One judge scored it a draw, but the others awarded Haye a majority decision that made him a champion in boxing’s glamour division.

---

Manny Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito: Nov. 13, 2010, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas

Pacquiao is boxing’s unmatched king of moving up in weight at a championship level. He first won a world title at age 19 in 1998 at flyweight (112 pounds). By 2010, he had captured titles in an unprecedented eight weight classes, the latest being the 154-pound junior middleweight division. Pacquiao moved up gradually, though one 18-month stretch is worth noting. Over the course of four fights in 2009 and 2010, Pacquiao went from champion at lightweight (135 pounds) to becoming champ at junior welterweight (140 pounds, beating Ricky Hatton), then welterweight (147, beating Miguel Cotto), then (after one welterweight title defense) junior middleweight (154 pounds, beating Margarito). That’s a PacMan on the move.

When Keinan Davis was weighing up his options in summer of 2023, the striker was leaning towards a move to the Championship. It was a conversation with his former coach at Biggleswade United that persuaded him to plump for Udinese instead.

“Dave Northfield is someone who is very important to me and I listen to him,” Davis tells Sky Sports. “When I was feeling a little bit apprehensive, he was just like, ‘you cannot turn down an opportunity to play against Inter at the San Siro’ and stuff like that.”

On the last day of August in 2025 came spectacular vindication. In front of over 70,000 supporters inside that San Siro, Davis scored the equaliser from the penalty spot, set up the winning goal and walked away from Milan with the man of the match award too.

“It has been nice to feel the love, even from people that do not support Udinese. People from my old teams just messaging me because it is the San Siro. Where I have come from, it is just not a place I would ever think I would end up scoring, you know?

“It is such a historic stadium, to go there and win was amazing. To score as well just topped it off. Taking a penalty with all those fans, all that noise, those are the moments that you live for. Those are the situations you want to be in as a footballer.”

Supporters of Davis’ former club Nottingham Forest might be a little surprised by the penalty. He did not take one during Forest’s shoot-out win over Sheffield United in a play-off semi-final. “I was down for number seven, I think. I was too nervous at that time.”

At Aston Villa, prior to that, he took only one, and that was for the development team. “I missed.” But watching Davis ooze composure in an Udinese shirt, even down to the stuttered run-up, it is impossible not to reach the conclusion that he has matured.

“In pre-season, I had been doing penalties every day, just waiting for this moment really. I knew we would get a penalty sooner or later, so I was well prepared.” Players leaving presented him with an opportunity. “I feel like the responsibility is on the No 9.”

It is a responsibility that he is relishing, albeit belatedly. Davis made only six appearances during his first season at Udinese. “A nightmare,” he says. “Terrible. I could not show the fans anything.” The second season was better, but still marred by injury.

“It was very tough,” admits Davis. “I feel like you get the respect of your team-mates when you show what you can do. If you are training alone, you cannot build that rapport because you are on a different schedule to them. You are kind of just in this grey area.

“Away games, you are not travelling with the team. It was just very tough to feel a part of everything and that can begin to play on your mind a bit. But I feel like I have got over that now and I feel very comfortable here and everyone is starting to see that.”

Davis is enjoying the lifestyle in Udine – “quiet and friendly” – along with his partner and daughter. But he has not always felt so comfortable. Indeed, Davis freely admits that he never felt fully at home at Aston Villa. There was a kind of imposter syndrome.

He was signed from Biggleswade having been released from Stevenage. Players tend to get poached from smaller academies. They rarely get released then earn a deal at a bigger one. “It was such a drastic change.” He was not the outstanding youth talent.

“I was not even the first-choice striker. Rushian Hepburn-Murphy had made his debut at 16 in the Premier League. I just always felt like an underdog who had randomly popped up. I got a trial, got signed. I felt like I was not meant to be there if that makes sense.”

In that context, his 87 appearances for Villa represent a triumph. “That mindset helped me,” he says now. “I always had it in my stomach, that feeling that I had to show people. It is a driving force inside me, really.” One that dates back to that Stevenage rejection.

“Everyone in the area knew that I played for Stevenage. It was kind of my identity, which is not good. ‘He plays for Stevenage. He is the footballer.’ When you get released, what are you now? I had to work in my cousin’s barber shop. That was a very difficult period.”

