Ryan, Falcons manage to outlast Bears
CHICAGO — Matt Ryan threw an 88-yard touchdown to Austin Hooper and led two fourth-quarter scoring drives as the NFC champion Atlanta Falcons held on to beat the Chicago Bears 23-17.
The butt of jokes following their epic Super Bowl collapse against New England, the Falcons survived as the Bears had a first down at the Atlanta 5 in the closing minute. Mike Glennon’s pass to a lunging Josh Bellamy on first down hit off the receiver’s hands, and Jordan Howard then dropped a simple catch at the 1.
Coming off an MVP season, Ryan was 21 of 30 for 321 yards and a touchdown. Hooper had two catches for 128 yards.
Cam Newton threw a pair of touchdown passes following San Francisco turnovers and the Carolina defense shut down Kyle Shanahan’s offense in his coaching debut.
Leonard Fournette ran for 100 yards and a touchdown in his NFL debut, and Jacksonville had 10 sacks and forced four turnovers to help the Jaguars. The Texans hoped to provide a boost to the area ravaged by Hurricane Harvey with a win.
Derek Carr threw for 262 yards and two touchdowns, and Carr won his third straight against Marcus Mariota and the Titans in as many years. Amari Cooper caught a TD pass as the Raiders made the Titans pay for opening the season with an onside kick they couldn’t recover. Carson Wentz threw for 307 yards and two touchdowns as the secondyear quarterback guided the Eagles in a sloppy, mistake-filled season opener. Wentz was 26 of 39 and threw an interception that Ryan Kerrigan returned for a touchdown. But Wentz made fewer errors than Washington’s Kirk Cousins, who was picked off at the goal line and fumbled twice. Cousins’ second fumble was forced by Brandon Graham and returned 20 yards for a touchdown by Fletcher Cox in the final minutes, putting the game away.
Matthew Stafford threw two of his four touchdown passes to rookie Kenny Golladay in the fourth quarter. The Lions picked off three of Carson Palmer’s passes, returning one for a score. They also knocked David Johnson out of the game after forcing him to fumble in the third quarter Sunday.
Jason Witten scored the only touchdown while breaking the franchise record for yards receiving. Witten has 11,947 career receiving yards, breaking Michael Irvin’s mark of 11,904. Ezekiel Elliott had a rugged 104 yards rushing and another 36 receiving two days after a judge halted his six-game suspension over a domestic violence case, although last year’s NFL rushing leader had already been cleared to play the opener.