NFL Catchup: Ravens WRs, Kyler Murray Injured; Bills, Jets Epic Postg…

It was an exciting Week 1 of the NFL with big wins and breakout performances from new and veteran stars. The Jaguars pulled out a dominant 34-10 win over the Browns and the Jets started the year in the win column, defeating the Titans 24-10. Additionally, first-year head coaches including Baltimore's Jesse Minter and Buffalo's Joe Brady secured their first wins as head coaches. Whether it was shocking injury news to key starters or electric postgame speeches, Week 1 delivered. Here's everything that happened from Week 1 of the NFL season: In wide receiver Ja'Kobi Lane's debut in a Ravens jersey and Zay Flowers' coming off a massive contract extension, both exited Baltimore's game early with injuries. Lane was sidelined with a right wrist injury and Flowers' departed with a hamstring injury that started as questionable to return, which quickly progressed into being ruled out. Flowers' injury has been ongoing from weeks prior, when he was sidelined for two weeks of practice due to the irritating hamstring injury. After fully suiting for this past Friday's practice, Flowers' production translated to five catches for 150 yards and one touchdown. For Lane – Baltimore's third-round NFL Draft pick from USC – his first game in the NFL was cut short, finishing the day with one reception on three targets and 11 receiving yards. Lane's debut also saw a touchdown reception, but was negated by a penalty. Lane left the field early with a wrist injury and was later ruled out for the remainder of the game. After the Ravens 41-23 win over the Indianapolis Colts, Baltimore will host the New Orleans Saints in Week 2. In his first start for the Minnesota Vikings, quarterback Kyler Murray's time under center was cut short due to a head injury. When Murray took off in an attempt at a first down, Murray went head first to kill the play, and was hit by a pair of Packer defenders to the head. Murray was quickly attended to and exited the field. After evaluation, the quarterback was ruled out for the day with a concussion. Murray's injury now gave way for backup quarterback Carson Wentz to take the field. Wentz started five games last season while quarterback J.J. McCarthy was dealing with an ongoing ankle injury. Through an ongoing quarterback competition between McCarthy and Murray, Murray ultimately landed the starting job on Aug. 11. Now, the Vikings will turn to Wentz for future competition under center as Murray is sidelined. In the Cleveland Browns opener on the road against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Browns took a 34-10 loss, with their first touchdown of the day coming in the final two minutes of the game. Following the loss, head coach Todd Monken reacted to the performance of quarterback Deshaun Watson, as well as the quality of coaching throughout the game. "I'm sure as hell not firing me," Monken said in the Browns' postgame presser. "I'm not firing our staff. I'm not getting rid of all our players. He happens to be one of 53. So, we'll evaluate everything. We just didn't play good enough ... didn't coach well enough." Watson finished the day completing 16-of-22 passes, 205 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Notably, Watson was sacked a total of five times. The Browns now turn to a road matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday. The Bills' thrilling 36-31 win over the Texans marked head coach Joe Brady's first in the NFL, and he celebrated in memorable style: shirtless. "You wanna talk about conviction? Everything we believe in man, showed up in that game. We said, ‘Don’t look at the scoreboard, man.’ We just said put the ball down. They moved the ball," Brady said after the game. Quarterback Josh Allen completed 20-of-29 passes, 334 yards and a pair of touchdowns. On top of Allen's numbers, the Bills' offense had a solid day through the air. Wide receiver DJ Moore closed out his first game for Buffalo with five receptions for 100 yards and a touchdown, while wide receiver Dalton Kincaid recorded five receptions for 130 yards. Buffalo now hosts the Detroit Lions for Thursday Night Football for their first home game in the newly renovated Highmark Stadium. The Jets added quarterback Geno Smith through free agency, and drafted edge rusher David Bailey Jr., tight end Kenyon Sadiq and wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr. in the first round earlier this year. There was some potential hype that this team could become competitive as head coach Aaron Glenn enters his second season. The Jets offense delivered, as Smith completed 19-of-24 and 215 yards. Running back Breece Hall recorded 22 carries for 102 yards and one touchdown, and wide receiver Garrett Wilson finished with six receptions for 73 yards. D efensively, New York recorded three sacks, four tackles-for-loss and held the Titans to just 10 points on the day. To close out their win, Glenn delivered a thrilling postgame speech: chickenroad-game.rodeo

