A Snapshot of the NFL Through Week Three

The first three weeks of the NFL season have been pretty typical, and by typical, I mean totally wild and unexpected. The first week was highlighted by new faces on new teams, young superstars, upsets, and disappointments. The season started off with a surprisingly lopsided game on Thursday night between the Bills and the Rams, where the Bills came out on top 31-10. The Bills looked great in that game and others with a 41-7 victory over the Titans and a close loss to the Dolphins, who have been looking pretty good themselves in these first three weeks. On the other hand, the Rams got off to a slow start but seemed to have things back on track with week two and three wins over the Falcons and the division rival Cardinals. Even still, the Rams do not look like last year's Super Bowl Champion Rams at all.

On Sunday, Lamar Jackson torched the Jets, who were hard to evaluate fully without Zach Wilson, who is recovering from injury.

Meanwhile, the Falcons blew a 16-point lead to the Saints, who honestly didn’t deserve to win, but luckily for the Who Dat Nation, the Falcons choked again. Michael Thomas appeared to be back in full force for the Saints but has not done much since then.

Despite the Falcon's terrible showing in week one, nobody seemed to try harder to lose than the Pittsburgh Steelers, who sucked just a little more than the Bengals this week. Both teams missed game-winning kicks in overtime and played awful defense, but it was one of the most entertaining games of the week. The Steelers looked good, but they looked good against a Bengals team that looked like they were playing a preseason game. Let’s hope Joe Burrow and company can shake off the rust going forward, but they have since lost to the Cowboys (without Dak Prescott) and beat a Jets team who is still without their young star Zach Wilson at QB. I would be remiss not to mention the tragic injury of TJ Watt, who will hopefully recover in 4-6 weeks.

The Bears looked pretty good in their opening matchup against Trey Lance and the 49ers, but the weather was awful. Unfortunately, it was a bad game for Trey Lance and the only full game he will play all season after suffering a season-ending leg injury in week 2.

In week one, the Eagles took on the Lions, who put on a great showing despite losing by a field goal. The Eagles remain red hot through three weeks with Jalen Hurts, Devonta Smith, and AJ Brown as the team’s new face. They had dominant performances against both the Vikings (24-7) and Commanders (24-8) after their 38-35 game with the Lions.

The Lions followed up that performance with a 9-point victory over the Washington Commanders and a close game with the Vikings (ironically the same teams the Eagles played), where the Lions ultimately lost by 4 points despite leading 14-0 in the second quarter. Although the record does not look great, their 2020 1st and 2nd round draft picks Jeff Okudah and D’Andre Swift seem to finally be stepping into their roles with the team, now in their 3rd seasons.

In other news, through three weeks, the Cardinals have struggled (now 1-2), the Raiders have struggled harder (0-3 but all close games), and many other teams have had both ups and downs like the Buccaneers, who started off strong but suffered a week three loss to the Packers who had the opposite trend, losing embarrassingly to the Vikings in week one but seemed to pull themselves together in weeks two and three against the Bears and the Bucs.

Lastly, some young stars took big steps. Jalen Hurts and Justin Herbert are starting to emerge as MVP favorites, and rookies like Chris Olave, Jalen Pitre, and too many others to name have put the league on notice. All in all, it is still very early in the season, and it’s too soon to say anything definite about the season or any of the teams, but it seems like we are sure to be in store for an exciting season.