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The NFL just doesn’t disappoint. It’s impossible to sit on your couch all day on Sunday watching NFL Redzone and come away disappointed from the day—unless your team absolutely stinks. Sadly, looking at you, Eagles fans. Sunday was much of the same with a number of close games in the first window, a few great finishes in the afternoon slot, and then an awesome game between the Packers and Saints to finish things off on Sunday night. Even better, we get to watch Patrick Mahomes take on Lamar Jackson on Monday Night Football for a perfect cap to Week 3. MVP vs. MVP in a battle of probably the two best teams in football. It really doesn't get much better than that.
In this crazy Week 3 it felt easier to find losers than it was to find winners, but we found plenty of both. Here they are:
NFL Week 3 Winners
Buffalo Bills
The Bills were awfully close to finding themselves in the losers section of this list. They were up on the Rams huge early on (you’ll read about that below), blew the lead, and then found a way to come back and steal the win over LA. Josh Allen has his warts as a QB, but he deserves a ton of credit for leading a 15-play, 75-yard game-winning drive that ended with a touchdown with 15 seconds left. Sure, maybe he got some help by the officials to get it done, but he got it done nonetheless. Allen has some head-scratching moments without a doubt, but this year he’s produced and the Bills are 3-0. And if Russell Wilson didn't exist, we'd probably be talking about Allen as a early favorite for MVP right now.
San Francisco 49ers
Yes, the Giants stink. Let’s get that out of the way to start. But the 49ers were missing what felt like half of their roster and still found a way to absolutely destroy the Giants. Jimmy Garoppolo missed the game with an ankle sprain, Raheem Mostert was out with a knee injury, Nick Bosa and Solomon Thomas are both out for the year with torn ACLs, and a handful of other guys were out on Sunday, but the Niners went out and not only won a game they should have, but it was never in doubt, either. The only questions that comes out of Sunday is whether or not there’s going to be some regret in paying Jimmy G all that cash when Nick Mullens looked like the same guy.
Nick Foles
When Nick Foles signed a huge deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars last offseason, he certainly couldn’t have imagined that he would be starting for the Chicago Bears before October of 2020, but that’s where we’re at. The Bears pulled Mitch Trubisky in favor of Foles and it worked out perfectly for them. Foles came in to a 26-10 deficit but found a way to bring the Bears all the way back for a 30-26 win thanks in part to three touchdown passes. Hard to think the job won’t be his moving forward.
Cleveland Browns
Maybe the Browns don’t quite belong in here, but it’s the first time that they’ve been above .500 since December of 2014. They had played 84 games between being above .500 which has to be some sort of record for futility. It might only be 2-1, but the Browns actually won a game they were supposed to win, which hasn’t happened in forever, either. Things get real for them next week in Dallas against the Cowboys, but for now, the Browns are above .500 and have a reason to feel good about themselves.
Russell Wilson
Russell Wilson just keeps making highlight after highlight. Patrick Mahomes seems to hold the title of the best quarterback in the world right now, and we’re not necessarily here to disagree with it. What Wilson has done so far this season is firmly place himself in that conversation. On Sunday in a big win over Dallas he threw five more touchdowns, including the go-ahead score with just over a minute left to DK Metcalf—which helped to make up for a blunder Metcalf had in the first half, getting stripped near the end zone on what should have been an easy touchdown. So far this season Wilson has 14 touchdowns and just one interception. It’s really early, but there’s no doubt that he’s leading the MVP conversation right now.
Green Bay Packers
Last year the Packers finished at 13-3 and found their way into the NFC Championship Game. Even then, the whole year it felt like the Packers were sort of fluky, a team that wasn’t as good as their record would otherwise indicate. That may have been true then, but now it feels like Green Bay has a rejuvenated Aaron Rodgers and a squad very capable of winning it all this year. Rodgers put on a show in New Orleans against the Saints. He does the little things better than anyone in the game, and looks like he’s going to be fighting with Wilson for the NFL MVP.
