Ryan: ‘We’ll take a win any day’
Falcons turn back Bears; Steelers’ Bell looks rusty
CHICAGO — All Matt Ryan was trying to do was make something out of a broken play when he saw tight end Austin Hooper wide open near midfield.
He wound up throwing a huge touchdown pass to help Atlanta squeeze out a seasonopening victory.
Ryan connected with Hooper on an 88-yard TD and led two fourth-quarter scoring drives, and the NFC champion Atlanta Falcons held on to beat the Chicago Bears 23-17 on Sunday.
The butt of jokes following their epic Super Bowl collapse against New England, the Falcons survived as the Bears missed several chances to score a touchdown in the final seconds.
“Can we play better? Absolutely,” Ryan said. “Are we gonna try to work on that? For sure. But we’ll take a win any day.”
Hooper, a second-year player from Stanford, felt like he “lived a lifetime” as the ball approached him.
“I think I blacked out for a part of it. Then I caught it and I felt like it was almost auto-pilot.”
STEELERS: Le’Veon Bell ended his contract holdout and came back last week. He was mostly missing from the Steelers’ opener.
Bell looked rusty and hardly like one of the NFL’s best players on Sunday, gaining just 32 yards as Pittsburgh turned to its defense and a late Ben Roethlisberger-to-Antonio Brown connection to hold off the Browns 21-18.
“I don’t think I was on the field as much as usual,” Bell said, “so obviously it’s not going to be the same numbers, but we won the game and that’s the biggest thing about it.”
RAIDERS: Derek Carr showed the advantage of having a year of experience and a better supporting cast in a season opener pitting two of the NFL’s rising, young quarterbacks.
Carr threw for 262 yards and two touchdowns, and Oakland beat Tennessee 26-16 to give Carr his third straight win over Marcus Mariota and his Titans in as many years. “It was fun to be back out,” Carr said. Both Carr and Mariota broke their right leg hours apart on Christmas Eve for seasonending injuries. Carr finished his third season by tying Ezekiel Elliott of Dallas for third in voting for the AP MVP award after leading Oakland to a 12-4 season, while Mariota led the Titans to a 9-7 mark in just his second season.
Mariota looked healthy in running for a 10-yard TD and also threw for 256 yards.
49ERS: San Francisco rookie linebacker Reuben Foster left his NFL debut in the first quarter with a right leg injury.
Foster got hurt while making the tackle on a 4-yard run by Carolina’s Christian McCaffrey. Foster had three tackles and a pass breakup before the injury.
BILLS: Tyrod Taylor set Buffalo’s record for career yards rushing by a quarterback, surpassing Joe Ferguson.
Taylor’s 14-yard run midway through the third quarter against the New York Jets upped his total to 1,175 yards. That moved him one ahead of Ferguson.
Taylor set the record in just his 30th game for the Bills. Ferguson played 164 games for Buffalo in the 1970s.
EAGLES: Philadelphia’s 30-17 win at Washington on Sunday snapped a five-game skid against the Redskins dating to Sept. 9, 2014.