More football tonight, but don’t expect CeeDee Lamb to catch it.

Inside: Star receivers struggled, plus a weekend watch guide and one costly mistake from the Cowboys defensive coordinator.

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Week 1 Watch Guide

Let’s rank the four best games to watch closely this weekend — one for each window. (Before it starts, let’s also agree to close our eyes during the new RedZone commercials.)

4. Steelers at Jets (-3), Sunday at 1 p.m. ET

You can bet Aaron Rodgers would like revenge after Aaron Glenn and his new regime dismissed the future Hall of Famer in favor of Justin Fields. By all accounts, Rodgers’ signing has been a success so far for Pittsburgh, and he’ll return to Metlife Stadium alongside a defense that knows Fields’ tendencies well.

Key matchup: DK Metcalf vs. Sauce Gardner.

Metcalf is an all-world talent, with 4.33 speed at 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds. The Steelers’ No. 1 receiver makes his debut against a heavy dose of the league’s highest-paid cornerback, who’s nearly as fast (4.41 speed) but 40 pounds lighter.

Advantage: Jets. In two prior meetings, Metcalf managed just 5 receptions for 69 yards on 13 targets, with Gardner’s long arms helping him break up passes as Metcalf struggled to separate.
3. Chiefs (-3) vs. Chargers in Brazil, Friday at 8 p.m.

It took Jim Harbaugh one season to change what it means to be a Charger, taking the perennial underachievers to the playoffs after a 5-12 finish the year prior. What does he do for an encore with “version 2.0” of his team, now without star left tackle Rashawn Slater? Their first test comes against the defending AFC Champs. Not ideal.

Key matchup: Josh Simmons vs. Khalil Mack.

The Chiefs thought they landed the draft’s most talented tackle when Simmons fell to them at 32, and they might be right. The knee injury he suffered at Ohio State has been a non-factor, and the Week 1 starter has since “overperformed in a way no one saw coming,” per our Chiefs beat reporter, Jesse Newell.

Advantage: Chargers. The 22-year-old gets his first NFL test against Mack, an 11-year veteran who remains one of the league’s best edge rushers. Mack tends to start strong, with 4.5 sacks across his last five Week 1 games. The Super Bowl showed the world four-man pressure can stress Patrick Mahomes.
 2. Lions at Packers (-2), Sunday at 4:25 p.m.

Replacing two successful coordinators rarely works in year one, but the 15-win Lions are hoping a healthy defense, led by the returning Aidan Hutchinson, keeps them atop the competitive NFC North. They are narrow underdogs to the Packers, who are prepping Micah Parsons to play on a snap count.

Key matchup: Hutchinson vs. Packers’ offensive line.

The 25-year-old Hutchinson was on his way to a Defensive Player of the Year award, with a league-leading 7.5 sacks and 25.0 percent pressure rate, before an injury cut his season short after five weeks.

Advantage: Lions. His comeback season starts against a middling offensive line in Green Bay, whose open competition for the left tackle position seems to have ended with former seventh-round pick Rasheed Walker starting over 2024 first-rounder Jordan Morgan.
1. Ravens (-1) at Bills, Sunday at 8:20 p.m.

First-team All-Pro Lamar Jackson and MVP Josh Allen meet on Sunday Night Football in what could be the game of the year.

Key matchup: Allen vs. Baltimore’s defense.

This has been Allen’s toughest opponent. In six career games against the Ravens, his completion percentage drops to 54.5, and his yards-per-attempt average (5.3) against them is his second-lowest against any of his opponents.
Advantage: Ravens. In their four regular-season meetings, they have blitzed Allen at the league’s highest rate (he’s usually blitzed on 29 percent of his dropbacks, but Baltimore has attacked on 41 percent), and he’s averaged just 11.8 fantasy points per game, second-lowest among all his 31 opponents.
Full Week 1 schedule

Eagles 24, Cowboys 20

Last night taught us plenty. When defensive tackle Jalen Carter was ejected for spitting on Dak Prescott, it immediately reminded us of the maturity concerns around him when he fell to Philadelphia at No. 9 in the 2023 draft.

“Hell yeah, we get 15 yards to start the game off,” isn’t how I’d react to being spit on, but that’s what Prescott said he was thinking after an incident that he appeared to help incite before Carter’s escalation.

Carter’s absence was felt immediately. The Cowboys scored on each of their first four drives, including two touchdown runs through the ghost of Carter, who could still face league discipline.

At other times last night, three star receivers were nearly as invisible as Carter:

CeeDee Lamb: Four drops. He continually burned Adoree’ Jackson and should’ve added 80-plus yards to his impressive stat line (7 receptions, 110 yards). “I need to catch the damn ball,” he said. An unlikely long-term concern, as he only had seven drops all last year.

A.J. Brown: One catch, 8 yards. “At least you saw the damn ball,” is probably what Brown thought after the quietest performance of his career.

DeVonta Smith: Three receptions, 16 yards. While Dallas clamped down on Philly’s outside threats, Hurts exploited the middle of the field with his legs or by finding Dallas Goedert (7-44) and Saquon Barkley (4-24).

“There’s a lot to correct” for the Eagles, per head coach Nick Sirianni, whose team lost 110 yards on nine penalties. They managed to escape with a win, putting them past the Patriots as the best Week 1 team this century (18-8, though New England could tie it back up with a home win against the Raiders).

The Cowboys defense struggled to contain Jalen Hurts, who led his team with 62 rushing yards and two touchdowns. He had mostly clean pockets (also invisible last night: Green Bay’s Micah Parsons) until Dallas’ defense eventually figured it out. Overall, Dallas should be pleasantly surprised with their offensive product and defensive improvements.

Cowboys defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus cost his team with a poor situational call, however. Ted Nguyen has more on that next.

What Ted’s Seeing: Eberflus couldn’t stop Hurts

Before Matt Eberflus was fired by the Bears last season, he struggled with situational football, especially late in games.

Those struggles resurfaced last night, when the new Cowboys defensive coordinator made a baffling call on a crucial fourth quarter play.

The Eagles needed three yards to convert a game-clinching third-down with just 1:45 left. Hurts, lined up in an empty formation with no running back next to him, had burned Dallas on the ground all game.

Eberflus called a soft cover-3 zone, rushing four with a box safety creeping up from about 10 yards deep. He left no spy, instead asking his zone defenders to contain Hurts if he scrambled. That’s not a plan likely to work. It didn’t, and the first-down conversion sealed the game.

Back to you, Jacob.

Extra Points

👀 Fantasy football drafts rarely begin with tears. Cancer can change that, as Jess Bryant illustrated in this touching story.

🚑 Not good. Christian McCaffrey was limited in practice with a calf issue, a concerning development after the 49ers star missed half of 2024 with what was initially reported as a calf issue.

👋 Welcome, Micah. Packers beat reporter Matt Schneidman explains how Green Bay is prepping Micah Parsons to play Week 1, though he’ll be on a snap count.

🚫 Stay out. Bill Belichick has banned Patriots scouts from attending practices at North Carolina, where he’s the (disastrously 0-1) head coach. “It only hurts the players,” said one scout.

▶️ Yesterday’s most-clicked: NFL execs rank all 16 AFC teams, bumping the Bengals up to No. 4.

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(Photo: Al Bello / Getty Images)