NFL Week 1 2010

Six quick thoughts (on a day where more football was missed than watched):

+ Huge win for the Houston Texans: In fairness to Houston, this one has been coming for a while. The Texans came close to breaking their horrendous streak against the Colts (1-15 all-time) in both of the games they played against them last season but came up just short.

On Sunday, Houston played lights-out, taking the first lead of the game and never relinquishing it. The closest the Colts came to getting back into it was the 13-10 halftime score. But the Texans received the ball to start the third quarter and went on a 16-play touchdown drive which ate up almost nine minutes of clock and proved to be a backbreaker for the Colts.

That drive brings us to the key difference between previous Houston-Indiannapolis matchups and Sunday's game: Arian Foster.

Foster, an undrafted running back in 2009 who missed all of last season with an injury, had a career-day: rushing for mammoth 231 yards and 3 touchdowns. On that opening drive of the third quarter, Houston fed Foster the ball 10 times and Indianapolis couldn't stop him: Foster converted two third downs and a key fourth down to keep the chains moving.

Foster proved to be the great equalizer for the Texans, by both keeping Manning off the field for long stretches of the game (something they haven't been able to do in the past), and exploiting the Colts poor run-defense (a question mark for them even last season).

+And credit to some of the day's other upsetters: There's no doubt that neither the 49ers or the Cowboys played as well as they should have. But give some love to the Seahawks and the Redskins. Both were 3-point underdogs going in but both showed some homefield pride, played solid defense and came through some dicey moments – the Seahawks only mustered 11 yards on their first three offensive possessions and the Redskins withstood the Cowboys last-minute drive – to come away with well-deserved wins.

+Matt Ryan better look out for that dreaded “Junior Slump”: Granted, I didn't watch the Steelers-Falcons game in its entirety and Ryan's individual stats don't look bad on paper: 27 of 44 for 252 yards and an interception.

BUT with 1:45 left in the fourth quarter and the score locked at 9-9, Ryan took over at the Atlanta 21 with a chance to lead a game-winning drive. His first pass from scrimmage was so telegraphed that Troy Polamalu saw it coming from what seemed to be the other side of the field and picked it off.

That should have been curtains for Ryan and the Falcons, but the Steelers missed the potential game-winning field goal to send the game into overtime. After Atlanta won the coin flip, Ryan proceeded to go 1 of 3 for 9 yards as the offense stalled once again, and this time Pittsburgh granted them no reprieve.

Ryan had a phenomenal rookie season in 2008, but seemed to falter at big moments against high quality opposition last season. He did it again in the first game of 2010 and that will have Falcons fans worried.

+ The Calvin Johnson call: Ok, so I think we can all agree (Bears fans aside perhaps) that Johnson was a little hard done by on the call that ruled the potentially game-winning touchdown for the Lions an incompletion. But my question is (after watching the play about ten times), why did he take his left hand off the football in the first place? Neither of Johnson's arms were entangled with the defender's; it was almost as if he was simply trying to break his fall/ soften his landing. On a game-winning play? In the NFL?

Of course, everything seems SO simple to the fan/ pundit sitting on a couch or La-Z-Boy at home watching the game in super slow-mo, but still...Strange moment.

+Rough day for starting quarterbacks: Kevin Kolb of the Eagles and Matt Moore of the Panthers both sustained concussions in their games against the Packers and Giants respectively.

However the most serious quarterback injury of the day appears to be that of the Lions Matthew Stafford. Stafford injured his throwing shoulder thanks to a Julius Peppers sack. Early reports have the second-year signal caller missing multiple weeks of action.

One week (actually, one week minus two fixtures), and already three teams scrambling to their backup options at QB. Just goes to show how the hours and hours that NFL teams put into planning and preparation can be seriously disrupted with just one bad hit on their most important player.

+The Browns will be hoping (maybe praying) that they didn't read the tea leaves wrong when they gambled this offseason that quarterback Jake Delhomme had another couple seasons left in his arm.

If Delhomme continues to perform as he did on Sunday, his signing might just cost them the little bit of momentum they developped at the end of last season, thanks to Jerome Harrison's heroics and an improving offensive line.