NFL Week 1 Defined by a Wild 42 Minutes

Steelers kicker Chris Boswell explains the difference between a ‘good ball’ and an ‘edged ball’ and how he finally took down the AFC champion Bengals.

Clark Harris is 38, one of the oldest players in the NFL and shares the distinction, with punter Kevin Huber, of being the longest-tenured Bengals player. He’s been to the playoffs with both Andy Dalton and Joe Burrow. He’s played in a Pro Bowl.

And until yesterday, you’d almost certainly never heard of him.

But Sunday, he became a pivotal figure in a Week 1 game that could have pretty serious implications all the way down the road when the playoffs start in February.

Harris suffered a biceps injury on a 50-yard Huber punt in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s Steelers-Bengals showdown in Cincinnati, one that was quickly found to be serious enough to knock him out of the game and send the Bengals, like any other team would be in that spot, scrambling. Cincinnati has a second long-snapper on its practice squad, but no one dresses two snappers for games; another position player has to be ready in a pinch.

In the Bengals’ case, that someone was backup tight end Mitch Wilcox, another anonymous sort who’d watch his fame swell Sunday in a way he’d never want it to.

This is how Week 1’s most entertaining game evolved, and you could say devolved, into its strangest game. And from the other sideline, Steelers kicker Chris Boswell had taken note of what was going on as he worked through his own situation, and prepared for his shot to take advantage of how that strange situation left the door ajar for him and the Steelers to go win the game.

“We saw [Harris] holding his bicep; I think he attempted a tackle,” Boswell said from the team plane early Sunday night. “We figured it was something he did to his shoulder, maybe because he went in for a tackle and got caught the wrong way. We pray for a speedy recovery for him and hope that it’s not too serious. We didn’t realize the severity of it until they went out there for that PAT.”

That PAT came when all hell was breaking loose across the NFL—with frantic finish after frantic finish unfolding across the league—and after Burrow had somehow, impossibly, come back from five turnovers to find Ja’Marr Chase for a six-yard touchdown to tie the score at 20–20. Normally, that kick is a formality for a team in a situation like that. But in this one, Harris was out, Wilcox was in, and few in Paycor Stadium had even an inkling of it.

They’d know soon enough.

And Boswell would have not one, but two chances to win an important early game—delivering on the last one for his Steelers.

We’re back! The season’s here, and it’s early in the morning as I work through our newly formatted MMQB. It’s gonna be a work in progress the next few weeks, but I promise we’re going to do all we can to give you the best product on the internet on Monday mornings.

The biggest difference? For you, it’s going to be separate posts on all of the big stories from Sunday. And we’ll link those here, every week, with our lead item.

So in this week’s MMQB coverage, you’ll find …

• A look at the Saints’ come-from-behind effort through the eyes of their coach.

• The shot Carson Wentz has in front of him with the Commanders and Saquon Barkley’s return to the Giants in my Ten Takeaways.

• Chargers avenge last loss of 2021.

• Our weekly NFL-centric look at the college weekend.

But we’re starting with a recap of how a wild 42 minutes defined Week 1 and welcomed the NFL back into our lives.

It’s hard to remember now, but there was a point Sunday when it looked like the early window was gonna be a dud—the margins in most of the games were double digits, and you were relying on Jameis Winston, Baker Mayfield, Davis Mills and Jared Goff, among others to give us something exciting. And then they basically all did.

Here’s what happened …

4:05 p.m.: Wil Lutz drills a 51-yard field goal to give the Saints their first lead since the first quarter—with New Orleans having fallen behind—at one point by 16.

4:07 p.m.: Evan McPherson, with his new snapper in, has his PAT blocked with four seconds left in regulation. Bengals-Steelers is going to overtime.

4:08 p.m.: Panthers kicker Eddy Piñeiro, signed Aug. 31, hits a 34-yard field goal to put Carolina up 24–23 after Baker Mayfield led his new team from its own 20 into field-goal range, and its first lead of the game.

4:10 p.m: Wentz hits Jahan Dotson down the sideline for a 24-yard touchdown to push the Commanders ahead 28–22 over the Jaguars.

4:11 p.m.: Falcons kicker Younghoe Koo’s 63-yard try to beat the Saints is blocked by Payton Turner at the buzzer after an unnecessary roughness flag on Marshon Lattimore put the Falcons on the fringe of field-goal range. The Saints are 1–0.

4:14 p.m.: Browns rookie Cade York drills a 58-yard field goal to beat the Panthers—with a questionable roughing-the-passer flag on Brian Burns helping to move the Browns into range to do it.

4:17 p.m.: DJ Chark hauls in a 22-yard touchdown pass down the right sideline to pull the Lions to within 38–35 of the Eagles at Ford Field.

4:19 p.m.: Commanders safety Darrick Forrest picks off Trevor Lawrence with 1:19 left. Washington is headed to 1–0.

4:20 p.m.: Eagles QB Jalen Hurts burrows forward for a yard to convert fourth-and-1, and end the Lions’ comeback bid.

4:22 p.m.: Matt Ryan hits Mo Alie-Cox over the middle for 13 yards to put the Colts into field-goal range at the Houston 24 in overtime.