Davis earned his second chance. “That is why I am so grateful to Dave for keeping me in football at Biggleswade. The scouts came down. It was just meant to be.” His message to youngsters who might find themselves in the same situation? “Keep going,” he says.

“Some people will not let go because this is all they have. That is what it was like for me. There was nothing else I could have been other than a footballer. If you really have that fire in your stomach, keep going, stay on track and make your dreams come true.”

Davis says he is living his friends’ dreams too and he is not done yet. Serie A is bringing the best out in him. He lists his assets as “pace, strength and holding the ball up, bringing others into play” and there is argument that these qualities stand out in Italy.

“I bring that physical side to Serie A. It is not like the Premier League. It is very physical in England, quite transitional. In Serie A, they like a low block. It can be difficult. The players are not the fastest or strongest, but mentality wise, they love their defending.

“When I was defending in England, it was not really on my mind to drop in on the No 6 and now press here or press there. But you have to deliver on those numbers here, the manager is very big on that. The tactical side is where I have improved the most.”

He had no choice. “I have had to download a lot to survive.” But now he is fully fit, the hope is that he can enjoy the best season of his career. “Every striker has a number. I definitely have one that I have never reached before but I will keep it to myself for now.”

For some, the move abroad always comes with one eye on proving a point when they return. But, at 27, Davis no longer thinks in those terms. Especially after beating Inter. “It gives you belief. If you can do it against them, you can do it against anyone,” he says.

“England used to be at the front of my mind. But coming here has opened my eyes. There are a lot of big clubs that I did not understand just how big they are. There is Italy, Germany and France. England is not a must now. I just want to enjoy my football.”

Let’s grade trades from the 2025 NFL season. When a deal happens, we often hear the old adage that it will take years to know how well each team did in the deal. To that I say: nonsense. General managers don’t get the benefit of hindsight while they are making their decisions, so why should we when evaluating those decisions?

That’s a long way of saying I’m a big fan of trade grades, which document our reaction at the moment a deal is made. When grading trades, I evaluate them for each team based on on-field impact, cap implications, draft compensation and effects within the context of a team’s overall short- and long-term outlook. I like to think about decisions on two axes:

They’ll both play a role in our grades, though a low-impact decision can still receive a strong or poor grade. Low-stakes, clear-cut wins or losses still matter.

Let’s dive in on in-season deals leading up to NFL trade deadline on Nov. 4. We’ll start with the Eagles acquiring running back Tank Bigsby from the Jaguars.

Eagles get: RB Tank Bigsby
Jaguars get: 2026 fifth-round pick, 2026 sixth-round pick

Eagles grade: C-
Jaguars grade: A

Eagles general manager Howie Roseman wins more trades than anyone, but he doesn’t win ’em all.

In Bigsby, the Eagles acquire a very solid runner. The 2023 third-round pick accumulated an impressive 124 rush yards over expectation last season, per NFL Next Gen Stats, after a disappointing rookie campaign.

But that’s all he is, which is his downside. Bigsby offers almost nothing in the receiving game; he has only eight career receptions. He has pass blocked on only 33 snaps in his pro career. And he evidently didn’t win the starting job in Jacksonville this season despite not facing particularly stiff competition in Travis Etienne Jr. and fourth-round rookie Bhayshul Tuten.

This trade makes it clear that the Eagles felt they needed running back depth behind Saquon Barkley. They have Will Shipley, who figures to be more of a receiving complement and backup — very different from Bigsby. But my first reaction was, wow, that’s a lot for a backup at a nonpremium position who doesn’t catch passes, especially considering how much Philadelphia has already invested at running back with Barkley. Even with Bigsby under control for another rookie contract year in 2026, this is a bit much for my liking.

Bigsby could also partner with Shipley on kick returns after having returned 11 kicks in his career. It’s a more important role now than before given the precipitous drop in touchbacks, but it doesn’t change that the Eagles gave up a lot for Bigsby.

This is a nice result for Jacksonville, though. It seemed likely that one of Etienne or Bigsby would be dealt after the addition of Tuten in this year’s draft. That it happened now is an upset. But in exchange for their second- or third-string running back, the Jaguars are receiving a fifth- and sixth-round pick. That’s great value, and it hardly leaves Jacksonville short-handed considering Bigsby didn’t start.