NFL Week 3 Losers
Los Angeles Rams
The Rams found themselves down 28-3 in Buffalo against the Bills. For a team that’s looked like one of the best in the NFL, LA got off to a terrible start. They did, however, work all the way back to take a 32-28 lead. Josh Allen led the Bills down the field for the game-winning drive culminating on a Tyler Kroft touchdown catch with 15 seconds left in the game. One of the reasons that Kroft’s grab was able to happen was a questionable defensive pass interference on Darious Williams after an incomplete pass on fourth down to keep the game alive. One play later, the Bills took the win. That’s a real rough way to lose a game on the road.
Dwayne Haskins
It’s hard right now to be a believer in Dwayne Haskins. There was the comeback win in Week 1 against the Eagles, but Philadelphia looks worse and worse every week. Last week Haskins had a rough week in a loss to the Cardinals, and this week he turned the ball over four times against a Browns defense that has looked nothing short of bad for the first couple of weeks of the season. Haskins is only in his second season, but with a healthy Alex Smith behind him, it’s fair to wonder just how long his leash is.
Mitch Trubisky
Well, it looks like the Mitchell Trubisky era is over in Chicago. After three seasons and nearly three games of mediocre play, the Bears have finally made the switch away from the former No. 2 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft and put Nick Foles on the field. Maybe at some point he finds his way back onto the field, but it certainly feels like anyone that still held out hope Trubisky would ever be a franchise quarterback had to finally let go of those dreams on Sunday.
Dan Quinn and the Falcons
Nobody in football knows how to blow a lead like Dan Quinn and the Falcons do. Nobody. Atlanta had a huge lead last week in Dallas only to blow it in excruciating fashion, and it had a big lead again today only to blow it in excruciating fashion – only this time it was to a backup quarterback. It’s hard to imagine Quinn not being the first head coach relieved of his duties. If you’re a bettor, those odds might be worth jumping on sooner than later.
Drew Brees and Sean Payton
It’s really hard to do this, and the numbers that Drew Brees put up on Sunday don’t back this up all the way—thanks to some incredible work after the catch by Alvin Kamara and some poor tackling by the Packers—but Brees doesn’t look the same anymore. Anytime the ball traveled more than 10 yards down the field out of Brees’ hand it felt like a cause for celebration, because it just didn’t happen that often. When the Saints wanted to take a shot deep, they ran a play for Taysom Hill to be the gunslinger. The Saints are 1-2, and if Brees’ arm is as bad as it looked in the eye test on Sunday night—and the first two weeks of the season—it’s going to be pretty tough for them to make a run. And as for Payton, the game against Green Bay really turned on a botched read option with Hill in the game and Brees on the sideline. The whole situation just feels like it’s being managed really poorly.
Football in New York, again
We had this listed last week as a loser, and it’s awfully hard not to have it again this week. The Jets and the Giants might be the two worst teams in football and there’s not one bit of hyperbole there. Sam Darnold makes nice plays once or twice a game, but he looks like a bust, Daniel Jones is even worse with 36 turnovers through 16 games in the NFL, and neither organization has any sort of clue how to get better. The Jets are the only team in the league that hasn’t been leading for a single second during any game this season. It honestly seems like the race to draft Trevor Lawrence might be between the two teams in NYC.
Doug Pederson and the Eagles
Ties are the worst in the NFL and anyone that disagrees is just flat out wrong. The game between Cincinnati and Philadelphia took almost four hours today for no one to win. The Eagles had a chance to win the game in overtime but had a false start penalty on what would have been a 59-yard field goal attempt prompted the Eagles to punt, with 19 seconds left in a tie game. They punted to try and preserve a tie, which is embarrassing and there’s no other way to look at it. As a side note to this game, if the Bengals don’t get some help on their offensive line in a hurry, Joe Burrow’s health is in danger. Burrow was sacked eight times on the day, and has to feel like he was hit by a Mack truck on the days after games right now.