Fair warning: Be careful of drawing conclusions from Week 1 action

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After an exhaustive sampling of data that stretched throughout one week of the NFL's regular season -- and that was even before the Monday night games were completed -- the pronouncements came fast and furious from the punditry class:

--With New England now Tom Brady-less for the season, and the Colts, Chargers and Jaguars all losing their openers, the balance of power within the league may have shifted from the once-dominant AFC to the plucky and improved NFC.

--With Drew Brees, Donovan McNabb, Tony Romo, Jake Delhomme and Eli Manning all off to strong starts, while Peyton Manning, Brady, David Garrard, Carson Palmer and Derek Anderson were all either hurt or struggling, the NFC now has most of the elite quarterbacks in the game.

--Oh, and the Jets' Brett Favre experiment is an unqualified success, just as is the Aaron Rodgers era in Green Bay, the Matt Ryan pick in Atlanta, and the Joe Flacco gamble in Baltimore. Big thumbs up all the way around on the new passer front.

--And lastly, but most obviously, the Browns are frauds, the Bears are back and the Seahawks and Jaguars are doomed because their respective injury situations at receiver and offensive line will cripple their chances.

Don't you just love wide, sweeping characterizations based on Week 1 results? I heard all of that and then some Sunday night and Monday, and in a few cases even joined in the chorus of instant analysis. But all we've got at this point are first impressions, nothing more. Some will bear out as accurate harbingers of the season ahead, and some won't. But every year we seem to forget the lesson of not reading too much into the NFL's opening week, and plunge in, opinions-first, once again.

If you recall, last year after Week 1 we were certain Eli Manning and the Giants could never really stay on the field with the high-flying Cowboys, the Chargers were headed for trouble with this Norv Turner debacle, the Lions looked legit at last, and the bedraggled Browns were going nowhere, no matter who played quarterback -- Charlie Frye or his backup, Derek Anderson.

Hey, look, some Week 1 observations/truths we hold to be self-evident: The Rams, Bengals, Raiders, Lions and 49ers all still stink. The Falcons, Dolphins, Jets and Eagles all have put improved, more confident teams on the field in 2008 than they did last year. It doesn't take seeing into the future to discern that.

As for the rest of it, the early read likely won't end up being the right read. Finding out is the fun of it. We know that, but we choose to forget it. Every year about now.

• I get it that it's Bill Belichick's job to convince his Patriots the loss of no one player ends a team's season, and if everybody just does their job everything will work out just fine. But c'mon. This is Tom Brady's left knee that will require season-ending surgery, not Jabar Gaffney's.

Belichick could have at least dropped the stoic act for a moment in Monday afternoon's press conference and admitted his team faces its greatest challenge of his nine-year tenure in New England, if for no other reason than it's a great way to rally the troops for the task ahead.

No one expected him to stand up there and weep for No. 12, or bemoan the 2008 Patriots' fate. You take the good with the bad in the NFL, and Lord knows New England has had its share of the good the past seven years.

But do you think anyone in the Patriots locker room doesn't realize what it will mean to be Brady-less for the first time ever? Do you think the players buy into Belichick's stiff upper lip to the degree that they don't roll their eyes when hearing him offer up only the barest acknowledgement that New England just lost the most difference-making player in the league?

Belichick's motto remains the same, no matter the situation: Give 'em nothing. And when they ask again, give 'em a little more nothing. But this time, even by his business-as-usual standards, it was over the top.