EverBank Stadium (Jacksonville) — It would be easier if it were as simple as changing quarterbacks. The Cleveland Browns had their first game in the post-Myles Garrett era Sunday, and their matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars went about as poorly as you could expect. The offense got a Deshaun Watson interception on the opening drive, and didn't cross midfield again until they trailed 24-0. The defense allowed Trevor Lawrence to have his highest passer rating in a game of his NFL career, watching the fourth quarter from the sidelines after four easy touchdown passes. The final score was 34-10, and that doesn't do it justice. Cleveland got its only touchdown with two minutes left, and Jacksonville's offense looked like it was just trying to finish the game without injuries for most of the second half. The NFL teaches you that Week 1 can tell outright lies, that teams can win big or lose big in that first game, and two months later they look nothing like that first glimpse, for better or worse. The last time a Browns head coach had his first game, first-year coach Kevin Stefanski saw his team lose to the Baltimore Ravens 38-6. But Stefanski quickly turned that group around in 2020, going 11-6 and winning their first playoff game in 26 years. This didn't feel like a lie. This felt like the hard truth of a team that entered Sunday's game as the heaviest underdog in the league this week, and needed a garbage-time score to fall two touchdowns short of those low expectations. "I'm not down. I'm disappointed," 60-year-old Todd Monken said after his first game as an NFL head coach. "I mean, you're not going to get me down. Waited a long time to be a head coach in this league. Kind of freaking awesome. We're not where we want to be, and. they'd better get us now. Because we've got a good young group, and we just didn't play well today." The idea that Watson, playing in his first game since 2024, was their best option — long-term, short-term, anything — is fairly damning in itself, with the threat of second-year pro Shedeur Sanders not exactly looming from the sidelines. Watson is in the final year of a five-year, $230 million contract, his on-field struggles surpassed only by off-field issues that had his own fans booing him in preseason. The right thing to do would have been to cut him, to sever ties to a terrible decision that will work against the franchise's chances of success even after he's gone. Monken was careful to not single out Watson postgame — and there was plenty else that went wrong. "It's a 'we' thing," Monken said. "It's not a me, it's not a they thing, it's a we thing. We're going to fight like hell to get better. That's what I've always done. That's what we're going to continue to do." The Browns' locker room wasn't anything disconsolate, more just aware of little things that need to change for them to have a chance to beat good opponents. They owned the most lopsided loss of the opening weekend, struggling on the same day that the Las Vegas Raiders, Arizona Cardinals and New York Giants — all who picked in the top five of the draft — opened with victories. Monken was asked if he was definitely sticking with Watson heading into next week's might-be-even-hotter 1 p.m. game in Tampa against the Bucs, and he didn't sound like a coach making a change. "I'd rather just talk about today, because I haven't had time to even look at the tape," Monken said. "I mean, I'm sure as hell not firing me. I'm not firing our staff. I'm not giving up on the players. So [Watson] happens to be one of the 53, and however many practice squad guys we've got, and our staff, he's one of them. We'll evaluate everything. But to just say that emotionally here at the end, when we didn't play good enough and didn't coach well enough." This was going to be a long year before the Browns traded Garrett to the Rams for a slew of draft picks, sacrificing today for tomorrow in losing the reigning Defensive Player of the Year. They gave up 24 points in the first half Sunday in their first game without him, and it matched the most points they'd allowed in any first half since Sept. 2017, two weeks before Garrett's debut with the Browns. "It's like boxing," said Jared Verse, acquired from the Rams in the Garrett trade and tasked with replacing him. "They hit you in the face, you get your feet right back up and punch back. We just backed up a little bit, and by the time we got more collected ... it was too late. They already had done the damage." If you had to encapsulate all that was wrong with Cleveland on Sunday, take a sequence of plays just before halftime, when Watson had completed back-to-back passes for 20 and 11 yards, getting them to the Jaguars' 39 with 51 seconds before halftime. A touchdown would cut the lead to 17, but instead, they had a holding penalty and a false start and a delay of game, all in a row, to set up first and 30. A short gain, then another holding penalty for second and 34. They did not score. Accountability has never been Watson's best skill, and Sunday was no different, owning his part but saying things like, "Of course, everyone's going to look at the quarterback in this situation overall." Asked how he handles adversity and keeps his confidence, he spoke to the support he says he has from his teammates. "Just keep moving forward, keep stepping forward, you know, keep smiling, regardless of who's against me or who's with me," Watson said. "I think that's more beneficial for the team in that locker room. I had a lot of support in that locker room after the game, telling me to keep my head up, keep pushing forward, keep working. They're behind me, so that's always positive to see and hear. We've just got to keep going. You know, the adversity is going to be there. You know you've got to embrace it ... keep pushing through until you break that wall." There weren't many hopeful moments Sunday. Rookie receiver Denzel Boston caught a 46-yard touchdown in the final two minutes, but the game was over an hour earlier. Quinshon Judkins, a second-year back with potential, had 12 carries and none of them went for more than five yards. Verse, a potential star, had just one tackle in the first half. Monken is a patient man (you don't take the Browns job in 2026 without patience), and his combination of optimism and bluntness will serve him well in surviving what will be a long season. They have other bad teams on the schedule — the Titans in Week 7, the Raiders in Week 12 — but they look to be hard-pressed to match last year's 5-12 record. Knowing that each loss increases their odds of landing an elite quarterback in next year's draft, that might not be a bad thing. "I told the team, 'There is no testimony without a test,'" Monken said. "It's just one of them. This is one of 17 games we've got, and we certainly didn't play well enough. We certainly didn't coach well enough. But I love our guys. I love the way they work, and we're going to come back tomorrow and fight like hell to fix it."

En la canción Pájaros mojados, Quique González incluye un verso que dice “se escapa otro verano en un furgón blindado”. Todos los estíos se van para no volver, pero hay uno que lo hace de una forma tan contundente y brutal que solo te das cuenta de lo que ha pasado cuando ha transcurrido el tiempo necesario para asimilarlo. Ese verano del que jamás se vuelve es el que hace de bisagra entre la infancia y la adolescencia. Porque en esos meses suceden tantas cosas de tanto calado que marcan el camino a seguir. Conoces a personas que comparten tus gustos e intereses, descubres canciones o libros que suenan como debía de sonar la invención del mundo —aunque tengan más años que un bosque—, se despiertan en ti unas extrañas sensaciones que resulta que se llaman emociones y que, tras un extraño proceso, se convierten en sentimientos. Todos ellos elementos que aparecen de repente para trastocar el orden en el que creías que ibas a vivir para siempre.

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