NFL Week 3 – Winners and Losers.

Wow. Another week in the books of an NFL season that I feel like is going by at light speed. Another week of disappointment for some and joy for many others. Another week of “why the heck did I keep that guy on the bench of my fantasy team”. (I started Matthew Stafford over Brock Purdy and ended up losing my match-up by 5 points. Not the most enjoyable week for me.) More importantly, week 3 created more highs and lows for individual players, as well as units on teams.

DISCLAIMER: I can sit here and put the Bears and Zach Wilson, on this list every week all year, but that would be boring, repetitive, and meaningless. Let’s get it over with. Until proven otherwise, the Bears are a disaster of a franchise. From their offense, defense, coaching, front office, and ownership, it’s just plain bad. Zach Wilson? He is also a very bad NFL quarterback and frankly shouldn’t start a single game going forward. There aren’t enough words in the dictionary to say the same thing about Wilson and the Bears recycled with different words, every single week. Alright. That’s done.

Losers

Sean Payton

Sean Payton could’ve stayed retired. He could’ve appeared on Fox once a week and sipped margaritas on a beach for the rest of his life. Heck, he could’ve waited until Brandon Staley inevitably gets fired and gotten to coach Justin Herbert. Instead, he convinced himself that he could fix Russell Wilson and came out of retirement. On Sunday, his Broncos lost 70-20, which is worse than any game the Broncos played under Nathaniel Hackett. Sean Payton is a great coach. But his reputation has taken a hit, and he better turn that ship around, and quick.

Primetime Viewers

Primetime games. The crown jewels of NFL Week. Or are they? All 4 primetime games this past week were either snoozefest or blowouts. The 49ers blew out the short-handed Giants on Thursday night. The Raiders and the Steelers put on a clinic on how NOT to play offense on Sunday night. The Eagles dominated trenches against Tampa Bay, and though the score may have been close, the game didn’t really feel close for most of the night. The night’s Super Bowl rematch, between the Bengals and the Rams, looked like 2 teams duking it out for a higher draft pick. This comes after lackluster games last week as well. The NFL’s primetime match-ups need to up their game, and fast.

…The Jaguars…?

Last week, the Jaguars played and lost to the Chiefs. Their offense looked bad for most of that game. But it was one game against the defending champions…right? This Sunday at home against the Texans, it happened again. Trevor Lawrence has been very inconsistent in his young career so far, and if the Jaguars want to be firm Super Bowl contenders, he and his receivers, especially new addition Calvin Ridley, need to get on the same page. Losing to the Texans at home in that fashion? Not good.

The Tennessee Titans Offense

Yeesh. If we thought the primetime offenses were bad… the Titans may take that to another level. Watching the Titans’ offense is an experience. Essentially, they face the same conundrum the Raiders do. The teams they face are stacking the box to stop Derrick Henry and daring Ryan Tannehill to throw and win games with his arm. Henry struggled, with 11 carries for just 20 yards, which resulted in Tannehill only completing 13 of his 25 pass attempts for 104 yards. Opponents will continue doing this until Tannehll can prove that he has the ability to win games for the Titans using his arm.

Jimmy Garoppolo

Just like Tennessee, the Raiders’ offense has a superstar running back who is unable to get going so far this season because of his lackluster quarterback. So far this season, Josh Jacobs has 45 carries for 108 yards, which is 2.4 yards per carry. Jimmy Garoppolo was brought in to play clean and efficient football off the back of a top running game, something Derek Carr couldn’t do so well. So far this season, Garoppolo’s inability to push the ball down the field has prompted defenses to clog the middle of the field and sell out to stop the run. It’s worked. Garoppolo has already thrown 6 interceptions in 3 games. Something needs to change quickly, or else Aidan O’Connell will be playing in games much earlier than he or anyone expected.

Winners

Joshua Dobbs

The Cardinals came into the season with no expectations. Jonathan Gannon was the laughing stock of head coaching hires in the off-season and a trade for Joshua Dobbs in August was primarily met with silence. Now, through 3 games, Dobbs is one of 3 QBs in the league, along with Houston’s C.J. Stroud and San Francisco’s Brock Purdy, without an interception. If he keeps this up, he has a chance of being one of those quarterbacks who are in the league forever and be a trusted veteran backup quarterback for the rest of his career.

C.J. Stroud and DeMeco Ryans.

If you didn’t know who C.J. Stroud was and turned on a Texans game, you would think that he was a 5-year veteran quarterback. That’s who C.J. Stroud is. If you were to dig a bit deeper, such as watching J.T. O’Sullivan’s Detailed Breakdown, you would see that Stroud is way beyond his years. He sees so much on the field and is able to avoid the traditional rookie mistakes. He throws with anticipation and has the pocket mechanics of a veteran. If he keeps this trajectory, Stroud will be a star in this league and will be Houston’s franchise QB.

A common narrative among football fans is that defensive head coaches aren’t the best at developing young quarterbacks, even though the greatest quarterback of all time was developed under one of the greatest defensive coaches of all time. DeMeco Ryans has done a marvelous job in Houston by remaking their complete culture and creating an identity. He arrived in his very first season and immediately got the quarterback position right, which is the most important thing for any first-year head coach. The Ryans-Stroud duo may go on to do great things.

The Entire. And I mean THE ENTIRE. Miami Dolphins Offense.

70 points. 7-0. SEVENTY. I don’t think anyone thought that we would see 2 teams from Colorado with influential first-year coaches get blown out by 35+ points on back-to-back days. But somehow, the NFL team was blown out by MORE points and got MORE points dropped on them. Insane performance from Miami. Tua Tagoviloa, Tyreek Hill, Raheem Mostert, De’Von Archane, even ROBBIE CHOSEN, and MIKE WHITE all scored. If you played against any pairing of Tua, Tyreek, Mostert, or Archane in fantasy, it probably didn’t end well. Good lord. Mike McDaniel has proved himself to be one of the best and most innovative minds to ever coach. If he and his team keep this up, the Dolphins could find themselves in Vegas in February.

The Kyle Shanahan Coaching Tree and System.

4 former Kyle Shanahan assistants are head coaches right now. DeMeco Ryans, Mike McDaniel, Robert Saleh, and Matt LaFleur. Ryans and Saleh were both defensive coordinators for Shanahan in San Francisco, McDaniel was an offensive coordinator for Shanahan in San Francisco, and LaFleur was the quarterbacks coach while Shanahan was the offensive coordinator for Atlanta. Saleh is the only one out of these 4 that doesn’t have an exciting young quarterback.

Ryans and LaFleur are all in the process of developing young and exciting quarterbacks. Quarterbacks who have looked like stars at many points. McDaniel has developed Tua Tagoviloa, who was broken and full of questions before his arrival, into an MVP candidate under him. The Kyle Shanahan coaching tree seems to be very good at finding and developing quarterbacks, and Week 3 was the best indication of that. The Texans scored 34 points with C.J. Stroud looking like a franchise quarterback. The Dolphins scored 70 points and Tua Tagoviloa has looked like the MVP frontrunner. The Packers completed a 17-point comeback in the 2nd half and Jordan Love has made plays that can only be described as Aaron Rodgers’ esque. What a coaching tree.

Robert Saleh and Zach Wilson might end up dragging this whole group down, however.