Thursday was great, Sunday was a thrill a minute and Monday ... well, Monday also had games. The NFL is back, and all you want to do is dig into this big, steaming buffet of Week 1 goodness and scoop out the stuff you like.But a weeks worth of evidence isnt all that much when it comes to this NFL stuff, it really isnt. Overreactions may be fun, but its important to think about whats real and whats not -- whats likely to stick and whats likely to fade.With that in mind, heres a look at a few things we think we learned in Week 1, and a few things we dont think will turn out to be worth all that much attention.Wait, arent you?Carson Wentz?Is this it, Philly? Is this finally the guy? Is it finally time to make room next to the Rocky statue for one of a real-life sports hero who inspired your city and lifted it to championship greatness? Wentz looks smooth and poised and made some sweet touchdown throws in his debut, and if the goal was to make the fans forget their team just traded its starting quarterback a week before the season, mission accomplished. This was real success in a real game, and its always easier to build on success than failure.But Id hold off on commissioning that statue for at least a week or so. Just three years ago, Eagles fans would have sworn on a stack of wiz-wit bibles that Nick Foles was the long-term answer. You need to see a kid do this a lot more than once before you can really buy in. Hes not scared, and he has the arm and the touch. He holds the ball a little bit too long, as a lot of rookie quarterbacks do, and how he overcomes that will matter. The NFL people to whom I talked Monday said Wentz looked the part and better than many of them thought he was, but most also pointed out that he beat clearly the worst team in the league. Lets press pause here and see how he looks against one of the top 30. Speaking of which ...Oof, the BrownsThis is going to get worse before it gets better. You roll into Week 1 with 18 guys whove never played an NFL game and expect that not to show up. This is a team built on draft picks it hasnt yet made. Think last year felt long in Cleveland? This year could make 2015 feel like a week and half. And no, the loss of Robert Griffin III doesnt have to make anything worse. It was obvious Sunday that nothing had changed with that guy -- the Browns couldnt protect him, he couldnt protect himself and their best hope was that he could take the lumps until they drafted their quarterback of the future. Josh McCown is a better quarterback right now than Griffin is, but dont let that fool you into thinking this team is a real threat. They play in the toughest division in the league and could legitimately lose every single one of their games.Adrian Peterson?will be just fineFantasy players are losing their minds over Petersons 31 yards on 19 carries. I get it. Im a fantasy player. Losing our minds is our default state. But theres nothing to worry about with Peterson. Buy if you can. Minnesota had the ball for less than half of the game and ran fewer offensive plays than did the Tennessee team it beat by nine points. Thats in part because Peterson faced a stacked box all night and in part because the Vikings defense scored two touchdowns. The Vikings expect to have Sam Bradford at quarterback starting in Week 2, and his ability to deliver on downfield play-action throws will open things up for Peterson in the coming weeks.So will Ezekiel ElliottThe years most-touted rookie averaged 2.5 yards per carry in his debut. Alfred Morris averaged 5.0 in the same game. Panic time! Cowboys blew the pick! Right? Of course not. First of all, Morris had seven carries to Elliotts 20, so ... sample size. And second of all, the Giants paid Damon Harrison $9.25 million a year in free agency so that no one could run on them on first or second downs. Harrison doesnt play for Washington. Elliott could get going in Week 2, and certainly will get going sooner rather than later. Dallas bigger problem is that it?wont do anything on offense unless Dak Prescott, the fourth-round rookie at QB, gets something going downfield in the passing game.Are the Giants back?Speaking of that game, it did see the New York Football Giants win a season opener for the first time in six years. This is a team that hasnt finished .500 since 2012, so all of the preseason excitement about New York as a bounce-back team seemed to ignore just how far it?had to bounce. But the NFC East once again looks as if it can be won?by basically showing up. The Giants lost five games last season?in the final two minutes because they couldnt rush the passer in the fourth quarter or pick up first downs in the run game when they had the lead. They did both of those things, on the road against a division rival, Sunday. If they want to feel good about their chances, they should go ahead. The last time the Giants were 1-0, you had Hey, Soul Sister stuck in your head. Thats right. Youre welcome.Is Russell Wilson in trouble?Look, its always possible that Dange-Russ has a line on some kind of bizarre new energy drink that can heal an ankle sprain. But that sure did look ugly -- whether youre talking about Wilson post-injury or the Seattle offense pre-injury. The Seahawks pass protection is an annual issue that Wilson always seems to overcome, and theres no reason to think he cant do it again this year. But man, it sure would be nice if, one of these years, he didnt have to.Arizonas defense has a big holeTheres no bigger Cardinals backer than me. I have them to beat the Bengals in the Super Bowl. I think theyre loaded -- deep in the defensive front, at wide receiver and at many other positions. Brilliantly coached. But their second cornerback is the weak spot on Smaugs underbelly. Right now theyre going with third-round pick Brandon