ICYMI: The Best Stories You Didn’t Read from NFL Week 1

The Anonymous Alumnus

If you Google "Northern Iowa," the sidebar presents you with the University of Northern Iowa's most illustrious alumni: Kurt Warner, of course; Robert James Waller, the author of "The Bridges of Madison County"; Michelle Manhart, an Air Force Staff Sergeant who was demoted after posing for Playboy; Chuck Grassley, the senior U.S. Senator from Iowa; and David Johnson.

Who's David Johnson?

Just a 6'1", 225-pound rookie tailback for the Arizona Cardinals who put up top performances in nearly every drill at the combine. Just a third-round pick at a feature position, on a Super Bowl-contending team with a now-injured starter. The fantasy-industrial complex should be freaking out about Johnson, but most football fans don't even know he exists.

In Week 1, the Cardinals were locked in a back-and-forth battle with the visiting New Orleans Saints. After starter Andre Ellington went down with a knee injury, phenom-turned-journeyman Chris Johnson took over the carries, plowing into the Saints defense 10 times but reaping only 37 yards.

Just inside the two-minute warning, the Cardinals held a shaky 24-19 lead, and hoped to drive for a game-sealing score. Out comes the rookie, lined up next to Carson Palmer on their own 45-yard line in a two-tight end, two-receiver shotgun set. According to Pro Football Focus, this is only the fifth offensive snap of Johnson's career.

Receiver John Brown goes in motion from the right side of the formation towards the left; as he approaches the line, Palmer calls for the snap. Brown swerves toward Palmer as if to take a handoff, but Palmer pulls the ball back and sets up to pass. With the Saints pass rush already closing in, Palmer lofts a short pass off his back foot. It's a screen pass back the other way—a screen to Johnson.

Johnson, his back to the end zone, scoops up the pass and spins upfield. In an instant he's got the corner, rounding up the sideline and blowing past four Saints in four strides. He's all alone. He's still accelerating. The Saints abandon pursuit. Johnson shatters the plane of the end zone and University of Phoenix Stadium explodes with cheers.

The rookie's stat line for the day: One reception for 55 yards and a touchdown, and one kickoff return for 43 yards. Kurt Warner's spot in the UNI alumni pecking order is secure for now—but the Bridges of Madison County guy must be sweating.

The Bust Goes On

The Detroit Lions had been searching for a complement to Calvin Johnson ever since they drafted Megatron in 2007. Yet in last year's draft they passed on Odell Beckham, Jr., to select tight end Eric Ebron.

The Lions knew Ndamukong Suh and Nick Fairley, back-to-back first-round pick defensive tackles on the last years of their contracts, were likely to move on after 2014. Yet instead of taking Aaron Donald, they took Eric Ebron.

It was, at the time, understandable. Having signed Golden Tate, Ebron provided the Lions with a size/speed mismatch on the inside of the formation, the kind of Gronk-ian tight end Stafford's never worked with. But while Ebron occasionally flashed his athleticism in 2014, his shaky hands and raw route-running limited him to just 25 catches, 248 yards and a lone touchdown.

Meanwhile, Beckham and Donald were incandescent, superstars from the moment they set foot on the field. Already, Ebron's career seemed doomed to be defined by the players he wasn't.

Ebron and the Lions said all the usual things during his sophomore offseason—he's changing up his training, he's looking good in practice—but football analysts largely didn't buy it. Grantland's Jason Bailey wrote a feature debunking Ebron's potential 2015 breakout; the problems were mental, he argued, a lack of urgency, a lack of ferocity, an inability to apply his tools to the game. These problems are not often fixable.

Ebron didn't garner national headlines after the 2015 season opener.

The story of the game, rightly, was that the San Diego Chargers came back from a 21-3 deficit to win by five. If any football fans heard buzz about a Lions player, it was gosh-wow rookie sparkplug Ameer Abdullah, a preseason darling who took his first NFL carry 24 yards to the house (and on the way, broke All-Pro safety Eric Weddle's ankles in the open field).

But the player who led the Lions in receiving was Ebron, who put up four catches for 53 yards and an 18-yard touchdown. The scoring play was exactly as Lions general manager Martin Mayhew must have envisioned last spring: Ebron sprinting past a helpless linebacker, pulling away from a stranded safety and effortlessly hauling in a Matthew Stafford seam pass for a touchdown that would have been so from any spot on the field.

It's no surprise this score, buried in the early avalanche of ultimately irrelevant Detroit points, didn't garner headlines. But if Ebron's training, diet and preparation really have put him in a position to be the Jimmy Graham of offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi's imported New Orleans Saints offense, Ebron just might be the story of the Lions' season.

The Ghost in the (Art) Shell

He's 38 years old. He's a Super Bowl Champion, an NCAA National Champion, a Heisman Trophy winner. He's an eight-time Pro Bowler, three-time First Team All-Pro, former Defensive Player of the Year, former Defensive Rookie of the Year, the 2000s NFL All-Decade team.

In his 18th season, Charles Woodson has won every professional and amateur award and honor a cornerback could ever possibly win, and a few—like the Heisman—a cornerback really isn't supposed to.

His longevity is approaching mythic, Jerry Rice/Deion Sanders territory. He was most recently named First Team All-Pro in 2011, at age 35. The following season, the Green Bay Packers switched Woodson to safety—too old, the thinking went, getting too slow. He could easily have retired right then, and now be a mortal lock for 2017 induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Instead, on Sunday, Woodson led the Oakland Raiders back out onto the field for his 33rd consecutive start since rejoining them in 2013. Woodson isn't just out there marking time. Incredibly, his 81 tackles and four interceptions last year led the team in both categories, per Pro Football Reference.

That one of the NFL's brightest lights is now a diamond in the rough, accomplishing incredible things for a listless franchise that hasn't been competitive since he left them a decade ago, seems a sad story. Sadder yet, on Sunday Woodson suffered a dislocated shoulder in garbage time of yet another lost cause: a 33-13 loss where the Raiders didn't even score until the fourth quarter.

Adam Schefter, among others, reported Woodson would take an "extended absence," and Taylor Mays—already on his third roster this season—would start in his place. John Middlekauff of 95.7 The Game reported Woodson's having none of it: He was at practice Wednesday, and lobbying head coach Jack Del Rio to start.

Woodson plays the one position you can't see on TV for a backwater franchise with no hope of contention in the NFL's crappiest stadium in a market that doesn't care if they even stick around. He has no reason to rush back from injury except that he desperately wants to.

Woodson is the personification of everything that makes football special. He's a smart, brilliantly gifted, endlessly classy guy who long since reached every possible goal, realized every possible dream. He's lived everyone else's idea of the perfect football life—and now that that's over, he's playing the game completely free of expectation, only for himself and his team.

Too bad there's no award for that.