Not that you can draw too much from the first game of the season, what with the shortened preseason, shortened training camps, less two-a-days, and the general idea that teams aren’t quite settled into the grind of the season and shaking out the kinks, but the 49ers sure looked like a well-oiled machine despite a few too many penalties. Pittsburgh is reliving the awful issues with their offense that they thought they fixed, and we handled their defense, despite a good game from TJ Watt, handily.

My usual prediction of Seattle crashing to Earth was flipped this offseason as I thought they drafted extremely well, and were poised to be at least a WC contender. But the Hawks could not have looked worse losing to the lowly Rams in a game that wasn’t as close as the 30-13 score indicated. At home no less.

Same with Cincinnati. They came out flat as a pancake against their Ohio brethren Browns and lost 24-3. Joe Burrow is coming off a calf injury and the offense looked awful and out of sync. KC lost to Deetroit, the Jolly Rodgers-less Jets beat the Bills, who suffered through 4 turnovers by Josh Allen, the perennial close-but-not-quite Chargers lost yet another heartbreaker 36-34 to Miami, and Dallas shut down the hapless Giants 40-0.

Of all these weird games, I have to say Seattle and Cincinnati looked the crappiest. At least of the teams that were supposed to be good.

Is Dallas for real? The early hype machine says yes. Reality? Who knows? Jerry’s Jerks get the Jets, coming off their emotional win over the Bills, so they look to fall back to Earth so Dallas will be the gigantic story of the NFL if they go 2-0.

The Niners will be just the usual methodical team who should dismantle the Rams and quietly go about our bidness.

Is Cincinnati toast? They get a tough home matchup with the Ravens. 0-2 is likely. Is Seattle finally getting their reckoning? They have a roadie in Deetroit, they themselves coming off an emotional win over the Puer Bowl champs. Could be. They also could fall 0-2 early on. KC looked sloppy and unconnected without Travis Kelce, and his status for Sunday’s game vs the Jags remains in limbo, but they did sign Chris Brown to a one-year deal, so there’s that, but KC on the road becomes a big early game.