NFL panic meter: Is Russell Wilson cooked? Is the Chiefs’ golden age over? | NFL

Russell Wilson

Funny fact: the giants returned 10 of their 11 offensive starters last year, despite the end of the EPA per game last season. The only change occurred in the quarter-Arrière, the giants signing Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston and exchanging in the first round of the Jaxson Dart draft.

It was a strange tension of organizational arrogance: Ignore that we have won three games! Our list is great! Our coaching is great! Daniel Jones was the problem!

Week 1 suggests the opposite. Jones is now with the colts and has cut the Defense of Dolphins, showing a level of confidence in his program and a support casting that has disappeared in New York. Meanwhile, the slow giants only scored six points against commanders, the least by any team of the opening week. Wilson looked like the same player as he was in Pittsburgh: capable of throwing beautiful deep balls but offering few others. His athletics was eroded to the point where he can no longer break the pocket reliably and create games out of the structure. Against commanders, he only completed two of the 12 passes when he pressure and was dismissed twice. And when he played in the structure, he was undecided and late to deliver throws.

Giants’ head coach Brian Daboll has confirmed that Wilson will remain the team’s starter for the second week, despite the teasing that he could make a change. But how long can Dabolls keep Dart out of the range?

Dart has strolled enough in pre-season to win the starting concert. Naturally, the giants want to work slowly the recruit rather than throwing it in the wolves. But the team’s decision -makers are borrowed. Their best chance of keeping their jobs is to throw darts in the field, ready or not, and hoping the best. It may not be great for the development of Dart, but it is the best blow of the giants to bring a shock to their lame attack.

Panic Meter: 8/10 – Prepare your arm, Jaxson.

Miami Dolphins

The vibrations have left with the dolphins since the pre-season. “It’s a great day,” said Mike McDaniel a month ago. For what? “Because we are another day closer to death.”

McDaniel’s shtick is already wearing thin with the pHI fans base, and the end of its coach race in Miami could be a few weeks old. The reason is not only score 33-8 in the hands of Indianapolis. It was what the Dolphins looked like. You know that things are miserable when Tyreek Hill launched his first anger of the season in the first quarter of the first game.

McDaniel is a walking oxymoron: when when it comes up the last time a guru of the game gave a franchise and that the complaint was that his team was not physical enough? Usually, these coaches are described as Neanderthals, out of step with new things. But under McDaniel, the dolphins were the opposite: wonderfully creative but committing the cardinal sin to play soft. They can’t run the ball and they can’t stop it either. Their Bienho-Ber-Berinhooo defensive front continues to fight against injury and failed to put pressure on Jones and the offensive line of the Colts renovated. And despite all the pros of Tua Tagovailoa’s game, it is the least adaptable quarter of the league. When the pressure arrives or the offense is somehow in a way, it is below.

Dolphins do not have the talent to cover their gaps. The siege of McDaniel could not be warmer.

Panic Meter: 10/10 – It’s time to start looking for the 2026 project.

Defense of invoices

I know, I know. The Bills have designed one of the most exhilarating feedback in the history of the League against Ravens. As long as Josh Allen is standing, the Bills should be the favorites to welcome the AFC championship match, in particular given the weakness of AFC East. But outside Allen, the alarm ringtones should ring.

The defense of the Bills is a waste. They seem small and light, unable to withstand a precipitated downhill attack. No other team can deploy the combined threats of Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry and Zay Flowers, but what happened to Bills on Sunday was as much their own list and their structural faults as the Baltimore Trifecta.

If anything, it seems that the Bills built a defense specifically to stop Kansas City in January. The scars from several playoffs will do it to a team. But there are many other threats in the playoffs, and the first evidence suggest that the chiefs may not be the team to beat.

Bills play more Dime Defense (six defensive backs) than any team in the League, but have one of the lowest security groups. They have invested this off-season a lot in versatile defensive line players, players who could line up inside or outside to bring additional juice to the rude-la-Course last year. This is a defense that is supposed to be as flexible and fast in third place as possible. But you must always make the opponents third. And it could be a chore this year.

Buffalo did not have the bodies to match the heavier Baltimore staff. The Ravens picked up 199 yards, with an average of 14.2 yards per game with their biggest bodies on the ground. When invoices remained in their favorite defense style, deploying additional defensive backs, Henry has on average 19 yards the portage.

Sean McDermott pivoted strategies at a time when the racing game is experiencing a resurgence. Of course, against chefs or Bengals, Bills can flood the speed field and be creative at the front to put pressure on the pocket. But what happens if they come back Baltimore to the playoffs, or the loaders, or any offense centered on the race? What if the game script is not in their favor?

