Rookie quarterbacks shine in debuts; potential Brady fallout

Joe Flacco led the Ravens to three scoring drives and a 17-10 victory in his debut. AP

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- Musings, observations and the occasional insight as we were witnessing the winning, but at times sloppy beginning of the Jets' Brett Favre era.

• It's not supposed to work this way, folks. It's not supposed to look so easy. When you consider what rookie quarterbacks Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco accomplished Sunday in their NFL debuts, remember this:

Prior to this year, there were 21 quarterbacks drafted in the first round this decade. Of those, exactly one -- Houston's David Carr in 2002 -- started and won his team's season opener as a rookie. For Carr, it was all downhill after that memorable opening-night defeat of visiting Dallas, in both the first game in Texans expansion history, and first game in Houston's spanking new Reliant Stadium.

But that list of rookie Game 1 winners got tripled in size Sunday, thanks to Ryan and Flacco, who respectively led the downtrodden Falcons and Ravens to comfortable upset wins at home against teams (Detroit and Cincinnati) that were expected to rough up and maybe even expose the youngsters.

Guess not.

The Falcons rolled to a 34-21 win over the Lions thanks to a 318-yard rushing performance that was led by Michael Turner's eye-popping, team-record 220-yard showing in his debut as a No. 1 back. But don't overlook the job that Ryan did in going 9-of-13 for 161 yards, with no interceptions, one sack, one touchdown and a cool 137.0 passer rating.

On his first pass attempt as a pro, the ex-Boston College star connected on a 62-yard touchdown pass to receiver Michael Jenkins, getting the Falcons off to a flying start on the third play of their opening drive. It made him the first quarterback to throw a touchdown on his first NFL passing attempt since New England's Michael Bishop turned the same trick against Indianapolis in October 2000.

Flacco wasn't quite as spectacular as Ryan, but his handprints were nonetheless all over Baltimore's 17-10 defeat of Cincinnati, giving rookie Ravens head coach John Harbaugh his first career victory. Getting better as the game wore on, Flacco finished 15-of-29 for a modest 129 yards, but he led Baltimore on three scoring drives, didn't take a sack, didn't throw an interception and, surprises of all surprises, used his feet to score the eventual game-winner. That came on his 38-yard scramble with just seconds remaining in the third quarter, a touchdown that gave Baltimore a 17-3 lead it would never lose.

It's only Week 1, and the overwhelming recent history of the league says that starting rookie quarterbacks leads to lots of losing and, at times, ghastly performances. But for a pair of teams that combined to go 9-23 last year, finishing last in their divisions and losing their head coaches in the process, there's now some fresh hope in Atlanta and Baltimore.

Ryan was the third overall pick by the Falcons, and Flacco went 18th to the Ravens. But what really mattered on Sunday were the decisions that Atlanta and Baltimore made to start them both in their first NFL games ever. Turns out, those were the best choices of all.

• Harbaugh, of course, wasn't the only rookie head coach to get a W in his first game. Like Flacco, Ryan helped his first-time head coach start off on a winning note, with Atlanta's Mike Smith improving to 1-0 in the defeat of Detroit. Congrats to both Harbaugh and Smith, who are two of the more refreshing first-time head coaches to hit the league in quite some time.

The NFL's other two rookie head coaches didn't fare as well. Washington's Jim Zorn dropped to 0-1 when his Redskins got dominated by the Giants on Thursday night, and Miami's Tony Sparano fell just short at home against the Jets on Sunday. Zorn was the only one of the league's four rookie head coaches who had to start his career on the road.