Two games are already in the books and the league still hasn't reached its first full Sunday. That's the shape of Week 1 in 2026: the schedule stretches, the news doesn't wait, and two NFC teams are already reshuffling before kickoff.
New Orleans put Audric Estime on injured reserve, and he'll miss multiple weeks. The timing is the cruel part. The Saints made this move ahead of Sunday's opener against the Lions, which means the backfield they spent the summer assembling is not the one that takes the field. Estime was going to be part of the plan, and now the carries behind him get redistributed on short notice. I'd expect New Orleans to lean harder on whoever's left and let the passing game carry more early-down weight while it sorts itself out. What the Saints learn about their depth over the next month matters more than Estime's exact return date.
Philadelphia's version stings more because of the investment. The Eagles placed rookie tight end Eli Stowers, a second-round pick, on injured reserve, so he won't make his regular season debut against the Commanders on Sunday. Rookie tight ends need reps the way quarterbacks need them. The position is a maze of blocking assignments and option routes, and Stowers just lost the most valuable months of his development. Philadelphia drafted him to be a factor, not a redshirt. Now the Eagles open with a thinner tight end room and a rookie learning on the fly in October instead of September. That cost won't show up in a box score, but it's real.
Week 1 games are set for Sunday, September 13, 2026, with kickoff times, networks and streaming options locked in. Two games were completed as of September 11, and nothing was scheduled for Friday, September 11. A Friday without football during opening week used to be unthinkable; now the league spreads the product thin enough that a gap day barely registers. The byproduct is that Sunday gets the country's full attention, which is fine by me. Fewer islands, more shared chaos.
The weekend's loudest story, though, is Myles Garrett. Zero tackles. Zero sacks. In his Rams debut against the 49ers. Browns analysts spent the aftermath throwing shade at their former star, and Garrett's own comments and usage drew fresh scrutiny. One game is one game, and pass rushers live on small samples, but zero tackles is not a small-sample shrug for a defensive end the Rams brought in to wreck games.
Here's my read, and I'll own it: the scheme fit is the story, not a decline. Garrett is 28-ish years of muscle memory and first-step violence; he didn't forget how to rush the passer in one summer. If Los Angeles is asking him to occupy blockers and read instead of pin his ears back, the Rams wasted their money and his prime simultaneously. He's being used wrong, or he's thinking too much, and both are coaching problems. The noise around a quiet debut becomes a referendum by Week 4. Los Angeles needs to move him back to the edge and let him hunt before that clock runs out.
My verdict: the Rams' plan for Garrett is the problem, not Garrett, and I'd bet on him looking like himself again within a month. If he doesn't, the trade that brought him to Los Angeles becomes the season's defining mistake.
