Football

Forget celebrating the return of N.F.L. football by lauding Julio Jones’s hands, Christian McCaffrey’s legs and Lamar Jackson’s arm. Let’s celebrate it in a more ghoulish, and maybe pettier, way by looking at the players and teams who didn’t fare so well.Two Relocated Veteran QuarterbacksSome of the teams that acquired new passers weren’t feeling so great on Monday morning.Tom Brady arrived in Tampa, Fla., on a wave of enthusiasm, but carrying his age, 43, along with those six Super Bowl rings.A game in New Orleans is not the easiest baptism, but his performance was lackluster: 23 for 36 for 239 yards with two interceptions, one of them a pick-6. Brady was soundly outplayed by the youngster Drew Brees, 41, and the Buccaneers lost, 34-23.Brady and Buccaneers Coach Bruce Arians on Sunday acknowledged that Brady was at fault on the picks. “I made some just bad, terrible turnovers,” Brady said. “I obviously have got to do a lot better job.” (Arians on Monday pointed a finger at receiver Mike Evans for the first interception.)Philip Rivers, 38, has always been a yards machine (nearly 60,000 in his career), and he got 363 more on Sunday with the Indianapolis Colts, his new team after 16 years with the San Diego and Los Angeles Chargers. But the Colts couldn’t pull away from an unfearsome Jacksonville Jaguars team that they were expected to beat by 8.Rivers had chances to win the game late, but threw an interception with four minutes left. Given a final opportunity, he led his team to the Jaguars’ 26 with a minute left, then threw three straight incompletions, and the Colts lost, 27-20.Two Quarterbacks Looking Over Their ShouldersRivers’s replacement in Los Angeles, Tyrod Taylor, got a win, at least. But it was against the lowly Cincinnati Bengals, who were playing behind the rookie quarterback Joe Burrow, and it came by just 3 points. In a game that was poorly played by both sides, Taylor was an uninspiring 16 for 30 for 208 yards. There have already been calls to replace him with the first-round pick Justin Herbert.As the Brady-less New England Patriots were startling their fans with a quarterback, Cam Newton, who ran for 75 yards and threw for only 155, Ryan Fitzpatrick was throwing three interceptions for the Miami Dolphins, who lost, 21-11. Fitzpatrick’s adjusted yards per pass figure was an anemic 1.9, comfortably the worst in the league.With the Dolphins unlikely to be sensational this year, fans may be clamoring for the rookie Tua Tagovailoa sooner rather than later.The Guy Who Traded DeAndre HopkinsWhen the Houston Texans traded DeAndre Hopkins and a fourth-round pick to the Arizona Cardinals for David Johnson and a second- and fourth-rounder, plenty of people said it was a bad trade. After Week 1, “bad” doesn’t seem bad enough to describe the inequity of the swap.Kyler Murray connected with Hopkins 14 times for 151 yards, and the Cardinals, 6½-point underdogs, won at San Francisco. It was a career high in receptions for Hopkins. (It’s a good thing, too, because Murray didn’t really play that well otherwise.)At least Johnson was OK for the Texans on Thursday in a loss to the Chiefs, rushing 11 times for 77 yards.The Cleveland BrownsMaybe just lock this one in for the rest of the season.Most of Sunday’s games were fairly close. And then there was the Browns game.Cleveland lost to the Ravens, 38-6. Quarterback Baker Mayfield managed only 189 yards in the air, and the Browns never looked competitive.Yes, they were facing one of the best players in the game, the reigning most valuable player, Lamar Jackson, who completed 20 of 25 passes for 275 yards and three touchdowns. But at least some of that success came because of Browns defensive lapses.The Browns have often been the butt of jokes, but when this season began, there was at least some optimism, thanks to running back Nick Chubb and hopes for improvement from Mayfield. The Browns were at least rated above the league’s potential laughingstocks like the Jaguars, the Bengals, and um, “Football Team.” Some went so far as to predict a .500 season, or better.After a schooling by a very strong team, the Browns may be resetting expectations.The 100-Yard RusherKansas City’s Clyde Edwards-Helaire was the only running back taken in the first round of the draft, with the last pick of the round. He justified the selection with a 138-yard game on Thursday night. Could it have been the start of a renaissance for the running game?No. Although several runners got into the 90s on Sunday, not one hit the 100-yard mark.In last year’s opening week, five rushers ran for 100. Season long, there were 108 100-yard games, an average of more than six a week. More