It was a problem last season, but Allen and the offensive forced the opponents to heavy passing situations. The Bills have doubled their approach during the offseason, and now they seem to be moved to its place against the best AFC offenses. Given Allen, the problem will probably not prove before the playoffs. But invoices must find security reinforcements and a veteran hand that can help hit the race at the front.

Panic Meter: 7/10 – The playoffs are all that matters, and additions are necessary before that.

Heads in general

Speaking of fleeing defenses, the chiefs have their own problems. They were torn by Justin Herbert in Brazil. The charges abandoned their typical race plan and rather allowed Herbert to launch the ball everywhere on the field.

The charges have exposed fault lines through the defense of chiefs. The defensive rear field is as announced: Scrappy but missing from players who can hang in the cover of man. But the biggest concern is in advance. Apart from Chris Jones, the chiefs do not have a reliable rusher – and Jones did not show up at week 1.

KC paid to George Karlaftis $ 93 million during the offseason to be a second reliable banana, but it has never been more than a solid rusher which feeds on the splendor of Jones. If Jones is below its peak, the chiefs are in conjunction.

Steve Spagnuolo is the best defensive coordinator in sport, but he was left for his tail against Herbert. The chiefs could not put pressure reliably with four, so Spagnuolo increased his blitz level to try to make disturbances. But plug more players into the rush to the pass left its secondary to the islands, and Herbert swallowed it up, completing 11 of the 14 passes for 178 yards and a touch against the blitz.

Spagnuolo has repeatedly proven that it can make a unit that can be used from poorly adjusted parts. However, its Wonkery scheme can only drag the unit so far. Even if they approach the league average, this will not matter if the offensive continues to stall. And with Rashee Rice suspended for five other games and Xavier Worthy Hurt, it could be some time until the chiefs’ offensive has passed and shoots.

Even dynastic teams have cycles. During the glory days of the Belichick-Brady Patriots dynasty, they experienced soft seasons. They fell into the playoffs and came out early. The main constitutive elements can remain in place, but the auxiliary parts are no longer up to par, thanks to the salary ceiling, choosing at the bottom of the order of projects and refreshing from crucial free agents.

The chiefs have this feeling – a franchise captured between two eras. This does not mean that they will no longer have a race in the playoffs – and it is at the start of the season – but they have more holes to plug and questions to answer at all the past eight years.

Panic Meter: 6/10 – Lose against the eagles of week 2, and this goes to 8/10.

The Lions offensive line

The Lions ran in a buzzing saw in Green Bay. They took one of the best NFC teams, fresh out of the trade in Micah Parsons, while replacing two coordinators. Dentition problems were always going to be a problem. But the packers have exposed fundamental faults when the Lions had to face the best: they lack talent and depth in the two melee lines.

On the perimeter, Lions have as much talent as any team in the league. Their offensive weapons are ridiculin; Their secondary is filled with game breakers. But the games are won and lost in advance. Packers intimidated the lions on both sides of the ball. Aidan Hutchinson is the only rusher of Reliable Passe de Detroit, and everything hopes to compensate for this deficit with the Blitz fell with badly against Jordan Love.

A more urgent problem is the offensive line. Losing Ben Johnson was the discourse of Detroit’s off -season. How would they face without the hot offensive spirit at the controls? But this speech was always a little overestimated; The loss of the Frank Ragno Center – who decided to retire at the age of 29 – was a bigger deal. More than any other segment of a team, the offensive line works like a unit; Five gigantic bodies synchronized in a cohesive block in a confined area which offers little margin of error. Penei Sewell is a right tackle star and Taylor Decker gives Lions a starter usable on the left side. But the concern concerns the interior. The lions turned the interior to Graham Glasgow in the center and the young Christian Acajo and Tate Ratledge puppies in Guard.

Glasgow is a limited player, but mahogany and ratledge have talent. However, the trio is not up to what Detroit has drove with the last two seasons. All three are inhabitants who can repel defenders of the ball. But the three also have limits of protection against passes and find it difficult to move in space. With Johnson and Rugnow, the Lions had the most varied precipitated attack on the NFL, which helped feed the best game game in the League. With the new interior, they are limited in what they can call, and worse in what they do. It will take time to understand what the offensive can specialize in, the time they cannot afford in the NFC North knife fight.

Jared Goff is an excellent quarter-arre when he sticks to the flow of a room. But keep him away from his place, and he collapses. Having a stellar reception body is fun, but it doesn’t matter if Goff feels heat or if the lions are unable to move the ball to the ground.

Panic Meter: 5/10 – Beating the Bears this Sunday is now a must.