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Week 1 of the 2016 NFL season brought out a lot of interesting (initial) truths.

Cam Newton is just as good as he was last year, and the NFL still can’t figure out how to officiate helmet-to-helmet contact. More pressing for Newton and his Carolina Panthers was the fact they still couldn’t solve the Denver Broncos defense, and that gave the Super Bowl champs a 1-0 mark to start the new season.

Both the Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks learned that offensive line concerns can quickly break up a dominant offense. While the Seahawks barely beat the Miami Dolphins at home, Russell Wilson’s health may be a constant source of concern this season. And Bruce Arians is still trying to figure out what went wrong against the New England Patriots. The Pittsburgh Steelers, another perennial Super Bowl contender, had no such worries, working over the Washington Redskins on Monday night with a balanced offense and a defense that showed improvement.

First-time starting quarterbacks learned what their predecessors already knew—that a signal-caller's job is a lot easier if he has a great running game and a dynamic defense. Denver’s Trevor Siemian and the Philadelphia Eagles' Carson Wentz both did, but the Dallas Cowboys' Dak Prescott had to transcend his surroundings to a point—the New York Giants’ redefined front four rocked the league’s best offensive line and held rookie Ezekiel Elliott in check, and the Cowboys walked away with a loss to Big Blue—though the Cowboys clearly have faith in the rookie signal-caller.

And from the sublime to the ridiculous…how about that Los Angeles Rams offense? Yeesh. You’re supposed to move the ball forward, not sideways, guys.

There are many ways to dissect and learn from what the NFL presents on the field every week, and Bleacher Report’s NFL1000 player rating system goes as deep as any to tell you just what’s going on out there.

With a 16-person crew of experienced evaluators, we'll comb through the game tape each week to bring you concise, clear evaluations of every player in the NFL. We'll tell you which rookies are rising and which undrafted players are coming out of nowhere to make an impact. We'll tell you which players are rising and falling in performance and why.

There is no predetermined narrative with these grades. No mysterious "clutch factor." No tweaked-out quarterback ratings that defy explanation. Our grades are based on pure scouting, and lots of it. We grade the key criteria for each position based on a series of attributes and add in a score for positional importance.

In the case of a tie, our scouts ask "Which player would I want on my team?" and adjust accordingly.

Is it a subjective process? Of course—that's what scouting is and, as we like to say, ties are no fun.

Each player is evaluated and graded by our crack team of scouts, who possess more than 100 combined years of experience in playing, front-office work, coaching and media. Cian Fahey, John Middlekauff, Alex Kirby, Mark Schofield, Duke Manyweather, Ethan Young, Joe Goodberry, Charles McDonald, Zach Kruse, Derrik Klassen, Jerod Brown, Ian Wharton, Kyle Posey, Mark Bullock, Chuck Zodda and Doug Farrar have watched tape for months to bring you these grades, and we'll be bringing you player grades based on the game action every week.

Here are the NFL1000 player grades for Week 1 of the 2016 NFL season.