NEW ORLEANS — The ritual of Saints football went on almost as normal.The Rev. R. Tony Ricard, the pastor at St. Gabriel the Archangel Roman Catholic Church and a New Orleans Saints chaplain, ended 10:30 a.m. Mass promptly, a neat hour after it began, dispensing with one Sunday rite before the second, a late afternoon home game against the Tom Brady Buccaneers, took hold of the deeply Catholic city.The draw of Brady vs. Brees, a head-to-head matchup between two of the N.F.L.’s most familiar icons, meant a prime afternoon TV slot but a relatively late start for New Orleans fans, who are generally a six-pack deep for a typical 1 p.m. kickoff, glommed together for a pregame concert in the Champions Square area aside the Superdome or stirring vats of something that started with a roux while packed underneath the Interstate 10 overpass that bounds the northwest side of the stadium grounds.Instead, black and gold “no tailgating” signs punched the muddy ground on Perdido Street, a warning to no one in particular, since most people in town packed the party inside homes and bars, sent there by a no-fans-at-the-stadium ruling for Week 1 and the surprising threat of Tropical Storm Sally, scheduled to smack the city Monday. The emptiness lent an eeriness to the already dystopian feel of football’s return without one of its most loyal congregations.What is football’s game day ritual without fans?A made-for-TV event, a presentation meant for the broadest range of consumers, across the highest-bidding platforms.N.F.L. games have prioritized the TV audience over everything else in recent years, stopping game action so often for broadcast breaks and analysis that whole customs have risen to fill the downtime — everything from scoreboard competitions to dog-fetching exhibitions. But with coronavirus pandemic guidelines in place, even the pretense that games are meant for local fans is gone, rendering each stadium merely a soundstage rather than a cathedral to sport.The air horns that assistant coaches squawked to signal changeovers between units in warm-ups needed only to have been whistles, since there was no pregame clamor to overcome. The national anthem, such a point of emphasis for protest and patriotism for the TV audience, was piped in from a singer performing in a different area of the stadium. (Both teams stood while it played.)After it ended, the ’90s classic “Return of the Mack” hummed at the league-mandated 70 decibels, low enough to sound as if it were coming from a party a block away, before the team captains, masked, met at the 50-yard line for the coin flip.“Even just kind of that little buzz in the stadium that they create in between plays or during the game at 70 decibels, that just feels like a whisper compared to what it normally is,” Drew Brees said.Tom Brady celebrated his first touchdown as a Buccaneer, a two-yard quarterback sneak, by spiking the ball and shouting, the sounds of both traveling up to the 500-level press box after the broadcast feed. Before the extra-point attempt, the ominous cawing of dozens of crows turned out to be the sound of the grounds crew raising the net behind the goal posts, the squeaky wheels of the pulley system unmuted by the normal revelry.The Coronavirus OutbreakSports and the VirusUpdated Sept. 14, 2020Here’s what’s happening as the world of sports slowly comes back to life:The Superdome in New Orleans had a dystopian feel as football returned without one of its most loyal congregations of fans. Oh, and Tom Brady flopped as the Saints beat the Buccaneers.The United States Tennis Association has no regrets about holding a U.S. Open without fans, Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal.Enrique Oliu, a blind radio broadcaster for the Tampa Bay Rays, relies on crowd noise and on-field sounds to do his job. This season, he has had to adjust more than anyone.It was a ragged game, with both sides committing all the miscues of a preseason affair. Only, without a deafening flock of supporters, there was nowhere to place blame for the jitters that prompted false starts and a muffed kick return.The game’s momentum finally started to gather in the third quarter when the Buccaneers fought back from Brady’s second interception of the game to narrow their deficit to one touchdown.As he looked to a reliable target, Rob Gronkowski, to convert on second-and-4 from his own 28-yard line, Brady was rocked by defensive end Cameron Jordan. On third down, missing the home crowd and sensing a momentum-changing moment, the Saints’ inactive players began whirling towels and shouting from their socially distanced seats in the stands. In the nearly noiseless stadium, they could easily be heard on the field.“You run out, and obviously you’re used to the energy and the emotion in the Dome,” Brees said after his team’s 34-23 win. “The fans, obviously, you know with each and every play you’re waiting for that fan reaction, right? That big cheer on a big offensive play or a big defensive stop or a special teams play or whatever it might be.”The Saints had all of those plays — blocking a field goal in the first half and forcing a muffed kick return in the second — with enough pass-interference calls to draw groans and enough Alvin Kamara touchdowns to merit a second line at the finale.But with the team’s faithful out of earshot, the game could have been anywhere. More