CHICAGO — Everyone in the Minnesota Vikings locker room had their own favorite J.J. McCarthy moment of the night. And in the end, they all added up to a thrilling 27-24 victory over the Chicago Bears.

Defensive tackle Javon Hargrave recalled McCarthy telling him that “he’s got us” as the team trudged off the field at halftime, trailing by four points after an anemic offensive showing. Coach Kevin O’Connell noted the “unbelievable look” in McCarthy’s eyes as the Vikings launched into a fourth-quarter comeback, with McCarthy accounting for three touchdowns.

After McCarthy had an interception returned for a touchdown early in the third quarter, right tackle Brian O’Neill listened intently as McCarthy — a 22-year-old quarterback making his NFL debut — spoke to players on the sideline.

“He believed that it was about to pop,” O’Neill said. “There’s a lot of times where you’re like, ‘Yeah, all right, cool. Let’s go, whatever.’ But the conviction in his voice and how he was walking up and down the sideline talking to everybody, little details about different plays, getting guys locked in in the huddle. It was really cool to see.”

And running back Aaron Jones, whose 27-yard touchdown reception gave the Vikings their first lead with 9 minutes, 46 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, recalled seven words McCarthy used once in the huddle: “Is there any place you’d rather be?”

McCarthy’s last competitive football game took place on Jan. 8, 2024, when he was playing for the college football national championship at the University of Michigan. In the ensuing 609 days, he was drafted No. 10 overall in the 2024 draft by the Vikings and then missed his entire rookie season because of a torn meniscus in his right knee.

The Vikings committed to him as their 2025 starter as they bid farewell to veterans Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones, both of whom finished 2024 on their roster, and passed on an opportunity to sign free agent Aaron Rodgers. Early Monday night, though, McCarthy looked like a quarterback who wasn’t ready to assume that mantle.

He managed just 48 passing yards in the first half, and the Vikings didn’t convert a third down until his 13-yard touchdown pass to receiver Justin Jefferson with 12:13 remaining in the game. That cut an 11-point deficit to a 17-12 score, and McCarthy went on to throw his scoring strike to Jones and score himself on a 14-yard run with 2:53 remaining.

In all, McCarthy completed 13 of 20 passes for 143 yards. In the process, he became the first quarterback in NFL history to account for three touchdowns in the fourth quarter of his NFL debut. He also joined Steve Young as the only quarterbacks in the past 45 years to overcome a double-digit deficit in the fourth quarter of their debut and win.

McCarthy grew up in La Grange Park, outside of Chicago, and said he largely blocked out the cheers and jeers Bears fans subjected him to. Instead, he leaned on his experience in the semifinals of the 2022 college football playoffs — when he had two interceptions returned for touchdowns in a 51-45 loss to TCU.

“You never want to earn wisdom that way,” he said, “but it just brought me straight back to TCU when I had that first one early on in the game and then the second one later and at the end of the day. It sucks. It’s one of the worst things you could do as a quarterback, but you can’t do anything about it. You got to focus on the next play. The defense kept us in it the whole time, so it was just on our shoulders to go out there and execute and play as one and move on from that. That’s one of those things I don’t really hang on. And I was really grateful the way coach O’Connell handled it and was everyone on the same page.”

Jefferson said last week that McCarthy’s college career gave him confidence that, despite an uneven training camp, he would perform well when needed. McCarthy is now 64-3 in games that his team starts, dating back to his sophomore year in high school.

“We knew he had that dog in him,” Jefferson said.

The Vikings have tried to build a support system around McCarthy to reduce the likelihood that he would have to carry the team late in a game. O’Connell leaned heavily on tailback Jordan Mason, who rushed for 54 yards in the second half, and the Vikings got strong play from their defense and special teams all evening.

“But,” O’Connell said, “there’s no way to deny that we don’t win this game unless J.J. plays the way he did in the second half, and most importantly kept the belief of his football team behind him. And now we know it’s possible. So we hope to not be in these circumstances very often, but his team’s made of the right stuff.”

