The story of a wild Week 1 in the NFL begins and ends with the kickers, after six different games were decided '— or in the case of the Colts–Texans, not decided — on last second kicks.
The Steelers beat the Bengals because of a blocked Evan McPherson extra point at the end of regulation and a missed a 29-yarder in overtime. The Giants beat the Titans because of a Randy Bullock miss at the buzzer. The Colts tied the Texans and later cut Rodrigo Blankenship after he shanked a game-winner.
The Saints and Browns hit their winning kicks from long range to beat the Falcons and Panthers, respectively. Denver missed its 64-yarder on Monday Night Football. Special teams are surely important and do matter — Football Outsiders weights them as one-eighth or 12.5% of a team’s rating.
But this column every week will look beyond the plays you remember that decide games. It will try to ignore the tons of noise that makes headlines and focus on the signal to try to gauge what we learned in the past week of the league and then apply it to games going forward.