Williams, who was a running back at Texas A&M a year and a half ago. Williams is learning the position, and until he does, more seasoned quarterbacks than Jimmy Garoppolo will be super-excited to avoid Patrick Peterson and take aim at Williams?side.Tone down the Jameis Winston MVP talkUntil we see how he does against a real pass rush. Winston is for real, theres no doubt, and Tampa has every reason to think its got its quarterback of the future. But not every team the Bucs?play is going to make him quite as comfortable as the Falcons did.Sometimes, the obvious is obvious for a reasonThe Patriots won in Arizona without Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Nate Solder, Sebastian Vollmer and Dion Lewis. The Steelers won in Washington without LeVeon Bell, Martavis Bryant, Heath Miller, Markus Wheaton and Ladarius Green. Theres a reason so many people overlooked the absences and picked these teams to represent the AFC in this years Super Bowl. Coaching and depth make you scary even when your best guys are gone. Much respect to both of these perennial powers, even if yours truly did pick the Bengals to win the AFC. Hey, nothing ventured and all that. Cheap Nike Air Max 90 China . Q: Team Canada announces their Olympic roster three weeks from today. Who is general manager Steve Yzerman watching? LeBrun: Over the last 48 hours, hes taken in the home-and-home between the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche with Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene being the obvious targets. Cheap Nike Air Max 90 Wholesale . Detroit and Boston are deadlocked, 1-1, and Tigers manager Jim Leyland could be forgiven if he was caught rationalizing instead of dissecting how his club could blow a 5-1 lead late in Game 2. http://www.nikeairmax90cheap.com/ . This should be celebrated because it will not always be this way. With the amount of money given to players by their clubs these days, it is a wonder that so many of those teams allow the sport to continue to take away many of their assets so they can play for a different team in the middle of their season. Nike Air Max 90 Cheap .J. Ellis hit two-run homers and the NL West champion Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the San Diego Padres 4-0 Saturday night. Cheap Nike Air Max 90 Online . Mitch Holmberg added a goal and three assists. Connor Chartier also scored for the Chiefs (3-0-0). Luke Harrison spoiled Garrett Hughsons shutout bid with a power-play goal at 13:17 of the third period. The Spokane goaltender finished with 28 saves, including a Brandon Fushimi penalty shot in the second period that would have tied the game 1-1. Jennifer Azzi couldnt eat. The 1996 Atlanta Games were about to open for the U.S. womens basketball team, and food was the last thing on her mind as she sat next to Lisa Leslie for breakfast in the Olympic Village.I just had this nervous excitement, and then I look over, and Lisa couldnt eat either, Azzi said. We were all just so over-the-top excited.U.S. national team director Carol Callans memory drifts to a different point that day, when the teams bus pulled into the parking lot of the Georgia Dome.It was a school-girl level of excitement, Callan recalled. People were screaming on the bus. Theyd been playing and training together for a year, and it was time to see the end result.As the U.S. womens team prepares to begin its quest for a sixth consecutive gold medal in womens basketball in Rio, the groundwork laid by the groundbreaking team of 1996 has never been more evident.That team readjusted the balance of power in the world, USA Basketball coach Geno Auriemma said. Starting 20 years ago to today, theres never been a more dominant team in the Olympics in any sport than the U.S. womens national team.The 1996 Olympic womens basketball team accomplished things that had never been done by preparing in a way that had never been done. For the first time in program history, the womens USA Basketball team trained and played together for nearly a year in preparation for the Olympics. In the end, that group made more than history, going 60-0 (52-0 in pre-Olympic competition and 8-0 in the Games) and capturing one of the most visible gold medals in an Olympics that was a marking point because of the overwhelming success of female athletes.The 1996 team created stars in players such as Leslie and Sheryl Swoopes, set a new bar for the level of play in womens basketball, and launched two professional leagues, including the WNBA, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this season.Callan calls the creation of the 1996 team, and in a way, all that came after, a perfect storm.The womens college game was growing in popularity, as Connecticut won its first national championship in 1995 and had a burgeoning rivalry with Tennessee. The NBA was exploring a business model for professional womens basketball in the United States and was willing to put some money behind the USA womens team as a marketing project.The U.S. team was coming off a pair of disappointing performances, finishing with bronze at the 1992 Barcelona Games and at the 1994 world championship.We knew we had to make some changes, Callan said. We created a program that allowed the team to train together over a sustained period, like the rest of the world does.USA Basketball convinced Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer to leave her program for a year to coach the team. It assembled a roster mixed with veteran players such as Teresa Edwards, who had been playing for years in anonymity overseas, and young guns such as Leslie and Dawn Staley, who were best known for their NCAA résumés and were about to break through on a different level.USA Basketball scheduled a years worth of exhibitions, a 22-game college tour