Xavier Worthy, Joe Alt, Byron Murphy II, Jared Verse among Rookies of the Week for Week 1

It probably surprised a lot of people when Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels was named the Pepsi Zero Sugar Rookie of the Week for Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season after a performance against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a 37-20 loss.

Not to malign Daniels, but he completed 17 of 24 passes for 184 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 93.1. Yes, Daniels did run the ball 16 times for 88 yards and two touchdowns, but about half those runs were scrambles in which Daniels had open receivers, and didn't pull the trigger before bailing the pocket.

It wasn't a horrible performance by any means, but there's a more than credible argument for several NFL rookies who made their NFL debuts this week to be given that title based on their own deeds as opposed to what Daniels may have done.

So, here are our most impressive rookies from Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season.

_{Xavier Worthy, WR, Kansas City Chiefs}

Who was the NFL's least efficient deep passer in the 2023 season?

Patrick Lavon Mahomes II, believe it or not.

Actually, if you watched the Chiefs in 2023, it was easy to believe. Mahomes was frequently betrayed by his receivers on any deep ball, and that played out in the metrics. Mahomes completed 24 of 76 passes of 20 or more air yards for 817 yards, two touchdowns, six interceptions, and a passer rating of 49.1 — by far the worst deep passer rating for any quarterback taking at least 50% of his team's snaps.

To put that into perspective, Bryce Young of the Carolina Panthers had the NFL's second-worst deep passer rating... at 60.9.

General manager Brett Veach and head coach Andy Reid were sick and tired of watching a passing game that should have been locked in a shed, especially led as it was by the league's best player. So, they traded up to the 28th overall pick with the Buffalo Bills (the same team that allowed a trade-up in 2017 that gave the Chiefs that Mahomes guy) for Texas receiver Xavier Worthy, the man who set the scouting combine record with a 4.21 40-yard dash.

Worthy had two catches on three targets and one rushing attempt in his NFL debut, a season-opening 27-20 win over the Baltimore Ravens, but he made the most of them with two touchdowns.

Worthy's 35-yard touchdown catch with 10:33 left in the game showed exactly how he can weaponize Reid's most creative schematic constructs in ways that no Chiefs receiver could have imagined in 2023.

On the play, the Ravens gave the Chiefs a single-high man coverage look pre-snap, and the idea appeared to be to flip one of the safeties to two-high after Mahomes had the ball in his hands. Eddie Jackson was the deep safety, and he rolled to a two-high look as one would expect. Baltimore was in big nickel — three safeties, two cornerbacks, and two linebackers — and safeties Marcus Williams and Kyle Hamilton were at linebacker depth at first. Williams dropped to a hook/curl alignment to the backside seam, and Hamilton stuck underneath with linebacker Trenton Simpson also covering JuJu Smith-Schuster's five-yard stop route.

Smith-Schuster's motion across and Pacheco's swing route outside the numbers messed up the communication. Simpson took Smith-Schuster at the snap, and Hamilton was supposed to drop, but he fixated on the Smith-Schuster/Pacheco combo instead.

Basically, the Chiefs created a 4-on-3 advantage in a 3-on-3 personnel situation with both horizontal and vertical space. Which they did a lot last season. The difference now is that they have the right receiver to take advantage of all that eye candy.

And on his 21-yard touchdown run with 5:55 left in the first quarter, Worthy simply sped by Baltimore's defense with a group of teammates more than happy to clear the way... all the way.

_{Joe Alt, OT, Los Angeles Chargers}

Las Vegas Raiders hyperactive pass-rusher Maxx Crosby had 94 total pressures and 15 sacks in 2023, and he looked like he would be even more fierce now that his team had acquired former Miami Dolphins defensive tackle Christian Wilkins in free agency. Crosby did have a sack and four total pressures in his 2024 debut, a 22-10 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, but when he faced Joe Alt, the offensive tackle selected fifth overall, Crosby got nothing, and he didn't like it.

In 29 pass-blocking reps, Alt didn't just shut Crosby out from the edge — he also had several credible snaps in which he had to deal with Wilkins right over his head or to his inside shoulder as a 4-tech or 4i pass-rusher. Overall, Alt gave up no pressures of any kind, and this was against a Raiders front that was throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the Chargers' front five, including 24 blitzes, nine five-man pressures, and six snaps with some kind of stunt.

It's one game into the Jim Harbaugh era, but as it stands right now, the Chargers have one of the best tackle duos with Alt and left tackle Rashawn Slater. Add in that Alt never played a single snap at right tackle in his 2,178 snaps at Notre Dame (all of those snaps were on the left side), and this was an absolutely marvelous performance.

_{Taliese Fuaga, OT, New Orleans Saints}

The Saints came into the 2024 season with all kinds of offensive tackle issues. Right tackle Ryan Ramczyk, one of the NFL's best at his position when healthy, will miss the entire 2024 season with a knee injury. Ramczyk was replaced on the right side by third-year man Trevor Penning, who looked completely overwhelmed on the left side this preseason.

