The NFL season has officially kicked off and it started with a bang. 791 total points were scored across all the games this week between Wednesdays opener, Thursday Night Football, the Sunday games and Monday Night Football. This high mark ties the NFL record for the highest scoring week one, a record set in 2012. On top of that, the Sunday games alone saw 693 points across 13 games, which sets the record for highest scoring week one Sunday, averaging 53.3 points per game. Now here’s the recap of the week.

Offensive Player of The Week

In a week with as many points scored as this one, there are many candidates for this award, Josh Allen torched the Houston Texans defense, Trevor Lawrence had a field day against the Cleveland Browns, Lamar Jackson and his teammate Derrick Henry had phenomenal games against the Indianapolis Colts, but overall, the Offensive Player of The Week is going to Jacksons other teammate, Zay Flowers.

Flowers finished his spectacular game with 5 catches for 150 yards and 1 touchdown. Now compared to some of the other games players had this week this honestly isn’t that crazy besides the fact he averaged 30 yards a catch, but with the added context that he didn’t even play the second half of the game due to leaving in the second quarter with a hamstring injury, it becomes clear why he was selected.

His first half production alone was enough to put him at second in receiving yards following week 1, only behind New Orleans Saints wide receiver Chris Olave who had 182 receiving yards.

Defensive Player of The Week

There wasn’t a lot of bright spots on defense for any team in this opening week consider just how much offense there was, but one game that did stand out as a defensive brawl was Pittsburgh Steelers vs Atlanta Falcons. This game had a final score of 20-13 with the Steelers taking the win, and their linebacker T.J. Watt dominating the whole game.

Watt finished the game with 4 tackles, 2 sacks, and 1 interception which he took back for a touchdown. This dominant level of defense is a great sign for the Steelers considering Watt had a scary injury at the end of last season, and he’s not getting any younger.

Seeing Watt and really the entire Steelers defense play well is a great sign of what’s to come for Pittsburgh in the post Mike Tomlin era, who was always known for being a defensive minded head coach.

Worst Team of The Week

Going into the season, my guess on who the worst team would be to start the season would’ve been the Miami Dolphins or the Cleveland Browns. While they weren’t great, one team was worse, the Los Angeles Rams.

The Rams entered this season being the favorites to win the Super Bowl after making the trade for edge rusher Myles Garrett, the 2025 Defensive Player of The Year, and also bringing legendary defensive tackle Aaron Donald out of retirement.

The Rams played the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, Australia, and lost 27-7. This low scoring game for the Rams left them being the only team this week to not score double digit points. Quarterback Matthew Stafford looked rough the entire game, multiple very inaccurate throws and overall out of character plays for him led to this struggle on offense.

The defense which is loaded was surprisingly bad against the 49ers, to be fair Aaron Donald didn’t play this game because he just came out of retirement two weeks ago, but even without him it’s a loaded defense from top to bottom.

Unfortunately this week got even worse for the Rams after their game was over, Myles Garrett was placed on injured reserve Sunday morning, he will be having knee surgery and according to head coach Sean McVay there is no clear timeline for when he will return to the field.

Best Team of The Week

Many teams can be considered for this, but the team that looked the most impressive overall was the Baltimore Ravens.

The Ravens high flying offense lit up the Colts, who seemed to be unprepared for this level of play from Baltimore. People have had their questions and concerns about new Ravens offensive coordinator Declan Doyle, the expectations were very high and he met them. Quarterback Lamar Jackson threw for 324 yards, 1 touchdown, and added 40 yards rushing with 1 rushing touchdown. Running back Derrick Henry had 144 rushing yards and 3 touchdowns. Wide receiver Zay Flowers as mentioned before had 5 catches for 150 yards and a touchdown.

On the defensive side of the ball, new head coach Jesse Minter dialed up a great game plan that had Colts quarterback Daniel Jones looking frightened. Linebacker Roquan Smith had 11 tackles and 1 interceptions. Safety Malakai Starks had 7 tackles and his first career sack. The rest of the defense overall did a great job covering the receivers on the field, and applying pressure on Jones.

MVP Race

It’s never easy to determine who sits atop the MVP race after the first week of the season, especially after this opening week with all the different players who had phenomenal games. This is why I will be listing the top three players in the race.

At the third spot is Ravens QB Lamar Jackson. As noted earlier, Jackson had a great game against the Colts, he did exactly what he needed in order to win and it’s hard to name more players who were better than he was.

At the second spot is Chicago Bears QB Caleb Williams. Williams went off against the Carolina Panthers and led his team to a 59-37 victory. The biggest criticism for Williams is how low his completion percentage was last season. As of now it seems like he listened to the critics and fixed his accuracy after completing 21 passes on 29 attempts, good for a 72% completion percentage. He also had 269 passing yards, 2 passing touchdowns, 65 rushing yards and 2 rushing touchdowns, just an all around super game for Williams.

Finally at the top of the MVP race is Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen. Allen was faced with playing who many people believe to be possibly the best defense in the league in the Houston Texans, and Allen picked them apart. Allen completed 20 passes on 29 attempts, for 334 passing yards and 2 passing touchdowns, he also had 23 rushing yards and 2 rushing touchdowns. This great performance helped get the Bills the win over the Texans 36-31.