The return of professional football to a nation living on a raw and perilous edge, struggling to confront a lethal virus and trying to heal its deep racial wounds, offered fans a tense and unlikely paradox. More

Cam Newton looked terrific, Tom Brady looked fairly terrible, and there were upsets all over the place in a wild slate of games. More

Without fans in the stands, the Jets and the Buffalo Bills apparently decided to do what they usually do — only bigger.Behind by 21-3 entering the second half after a slow start, the Jets tried to break through in the third quarter, starting when wide receiver Jamison Crowder scored on a 69-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Sam Darnold. It was Crowder’s longest reception as a Jet. Later, running back Josh Adams pushed a touchdown over from the 2-yard line with about a minute left in the game.But it wasn’t enough. The Jets lost their season opener on Sunday, 27-17, at Bills Stadium.8⃣2⃣➡️🏠📺: #NYJvsBUF on CBS pic.twitter.com/GJ7becs67u— New York Jets (@nyjets) September 13, 2020
Starting slowly has become a defining feature for the Jets under Coach Adam Gase: They had a 1-7 record in the first half of last season, then came back to win six of their final eight games.“It was about as bad of a start offensively as we could have had,” Gase said in a postgame call with reporters, adding that Darnold’s game was off.Darnold agreed.“I put that on my shoulders,” he said. “I missed way too many throws today.”The misses were significant, and it soon became clear that it was Bills quarterback Josh Allen’s game to lose. He passed for 312 yards and two touchdowns, and rushed for 57 yards and another touchdown.Where Allen made his marks, Darnold could not. The two quarterbacks are often compared to each other because of their backgrounds, friendship and draft position. (Darnold was the second quarterback drafted, Allen the third, in 2018.) But Allen competed 33 of 46 pass attempts on Sunday to Darnold’s 21 of 35 for 215 yards, and it was clear which quarterback was a greater threat, at least on this day.Even where Allen shined, he brought back an old habit with him: his tendency to fumble, with two in the first half. In the past two seasons, he fumbled 22 times in 28 regular-season games and twice in the team’s playoff loss to the Texans last year.“I’ll need to work on that,” he said after the game.Although it was a disappointing first game for the Jets, safety Marcus Maye came out strong, making two sacks, forcing a fumble and notching 10 tackles (seven solo); he also defended two passes. The Jets held the Bills to 6 points in the second half.“We have to come out hot and fast, we can’t wait until things get tough to get going,” Maye said.The Bills’ defense also held the Jets down, allowing them only 19 minutes with the ball.Old tendencies from both teams contrasted with the new way of playing football amid the coronavirus pandemic. In the absence of fans, fan noise was replaced by high-volume cheers and boos at the Bills’ stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y. The sound-to-people ratio was especially jarring when the arena was practically empty for the national anthem and the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” with both teams remaining in the locker room. The 2020 season will feature several protests: Both teams wore helmets with the names of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd among civil rights messages, including “Black Lives Matter.” The Jets canceled practices in solidarity with the walkout last month over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wis., and are one of many teams considering escalating protests this season.And it wouldn’t be a Jets game without adding two more injured players to their ranks: running back Le’Veon Bell and linebacker Blake Cashman. Bell, a three-time Pro Bowler and two-time All-Pro, was taken out with a hamstring injury in the third quarter, but not before six carries for 14 yards and two catches for 32 yards. He is hoping it’s his comeback season after a career-low 789 yards last year.The Jets will try to identify the common mistakes and prevent them from happening in their next game, their home opener next Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers.“Put your head down and grind,” wide receiver Breshad Perriman said. More

