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Viva Murillo!

Nobody wants to see their receiver put up 25 yards on two catches, and a quarterback who starts the season with 127 yards and no scores is equally disappointing. Throw in running backs who can't muster even 50 yards rushing and receiving, and it's a terrible start to the season.

But that's just what owners of Lee Evans and Carson Palmer got in week 1 -- last year. Evans only had two receptions (for fewer yards) the following week as well. But he finished the year with more than 80 catches and nearly 1300 yards, so patience was definitely rewarded with him. Palmer would throw six scores in his next two games on his way to 4,000-yard season with 28 touchdown passes.

It's nice to remember happy endings like that when you're faced with poor performances to open the season. Deion Branch was on the field Sunday, but you wouldn't know it by looking at the stats. Drew Brees is still waiting to throw his first regular-season touchdown pass in 2007 and Steven Jackson has more fumbles than catches right now. But none of that really reflects what those players can do, or how they'll perform over the course of the season. This isn't the time to read too much (or anything, really) into the numbers. There just aren't enough of them to discern anything meaningful.

Am I telling you anything ground-breaking? Of course not; you know all of that already. So why bother repeating it? Well, when you're sifting through the wreckage of a difficult week 1, sometimes it helps to be reminded that it's just one week, and history shows that many players went on to realize their potential after difficult starts (Evans comes to mind again, with his five yards on Sunday). While you might not consider dumping any of these guys just yet, your opinion of them could change -- let's say it could go from a green light to a yellow light, for example.

And that alone could be dangerous. While you're not throwing in the towel yet, it means you're one step on the path to doing so. You're one step closer to making a mistake that could derail your season. You might pull the trigger one week earlier than you would have normally, and that could cost you everything. If you bailed on Chad Johnson early last November-- because he was putting up good, not great, numbers-- you missed a three-game span where he tallied 573 yards and five touchdowns. Being impatient is the easiest way to undo all the work you did in the off-season.

So I'm not just advising you to stick with your players (you would have done that, anyway) but I encourage you to not even let a seed of doubt creep in yet. Don't give any weight at all to week 1. If you do, you're already leaning in a direction that might be wrong for you. If you're going to get nervous, do it next week. You might find there was nothing to worry about, after all.

Or maybe there will be. You know those backs who didn't total 50 yards rushing or receiving I mentioned earlier? Those were Joseph Addai…and Carnell Williams. Sometimes a bad performance is just an anomaly, or sometimes it's a harbinger of a lackluster season. There will be plenty of time to evaluate your mistakes and try to correct them, but week 1 is not that time.

If you have week 1 disappointments in your starting lineup, feel free to mention them below. You can also reach Michael Murillo at vivamurillo@gmail.com.

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