4:23 p.m.: McPherson misses a 29-yard field goal to beat the Steelers thanks to, yup, a high snap.

4:25 p.m.: Colts kicker Rodrigo Blankenship misses a 42-yard field goal wide right, and overtime continues in Houston.

4:27 p.m.: A call ruling a spectacular one-handed catch by Steelers receiver Diontae Johnson incomplete is overturned, and the Steelers advance 25 yards to their 45.

4:31 p.m.: The call sparks a drive that sets Boswell up for a 55-yard game-winner, which he doinks off the left upright.

4:34 p.m.: The Texans elect to punt from the Colts’ 49 with 26 seconds left, pinning Indy at its own 6. The game will end in a tie.

4:39 p.m.: The officials correct a spot after Burrow is strip-sacked—which moves Cincinnati out of field goal range and forces a punt from the 50.

4:45 p.m.: Boswell nails a 53-yard field goal to (finally) beat the Bengals and close the early window of games.

Got all that? It was pretty bananas. And nothing more so than how that last game ended.

A lot of the above kickers have a process during warmups to figure out what range they’d be good from in a certain game. It can differ based on the stadium, the weather, the wind patterns or even just the day.

The 31-year-old Boswell, now in his eighth season as a Steeler, swears he doesn’t go through any of that.

“I don’t really have that sort of process,” he said. “If I’m hitting a good ball, I’m hitting a good ball, and it doesn’t really matter how far they call a field goal from. I’m still going to hit the same ball no matter what. So even pregame, I don’t go too far back. I’m more worried about consistency and hitting a good rhythm ball and just watching it fly rather than just going out there and trying to big-ball every single time.

“That’s when you create bad habits in my mind, and I’ve just kind of stuck with that over the years.”

So when I asked Boswell where his limit was for Sunday’s game in Cincinnati, he had no answer for me. He trusts Mike Tomlin in those spots to know what is and isn’t workable.

“That’s probably just Tomlin, just based on a situation, based on some area or if we need to pin ’em deep, a long one,” he continued. “I’m sure his process is a lot different, obviously more difficult than mine. If he calls field goal, I go kick. That’s about all there is.”

And, really, as he saw it, on Sunday, he had no reason for any concern.

“I’ve been hitting a good ball for a while through camp and everything,” Boswell said. “I’m hitting a very consistent, smooth ball.”

Or he was until he wasn’t. We’ll get to that.

First, the rest of the Bengals’ story.

And poor Wilcox. His end-of-regulation snap on the PAT after Chase’s touchdown came in slow, and bought time for Minkah Fitzpatrick to come screaming through the line to block McPherson’s kick and force overtime at 20–20. Then, on the Bengals’ first possession of overtime, Burrow drove the offense from the Cincinnati 25 to the Pittsburgh 11. On third down, McPherson lined up for a 29-yard game-winning field goal—only the snap came in high, the laces came out pointed at the kicker, and the kick missed badly to the left.

At that point, Boswell had hit field goals of 20 and 48 yards, and a couple of extra points in regulation. And in overtime, the Steelers’ stagnant offense got some juice with the aforementioned circus catch by Johnson—the one the officials reviewed as an incompletion and overturned. That put Boswell in line to kick a 55-yarder, and he trotted out onto the field with little doubt.

Only this time he didn’t hit it quite right, kicking what he calls an “edged ball” that wobbles, rather than going straight and end over end. And the ball slammed off the left upright.

A teammate then came over and told Boswell they’d get him another shot and they did. After the official respotted the Burrow fumble, forcing a punt, Mitchell Trubisky made scramble-drill throws across his body for 10 and 26 yards to tight end Pat Freiermuth to set up Boswell inside the final 10 seconds of overtime for a 53-yard game-winner.

This time, his kick was true.

“I just hit it a little bit better,” he said. “I smoked that first one, but it was an uglier ball. It was in for a little bit, but then it just curled at the last second and hit the left post. I just kind of put another boot on the second one, and it went in.”

And the Steelers are 1–0.

This, of course, wasn’t a perfect afternoon for Pittsburgh. T.J. Watt has what is believed to be a torn pec and his season hangs in the balance. Trubisky and the offense were scattershot. The Steelers had shot after shot to put the Bengals away, and it took them a full overtime period to get there.

But the Bengals’ bad luck served as their good luck.

And as for the significance of winning in the home of the defending AFC champions? Boswell toes the company line on that one.

“Our job is to go out and win every game, no matter who we’re playing,” he said. “And Coach Tomlin says it every week—nameless, gray faces. We don’t need to beat ourselves. We need to do what we do and see what happens at the end of the game.”

It took a while, but it worked out this time around.

More NFL Coverage:

• NFL Week 1 Takeaways: Commanders Pass a Test; Be Happy for Saquon Barkley
• No Sean Payton, but Saints Find a Way to Win
• NFL Week 1 Best Performances: MMQB Awards Game Balls
• Mike McCarthy Needs to Find Answers Fast
• Revenge? The Weirdness of the Browns Getting on Baker Mayfield
• The Giants Show Signs of Finally Being Ready to Turn a Corner
• Alabama’s Will Anderson Showed Why He’s the Top Non-Quarterback Prospect