Several teams stayed in the locker room for the pregame playing of the national anthem, while some players knelt during it or wore decals and shirts against hate and racism. More

If lower-quality football is your thing, I have good news: The Cincinnati Bengals (2-14 last season) play the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday (4 p.m. on CBS). Despite playing at home, and despite having the No. 1 draft pick, the quarterback Joe Burrow, the Bengals are big underdogs. They could have a long season.The first week wraps up with a Monday night doubleheader: Steelers-Giants and Titans-Broncos (7:10 p.m. and 10:20 p.m., ESPN). More

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Just about the only thing that looked familiar about the N.F.L.’s long-awaited return Thursday night was the sight of Patrick Mahomes effortlessly leading the Kansas City Chiefs up and down the field.The Super Bowl M.V.P. threw for 211 yards and three touchdowns, Clyde Edwards-Helaire ran through the rain for 138 yards and another score, and the Chiefs began defending their first championship in 50 years by beating the Houston Texans, 34-20, before a socially distanced crowd of about 17,000, a figure limited due to the coronavirus pandemic.Travis Kelce, Sammy Watkins and Tyreek Hill each caught touchdown passes for the Chiefs. They have won 10 straight dating to last season. That run includes a come-from-behind 51-31 victory over the Texans in the divisional round of the playoffs.The Texans’ Deshaun Watson threw a touchdown pass and ran for another score, but he also was under relentless pressure and was intercepted once. David Johnson provided the biggest bright spot for Houston, running for 77 yards and a score.In a relatively muted celebration, the Chiefs unveiled their Super Bowl banner and presented the Lombardi Trophy to their fans — along with a 20-foot replica that was wheeled onto the field — about 15 minutes before the game began.The world has changed dramatically in the seven months since the Chiefs hoisted the Lombardi Trophy in Miami.Within six weeks, the term Covid-19 became a part of everyday life, with the disease killing more than 900,000 people around the globe. The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody in May renewed Black Lives Matter protests, which in turn has led to a summer of social unrest that has gripped the country.Against that backdrop came an N.F.L. opener unlike any other: masks worn by everyone from fans to the coaching staffs; a series of videos raising awareness of social justice initiatives and encouraging the public to vote; and ultimately both teams locking arms in a display of unity before the coin toss.The Chiefs lined up along the goal line about 30 minutes before kickoff and watched Alicia Keys perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which is often considered the Black national anthem, in a video designed to address racial inequality.The Texans had already left the field when the demonstration occurred, remaining there until a virtual performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” ended, then ran onto the field to a chorus of boos from fans.Some fans were still booing when the teams met at midfield and shook hands. The teams then stood together in a line that stretched from one end zone to the other for a moment of silence before the coin toss.The kickoff brought four hours of normalcy.The Texans, who blew a 24-point lead against Kansas City in the playoffs, struck first when they marched 80 yards for a touchdown. The elusive Johnson finished it off by scampering 19 yards to the end zone for a 7-0 lead.But the Chiefs quickly overcame their slow start.They tied it moments later when Mahomes threw a short touchdown pass to Kelce, then took the lead when they forced a quick punt and Mahomes found Watkins in the end zone. Harrison Butker capped the first half by kicking a chip-shot field goal that sent the Chiefs to the locker room with a 17-7 lead.Edwards-Helaire, their first-round draft pick, padded the lead in the third quarter. After ripping off an 11-yard gain early in the drive, the pint-size dynamo out of L.S.U. unleashed a wicked stutter-step before running 27 yards for another score.The Chiefs put the game away when rookie L’Darius Sneed picked off Watson’s jump ball in the closing seconds of the third quarter. Mahomes was bailed out of a fourth-down interception by pass interference in the end zone, then he zipped a dart to Hill streaking across the field for a 31-7 lead early in the fourth quarter.Watson threw a touchdown pass and ran for a touchdown later in the quarter to make the final score a bit more respectable. More