Who was going to protect Derek Carr's blindside against the Carolina Panthers in the season opener? That would be 14th overall pick Taliese Fuaga from Oregon State, who never played a single snap at that position over his three seasons with the Beavers — 1,564 total snaps, all at right tackle.

Like every other offensive lineman on this list, Fuaga had absolutely no issue at all playing a position he hadn't before, and this was especially true when it was time to turn on the power. Yes, the Panthers might be the NFL's worst team, but nobody who knows ball underestimates tackles Derrick Brown (who sadly was lost for the rest of the season with a knee injury in this game) and A'Shawn Robinson. These are big dudes who know how to move people, and Fuaga gave as good — or better — than he got.

Fuaga allowed no quarterback pressures of any kind on 28 pass-blocking reps, and he was a tone-setter on most of his 38 run-blocking chances.

_{Dominick Puni, OG, San Francisco 49ers}

Last season, the San Francisco 49ers made it all the way to overtime of the Super Bowl despite a right side of their offensive line that impressed very few people. Right tackle Colton McKivitz is still Kyle Shanahan's right tackle, and that continues to be Kyle Shanahan's problem.

But with the 87th overall pick in the third round of the draft, the 49ers took Kansas offensive lineman Dominick Puni, and put him at right guard despite the fact that Puni had never played that position in college — he was mostly a left guard and left tackle in two seasons with the Jayhawks.

Regardless, Puni looked like a seasoned veteran in his first game with his NFL team, a 32-19 Monday night win over the New York Jets. With backup running back Jordan Mason rushing 28 times for 147 yards and a touchdown in relief of the injured Christian McCaffrey, Puni had all kinds of opportunities to show off his agility, placement, and power in the run game, specifically when the 49ers spammed the unprepared Jets defense with all kinds of outside zone concepts.

As a pass protector, Puni allowed no sacks, no quarterback hits, and one quarterback hurry on 36 passing snaps.

_{Jared Verse, Edge, Los Angeles Rams}

The Rams had to deal with the loss via retirement of Aaron Donald, the best defensive player of his era, this past offseason. But general manager Les Snead and his crew were ready as they could be for such a foreboding thing for their defense. They had selected defensive tackles Byron Young and Kobie Turner in the 2023 draft, and both players performed very well in their rookie seasons. Turner in particular played at a Defensive Rookie of the Year clip, and he got my vote.

And in the 2024 draft, Snead went back to the well with the selections of Florida State edge-rusher Jared Verse with the 19th overall pick, and Verse's college teammate Braden Fiske 20 picks later. Verse and Fiske were already expert at running pressure games together from their Seminoles days, but in the Rams' 26-20 Week 1 overtime loss to the Detroit Lions, it was Verse who won the day. He led all rookie defenders with six total pressures, including a sack.

Verse lined up on the defensive right side on all 44 of his snaps, and that put him in the sights of left tackle Taylor Decker, left guard Graham Glasgow, and (occasionally) tight end Sam LaPorta. None of those three guys appreciated how rudely the rookie treated them.

_{T’Vondre Sweat, NT, Tennessee Titans}

The Titans selected T'Vondre Sweat, the Texas alum, with the 38th overall pick int the second round, because they wanted Sweat's "Planet Theory" combination of measurables and disruptive ability. There are a few football players who make no sense from a physical perspective, because they should not move as quickly as Sweat does at an informal 6-foot-4 and 362 pounds.

In Tennessee's 24-17 season-opening loss to the Chicago Bears, Sweat didn't blow anybody away with his raw metrics — he totaled just two quarterback hurries, and no official tackles. As is the case with a lot of big men who play inside the defensive line, you have to watch the tape to see Sweat's effect on the opposing offense, and that was certainly the case against Chicago. Sweat was a game-wrecker far beyond the numbers, and while he's nowhere near New York Giants nose tackle Dexter Lawrence's ability to just blow up an entire offensive line, you could see in his first NFL game that Sweat has the attributes to enter Mr. Lawrence's neighborhood someday.

_{Byron Murphy II, DL, Seattle Seahawks}

We already knew that former Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald was one of the game's finest minds on that side of the ball before he accepted the Seahawks' offer to become their head coach this past offseason. Replacing Pete Carroll as a defensive-minded head coach isn't easy, but just as Macdonald had t he NFL's No. 1 defense per DVOA in Baltimore last season, he now has the No. 1 defense per DVOA in the Emerald City.

There are all kinds of reasons for Seattle's immediate defensive turnaround, and Texas defensive lineman Byron Murphy II, selected by Seattle with the 16th overall pick, was a big part of it all. Like T'Vondre Sweat, Murphy's college teammate with the Longhorns, Murphy's performance went far beyond a stat sheet that credited him with just two quarterback hurries and one tackle. The tape showed that Murphy was constantly disruptive, using strength, leverage, and elevated technique for a first-year player to beat up on the Denver Broncos in Seattle's 26-20 win.

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