I forgot the highs and lows of NFL Sunday.  I don’t know how but every year I seem to forget how taxing the NFL season is.  Think about it, if you are like most NFL fans these days not only do you closely follow your favorite team but you probably have eight fantasy teams, are in two pick’em leagues and a suicide pool.  It’s so hard to keep track of everything! Yes Tony Romo throw a TD pass, I have him in my Yahoo! league…but wait…crap…Anthony has him in our ESPN League.  That’s what football Sunday has become; friends, food and laptops.  As crazy as that sounds everyone reading is nodding along.

Week 1 was filled with emotional peaks and valleys but boy does it feel ever so good to have football back in my life.

And without further ado…

Here’s What I learned in Week 1:

I: I tried my best to put this week in context.  It’s Week 1, yes it matters but often, good teams look crappy, there are tons of missed tackles and in general you can’t really tell much of anything for sure after one week.  And I swear I did a really good job of not being over reactionary for about 20 minutes.

20 minutes into the Jets/Texans game I could sworn there were eight #57’s on the field (Bart Scott) and watching the Jets bring six guys every play made me mutter the words “hmm..maybe I underrated the Jets defense” more then once.

Speaking of the Jets…

* Totally obvious statement but Mark Sanchez did not look like a rookie.  He played better then his stat line would indicate and showed all the skills that many thought would make him a star in this league.  Sanchez reminded me a lot of Jeff Garcia, without the happy feet.  Maybe not the comparisons Jets fans were hoping for but the way he made plays out of the pocket seemingly out of nothing reminded me of the former 49ers star.

Also, Kudos to Brian Schottenheimer, who I’ve criticized many times, for coming up with a simplistic yet creative passing game that played to Sanchez’s strengths.

* The Jets D looked great.  Ryan brought the heat and was able to make up for a lack of talent with an abundance of scheme.  The Jets totally stymied the explosive Texans offense without Shaun Ellis and Calvin Pace.  The obvious attention will be given to Scott and David Harris but CB Donald Strickland and DE Marques Douglas played very well.  Douglas and Strickland were both off-season steals and will continue to have a big role on this defense.

As for the Texans…

* In a word, Ewwwww.  WR Kevin Walter was out and that hurt them, as did Darelle Revis blanketing Andre Johnson but, the play calling did them in.  Early on the Texans went away from two of their big time players, Daniels and Slaton, and seemed to be totally flustered by the Jets pass rush.  Kubiak and ‘Lil Shanahan concocted a terrible game plan.  They didn’t attack the flats, exploit the mismatch with Owen Daniels vs. LB’s in coverage or use misdirection runs (counters/draws) to disrupt the pass rush.  The game got away from them early on and the whole team seemed to throw in the towel.  Not a good sign.

II: If you want to keep your friends and/or girlfriend don’t eat large amounts of sugar-free chocolate.  Don’t ask questions, just trust me.

III: Wait the score is 17-10?  I found myself uttering this and similar lines during the Giant/Redskins game repeatedly.  The score was not in any way, shape or form representative of the play on the field.  The Giants outclassed the Redskins and a couple of bad breaks kept it close.

* Ahmad Bradshaw is awesome and when he runs it looks like he is being shot out of a cannon.  While Jacobs (2.9/carry) struggled Bradshaw was much more then a change of pace back.  A 16/12 carry split is closer to even then most G-Man fans expected but it probably had more to do with match up then anything else.  Why run at Albert Haynesworth when you can run around him?

* Troy Aikman should never be allowed to announce a Giant game ever again.  Besides his verbal barrage of insults directed towards Eli Manning that even made me wince (and that’s saying something) he had a ton of facts wrong.  He called Danny Ware the Giants 3rd down back and said that the Giants were going to be a pass first team this year.  Troy…I think you had one too many concussions in your hay-day.

IV) Please let’s not be foolish enough to think that Kanye West’s blowup during the MTV Movie awards wasn’t scripted.  So Kanye just ran on to the stage, out of no where, but the camera conveniently didn’t pick it up…then the camera conveniently had a reaction shot of Beyonce just as Kayne started his rant.  Please.  This reeks of “hype machine” in the YouTube/Twitter/Facebook generation and we all fell for it hook line and sinker.

V) “I could care less if it was an ugly game, but it was beautiful for us” – Mike Singletary

1) Just to prove the pre-season means absolutely nothing:

* The Niners got ZERO pressure at all this pre-season.  Against the Cards the Niners had three sacks and roughly 1,000 hurries and hits on Warner.

* Frank Gore, Glenn Coffee and the Niners O-Line combined to form Captain Planet a dominant running game this pre-season.  Against the Cards the Niners ran for 21 yards on 25 attempts.  Gore had 22 carries for 30 yards and Coffee only had 1 attempt.  I’m not even going to try to explain.

2) The Darkside Of The Force is strong this week.  I wasn’t a fan of Black Emperor Palpitines play calling but I can’t imagine the Niners running game will be this bad all season.  If the D can actually rush the passer, the team can survive in a weak NFC West by playing ball control football.

VI) Around the NFL…

* Feeling A Brees! (Terrible joke count 1.  What, 2?  Really?  You didn’t like the Captain Planet joke?)

Drew looked awesome as did the Saints.  Sure they played the Lions but when Mike Bell is running for 150 yards with your third string left tackle playing that means things are clicking on all cylinders.

* The Battle Of The Over-Achievers!

Nice win for the Falcons.  Matt Ryan is the real deal and Tony Gonzalez might help them out a whole lot this year.  Don’t look now but for you curse of 370 naysayers I give you Michael Turner 22 carries for 65 yards.  Just saying.

* Hey…I Have Your First Round Draft Pick!!!

Boy did the Panthers look like a total mess.  Delhomme was so bad not only was he benched but when Josh McCown went down they went to Matt Moore.  Yikes.  The media is going to fry Delhomme and while Jon Fox says he’s still his guy…well I just don’t buy it.

In happier news Panther fans at least the 49ers own your first round draft pick next year!

* Dom Capers…We Salute You.

The Packers switch to a 3-4 went a whole lot better then I thought it would.  The Packers scheme on D was incredibly clever tonight and Capers seemed to push all the right buttons.  Cutler has been proven to be mistake-prone in the past  and tonight he, and the Bears, seemed to have no answer for the CB Blitz.  Just a masterful play calling performance.

VII) I Want To Say One Thing To The American Public…

I did not have sexual relations with that women…whoops wrong speech. We’ll end this ramblings, assuming you didn’t close this page 1,000 words ago, where we started….

So…what did I learn in Week 1….?

That it feels damn good to have football back in my life.