Week 1 of the 2025 NFL season has delivered clutch moments around the league with established stars and breakout names sealing comebacks and turning close games into blowouts.

But only one player can be “him.”

Ahead of this season’s “Monday Night Football” debut between the Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings, it was time to decide who earned it.

Here are the fan-voted results for ESPN’s NFL Week 1 “Himmy” Award

Need a refresher of each performance? Keep reading for each candidate’s case.

Stats to know: 33-of-46, 394 yards, 2 TDs; 14 carries, 30 yards, 2 TDs

Trailing 40-25 with five minutes left, Buffalo looked to be heading to a home-opening loss against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night.

But Allen authored the comeback, engineering three late scoring drives, capped off by Matt Prater‘s 32-yard field goal for the 41-40 win. Allen posted a career-best 251 fourth-quarter passing yards plus two rushing touchdowns to become the first player since at least 1978 with 250 passing yards and two rushing scores in any single quarter.

---

Stats to know: 22-of-30, 244 yards, 4 TDs

Rodgers led Pittsburgh to a 34-32 win over the Jets with a composed, four-touchdown performance in his Steelers debut. Two of those scores came within a 50-second span in the second half.

Down 32-31 with just over three minutes remaining, Rodgers moved the offense into Jets territory, aided by an 11-yard tip-drill catch by DK Metcalf. That series set up Chris Boswell‘s go-ahead, career-long 60-yard field goal with 1:03 left.

In the end, Rodgers avoided turnovers, hit key throws and closed out a late win against his former team.

---

Stats to know: 4 receptions, 67 yards, 2 TDs

Drafted 19th as Ohio State’s career receptions leader, Egbuka stamped his rookie debut with a late winner.

With 1:04 left and Tampa Bay trailing the Atlanta Falcons 20-17, the first-round wideout spoke up in the huddle, got the look he wanted and pulled in the game’s deciding touchdown — his second score of the day.

Per Elias, he’s only the second player since the 1970 merger to catch a go-ahead touchdown in the final minute (or OT) of an NFL debut. To make Egbuka’s feat even more impressive, the throw from Baker Mayfield carried just a 24.9% completion probability, his least likely completion of the game, per NFL Next Gen Stats.

---

Stats to know: 22-of-29, 272 yards, 1 TD; 7 carries, 26 yards, 2 TDs

Jones gave Indianapolis the opener it needed. Sharp and efficient, he ran for two touchdowns, threw for another and powered a 33-8 rout of the Miami Dolphins — snapping the NFL’s longest active Week 1 skid (11 straight) and giving the Colts their first 1-0 start since 2013.

It also marked Jones’ first win as a starting quarterback since Oct. 6 last year.

ESPN Research contributed to this story.

Things change quickly in fantasy football, and ESPN is here to help. Each Monday, before the current NFL week ends, we will identify players available in at least 50% of ESPN standard leagues worthy of your attention, from standard formats to deeper options. The NFL is a weekly league, and player valuation and roles seldom remain stagnant, for positive and negative. It does not matter how you acquire players for your championship fantasy rosters, just that you get them.

Quarterback

Michael Penix Jr., Atlanta Falcons (rostered in 20% of ESPN leagues): The Falcons probably don’t want Penix to routinely throw 42 times a week, but he was up to the task in Sunday’s loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. RB Bijan Robinson saw a mere 12 rushing attempts and Penix wasn’t known as a runner, either in college or during his rookie season. He rushed only seven times over his three starts last season. On Sunday, he rushed six times for 21 yards, including an impressive 4-yard, desperation scramble for a score in the fourth quarter. Let’s see if he continues showing this aggressive mentality in Week 2 against the Minnesota Vikings.

Daniel Jones, Indianapolis Colts (4.9%): Speaking of running, Jones was a top-10 fantasy QB for the 2022 New York Giants because of his legs (708 rushing yards, 7 TDs). Two rough seasons followed, but on Sunday, in his first start for the Colts, Jones bulldozed his way for a pair of 1-yard scores. Jones also looked strong throwing the football (272 passing yards), and he was sacked only once by what sure looks like a brutal Miami Dolphins defense. We shouldn’t be so dismissive of Jones returning to fantasy relevance, because he sure was relevant in Week 1.

Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars (39.5%): Lawrence didn’t have to do much to topple the Carolina Panthers, but chances are he will need to deliver more points in a Week 2 road tilt at the Cincinnati Bengals, who aren’t exactly a top defensive unit. As we have seen before, Lawrence is certainly capable of more and he remains far too available for someone who has borderline QB1 upside.

Aaron Rodgers, Pittsburgh Steelers (8.7%): Give Rodgers credit for four touchdown passes and mistake-free football in a revenge win over the New York Jets. However, the Steelers must do a better job protecting the immobile Rodgers, as he was sacked four times and knocked down on six other occasions. Let’s remember that Rodgers finished last season as the No. 15 fantasy QB, averaging 15.1 PPR points per game. He certainly can do that again.

Deep-league options/streamers

• Perhaps few would consider Cleveland Browns starter Joe Flacco (2.5%) for a Week 2 road game against the Baltimore Ravens, but he did throw 45 times for 290 yards on Sunday against the Bengals. That is volume, and while Flacco is no Josh Allen, the Ravens did permit 41 points on Sunday night. Don’t count Flacco out.

• It wasn’t a good Week 1 outing for Miami Dolphins starter Tua Tagovailoa (31.7%), but he has produced solid numbers against his Week 2 opponent (New England Patriots) in the past, and the game is at home. It seems early to call this his “last chance” in fantasy, but things often change quickly.

• Russell Wilson scored 11.12 PPR points and, all things considered, it could have been worse. A full 10 starting QBs had scored fewer points entering Monday. Still, now is already the time to add rookie Jaxson Dart in deeper formats, where every starting QB matters. Dart’s opportunity looms — and perhaps soon.

Running back

Dylan Sampson, Cleveland Browns (32.8%): Sampson scored 17.3 PPR points against the Bengals, mainly due to eight receptions for 64 yards. He turned his 12 rushing attempts into a mere 29 yards, though the Browns struggled to run, averaging just 2.0 yards per carry. Sampson, selected in the fourth round out of Tennessee, was hardly as celebrated as fellow rookie Quinshon Judkins, the second-round pick, but we still don’t know if the recently signed Judkins suits up in Week 2. Perhaps Judkins simply takes over when he is active, but that seems unlikely. Add Sampson in case he is the lead back and it makes sense, even after one week, to move on from veteran Jerome Ford.

Isaac Guerendo, San Francisco 49ers (7.7%): What? 49ers star Christian McCaffrey (calf) not only suited up on Sunday, but he garnered an awesome, NFL-leading 31 touches and turned them into 23.2 PPR points. All true, but the mere fact that McCaffrey entered the weekend hampered yet again (and it is yet again) by some ailment must concern both the 49ers and fantasy managers alike. McCaffrey played, but we may never be 100% confident about him again after last season.

Guerendo (shoulder) suited up on Sunday and handled a kickoff return, but nothing on offense. Former Washington Commanders starter Brian Robinson Jr. (53.1%, but falling) earned 10 touches, with little impact. Still, while Guerendo may be just as brittle as McCaffrey, he is so talented, and we cannot ignore possibility. Stash him away just in case.

Deep-league options/streamers

• Colts rookie DJ Giddens may not earn 12 rushing attempts in games that aren’t blowouts, but he did run effectively. If we continue to attack McCaffrey’s physical liabilities, it seems only fair to point out Colts starter Jonathan Taylor has missed 16 games over the past three seasons.

• The New Orleans Saints rushed 22 times on Sunday. Starter Alvin Kamara had only half of them. That doesn’t mean you must add Kendre Miller, but he ran well. He is next in line and, even in a rough offense, he may matter in fantasy.

• Steelers rookie Kaleb Johnson appears headed for the sad town of “dropsville” in so many fantasy leagues, though perhaps he lands on the good side at some point this season. Former Eagles backup Kenneth Gainwell (1.9%) handled 10 touches — only three short of starter Jaylen Warren. That’s far closer than most expected.