that introduced the team to the country, and a full slate of international games to prepare the U.S. womens basketball team for international competition. A handful of those games were on national television.The college tour began in Atlanta, with VanDerveer taking the players to the Georgia Dome and asking them to visualize their place on the medal stand.In between games and trips, there were autograph sessions, photo shoots and media interviews. There was no social media. The players were tightly bonded and exceedingly focused.It was almost like we were still girls waiting to become grown women, Edwards said. We grew up really fast, and the grown-up part of us allowed us to be great basketball players.But the kid part of us really enjoyed each others company. We laughed so much. We messed up each others hair and fixed it back. We paid for each others dinners. Wed send room service to the wrong rooms. We had fun. But when it was time to play, we killed each other. We brought the best out of each other.Azzi remembers a day when the U.S. women practiced at Georgetown while legendary coach John Thompson stood on the sideline and watched. Thompson came into the huddle at the end of practice to address the team.You are making people respect you, he told them, and the compliment stuck with Azzi and her teammates.We showed peoplee a different level of basketball, Azzi said.dddddddddddd. No one had seen professional womens basketball in the States. We would go into college arenas, and teams thought they were going to be able to beat us. We were beating national championship teams by a significant margin. It was the first time for people to see the game played by women at that level.Once-in-a-lifetime opportunityThe legacy of the 1996 team goes beyond the history that was written, the ripples of that seminal experience casting off in all directions. They established professional basketball in the United States, cementing a place for pro womens team sports in the landscape. To the players on that team who eventually would go on to coaching careers, such as Staley (South Carolina), Azzi (San Francisco), Swoopes (formerly of Loyola) and Katy Steding (Boston University). To the influence over the U.S. teams current batch of stalwarts such as Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird and Tamika Catchings. To the other side of the country to the coach who cemented her own Hall of Fame legacy without taking home a medal.Coaches dont receive medals in the Olympics, so while the players stood on the platform after beating Brazil in the final in front of nearly 33,000 fans that last day, VanDerveer stood just off to the side. She didnt need a medal to realize shed created a gold standard.VanDerveer was demanding, unrelenting. She had the most talented roster in the history of the game, and she wanted those players to give her everything, from the first game to the last. After all, she was giving significantly as well.VanDerveer had resigned from her head-coaching job at Stanford, taking the year away to not only lead the U.S. women back to the gold-medal stand, but to prime the country for professional womens basketball and to alter the culture of the womens national team program.It was a really difficult decision, said VanDerveer, who turned her program over to longtime assistant coach Amy Tucker and brought old friend Marianne Stanley in as co-head coach for one season. You put so much into your own program. The hardest part of it was having to resign for that year. But I recognized it as an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.People told VanDerveer she was never going to be able to go back to the college game after her experience coaching the best team in the world. Her name came up as a coaching candidate for the WNBA and the American Basketball League, which was going to have a team in San Jose and feature Azzi as its founding player. But VanDerveer never wavered about her commitment to return to Stanford.I was excited about going back, she said. I had learned things from the Olympic experience that I wanted to take back to my team.Twenty years later, VanDerveer is a member of the Naismith Hall of Fame and is on the cusp of reaching 1,000 career wins as a college coach. Many players on that 1996 team regard her as the best coach they ever played for.Ruthie Bolton knew that playing the Olympics on home soil had the potential to make or break womens basketball in the United States.There was so much at stake, Bolton said. We didnt want another feeling of sadness, agony and defeat. We made sure that didnt happen. Tara was preparing us to have a state of mind that was above and beyond. It was like going overboard a little, but we didnt want to leave any questions of whether we were ready.Azzi said that experience challenged everybody to the core.At one point, everybody had a meltdown, she said. But we were all in it together, in a very professional way. It was a sisterhood with a level of trust and respect that I had never experienced before.The legacy of the 1996 womens basketball team is one that changed the landscape of the sport, setting a tone for everything that came after.Players like Lisa and Dawn and Sheryl taught Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird what it mean to be on the national team, Callan said, and those players have taught the next generation.Seimone Augustus, who helped the United States win gold medals in 2008 and 12 and is in Rio for her third Olympics, had a poster in her room as a kid of the 1996 team.My dream, my goal, was to be like those strong women I saw in that poster, Augustus said. To be able to be a part of that legacy and tradition thats so rich in success and winning means a lot. 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