The former No. 3 pick in the draft by the Jets shines in Vikings’ big road win against the Giants. Plus more on the Chiefs, Ravens, and the NFL’s trip to Brazil.
The takeaways are going to be rolling in and updated live through Sunday—and not complete until Monday morning. This is a change for us, and I know it is for all of you, too. Keep coming back, and following along, as we cover it all from the first Sunday of the 2024 NFL regular season …To me, that goes beyond his sparkling 13-of-14 first half Sunday. It’s where he’s been. It’s also where he is.
“I feel like I can’t take the big-picture view now—I just have to keep it one day at a time,” he told me over the phone, leaving East Rutherford, N.J. “That’s a cliché. But it’s a cliché for a reason, you know? If I just continue to take it a game at a time, one day at a time, I feel like I’ll be in a good spot. I’m not going to look big picture or what can be in the future because that would be doing me and this team a disservice.
“It was awesome,” Darnold says. “It shows the trust he has in me to get the ball out on time and accurately to Jets—when he’s one-on-one, we have to take advantage of it. It was a really good opportunity and execution on our part.” On Sunday, he did more than play pretty well, knocking it out of the park. Yes, it was the Panthers, maybe the worst team in the league. But with another new offensive coordinator in Klint Kubiak in his ear, Carr was on it. New Orleans won 47–10 in Week 1’s most dominant performance, and Carr posted a 142.5 passer rating while throwing three touchdown passes.
Sunday showed there could be a little something there. They rushed for 180 yards. Against a defense geared up to stop Chris Olave, Carr’s 19 completions went to eight different receivers. The defense held the Panthers to 2.9 yards per carry, and Bryce Young to a 32.8 passer rating. Yes, it was Carolina. But the Panthers are an NFL team, and the Saints beat them like a directional school.“We won 9 games and that’s fine, but it’s not our standard,” Carr said.
The rest went according to plan. Mahomes carried out a fake to Isiah Pacheco, who flipped the ball back to Worthy, who hit the edge, put his foot in the ground and accelerated through the Ravens’ defense for an eye-popping 21-yard touchdown on his first NFL touch. The aggression and confidence with which the rookie executed got his coaches’ attention.
By all accounts, the game was well-received locally, and on a night when the Brazilian national soccer team was playing. Now, it’s not like the American football game was challenging the futbol in the department of relevance down there, but even making a small dent on a night like that is meaningful.
And, finally, the logistics were also an issue. As the home team, the Eagles chose the hotel closest to the airport rather than downtown, and even in a spot close to the stadium the commute on game day was 45 minutes. From downtown to the stadium for the walkthrough Thursday, it was an hour and 45 minutes for the Packers, and for the game Friday, it was two hours. An early bus Green Bay sent over Friday, before the players went, actually had a commute of two hours and 45 minutes.
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