Wide receiver

Quentin Johnston, Los Angeles Chargers (3.6%): Johnston’s 24.9 PPR points from Friday’s win over the Kansas City Chiefs in Brazil reminded us of the upside, though we saw his inconsistency last season (albeit with eight touchdowns). Johnston may be third in line for targets behind star Ladd McConkey and the still-excellent Keenan Allen … and don’t the Chargers want to run more? They probably do, so don’t drop a top-50 player to get Johnston.

JuJu Smith-Schuster, Kansas City Chiefs (1%): Someone must catch Patrick Mahomes‘ passes in the short-term, but it won’t be the suspended Rashee Rice for another five games, and it may not be the injured Xavier Worthy (shoulder) for a while, too. Smith-Schuster hasn’t been a fantasy factor since 2022, but he and Hollywood Brown (just at the threshold at 50%) may be valuable for the rest of September. The Chiefs will host the Eagles in a Week 2 Super Bowl revenge game and the Eagles lacked a meaningful pass rush (and a second viable cornerback) in their opener.

Calvin Austin III, Steelers (2.3%): Do you know who the other Steelers starting WR is after DK Metcalf? This fellow caught one of the four Rodgers TD passes, scored 17 PPR points (more than Metcalf) and sure seems safe for targets. It is premature to call Austin a WR3 option, but we should add him first and then find out later.

Kayshon Boutte, New England Patriots (0.5%): Speaking of volume, QB Drake Maye threw 46 passes. Boutte was his top option — not newcomer Stefon Diggs. If Maye throws this much in Week 2 against the Dolphins, who defended so poorly on Sunday, Boutte may continue his success.

Cedric Tillman, Browns (42.7%): Tillman reeled in Cleveland’s lone receiving touchdown and he saw just as many targets as the much-ballyhooed Jerry Jeudy. With Flacco at QB, Tillman may have some sneaky WR3 upside on occasion.

Deep-league options/streamers

Tight end

Harold Fannin Jr., Browns (0.8%): Fannin, a third-round pick this year, sure wasn’t eased into action. He and starter David Njoku were on the field together quite a bit, and Fannin caught seven of nine targets for 63 yards and 13.6 PPR points. Don’t drop Njoku, of course, but — again — with Flacco throwing a ton, fellows like Fannin have value.

Juwan Johnson, New Orleans Saints (1.2%): Johnson, 28, has been a popular streamer in past seasons, even finishing among the top-10 tight ends in PPR scoring in 2022. Remember, Taysom Hill (knee) is out until at least Week 5.

Deep-league options/streamers

• Two of the top three tight ends in most fantasy drafts left Sunday games prematurely. Raiders star Brock Bowers (knee) claims that he is fine and will play in Week 2’s second Monday night game. 49ers star George Kittle (hamstring) seems more likely to miss time. Veteran Jake Tonges (0.0%) caught the first three passes of his career, including one for a touchdown. He becomes more popular in Week 2 against the Saints if Kittle sits.

• Pittsburgh’s Jonnu Smith (22.6%) caught a Rodgers TD and Pat Freiermuth (11.2%) didn’t, but you’re just guessing if you assume the same thing happens next week, or the week after.

Defense

Green Bay Packers (37.5%): It’s probably fair to say that the Packers would have been one of the top-drafted units in ESPN leagues had the stunning Micah Parsons trade occurred a month ago. The Packers held the Detroit Lions to two field goals until the final minute of a dominating 27-13 win. The Lions averaged 33 PPG last season. The Packers host Washington on Thursday, which is not a great fantasy matchup and on a short week. It shouldn’t stop fantasy managers from adding this D/ST.

Indianapolis Colts (32.2%): Fantasy managers were already down on numerous Dolphins (Tagovailoa, RB De’Von Achane, WR Tyreek Hill), but still, holding Miami sans a point until late in the game is impressive. The Colts host Bo Nix and the Broncos in Week 2 and that’s also a positive matchup.

Deep-league options/streamers

• The 49ers D/ST (19%) scored 10 fantasy points at Seattle. They can probably score more in Week 2 against the Saints. San Francisco has a favorable schedule this season.

• The Dallas Cowboys, sans Parsons, lost in Philadelphia to open the season and their D/ST forced nary a turnover, scoring only a solitary fantasy point. Still, next up are the lowly Giants. They aren’t the Eagles. Assume there will be some turnovers.