By Tim Graham, Ted Nguyen and Dan Pompei
Each Sunday, three of The Athletic’s NFL writers react to the biggest news, plays and performances from the day’s games.
If you like blocked field goals, you loved Week 3, when game after game was decided by special teams mayhem. The Green Bay Packers were set to go ahead of the Cleveland Browns, until their short field goal try late in the fourth quarter was blocked. Cleveland won. The Los Angeles Rams were set to go ahead of the Philadelphia Eagles, until their field goal attempt on the game’s final play was blocked. Philly won. The New York Jets blocked a fourth-quarter Tampa Bay Buccaneers kick and returned it for a go-ahead touchdown —but lost anyway.
All that wackiness overshadowed a day that was supposed to be ruled by backup quarterbacks, when second-stringers Carson Wentz (Vikings) and Marcus Mariota (Commanders) led their teams to offensive explosions.
NFL writers Tim Graham, Ted Nguyen and Dan Pompei share their thoughts on a Week 3 that did not go according to plan.
Uh, what happened to the Packers, who lost, 13-10, to the Browns? Did that talk about going undefeated go to their heads?
Nguyen: The Browns’ defense is a different animal when they play at home. When they have crowd noise and that pass rush, Jim Schwartz’s scheme is a lot for any offense to handle. Defensively, the Packers held up their end of the bargain. Jordan Love threw a terrible interception in the fourth quarter when Green Bay was up, 10-3, on which he got fooled by Browns safety Grant Delpit. The Packers still should have won the game but their late field goal attempt was blocked, which set up the Browns with good field position. The one weakness on the Packers’ defense is their corners. That showed up in the red zone on Sunday, when they were repeatedly flagged for penalties. The Packers will play better passing attacks than Cleveland’s, so this is an area worth watching for a team with Super Bowl aspirations.
Pompei: Whether in foresight or hindsight, the undefeated talk was a little crazy — especially coming from an offensive lineman. The Packers are a very solid team and they had a very bad Sunday. If you’ve been around a while, you’ve seen this kind of thing happen a time or two. It was a freakish loss for Green Bay. The Packers are very capable of burying this day and going on a run of victories. In fact, the loss might have been what they needed to sober up and get right for the remainder of their schedule.
Graham: It’s not so much that the Packers lost, but to whom and how. I don’t mean the kicker with a name that sounds like a mosquito flying past your ear — Cleveland’s Andre Szmyt — but the Browns in general. The Packers don’t deserve to be at the top of anyone’s power rankings after this. Love was pedestrian, although he was harassed all over the field. Green Bay assembled back-to-back drives of 13 and 12 plays in the second quarter but came away with three total points. The fourth quarter was slapdash at best and crashed late with that interception and blocked field goal. It was unacceptable for an alleged Super Bowl contender.
What did we learn about the Eagles in back-to-back wins over the Chiefs and Rams, with Sunday’s win over L.A. requiring a comeback from down 19 in the second half and then a blocked field goal on the final play?
Pompei: The Eagles are a gritty, resourceful team that knows how to win in different ways. It will be difficult for them to maintain this for 17 games — it would be difficult for any team — but there is much to admire about them in September. They have a deep roster with high-end talent in the right places, and quarterback Jalen Hurts is delivering when it’s most critical. And as much as the Eagles won this game, the Rams lost it. Could any team expect to win on the road against the defending Super Bowl champions with two field goal attempts blocked?
Graham: How in Hacksaw Reynolds’ name did the Rams lose this one? The short answer is the Eagles are the NFL’s best team and never stop. The Rams had them on their knees in the second half. Philly opened with a tush-push TD, then had four straight three-and-outs, finishing with negative yardage over those 12 plays, before opening the third quarter with a fumble. L.A. was up nearly three touchdowns in the Lincoln Financial Field viper pit! But the defending champs are extraordinary. They can turn dominant in all three phases just like that, and in about a quarter and a half won in such laughably outlandish fashion. Lenny Dykstra doesn’t get to call himself Nails anymore. These Eagles make him look like a rusty thumbtack.
Nguyen: The Eagles still have dangerous weapons on the outside, and when they need to wake up, they can flip the switch. The Rams’ secondary is also an Achilles’ heel. The Rams still had a chance to win, but they were part of the blocked kick epidemic. There’s a silver lining, though: They dominated the line of scrimmage for most of this game. That offense has so many ways to attack defenses, but unless the Rams’ pass rush is dominating, their secondary is going to be an issue against talented receivers. A.J. Brown and Devonta Smith combined for 14 catches, 169 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
In a battle of backup QBs, the Vikings bludgeoned the Bengals, 48-10. Did that outcome tell us more about Minnesota or Cincinnati?
Pompei: Everyone knew the Bengals were more quarterback-dependent than the Vikings, and it was reinforced in this game. In letting Sam Darnold walk, the Vikings’ play was that infrastructure could supersede the most important position on the field. Their moves said they believe player development, game planning, a running game, top end receivers and solid defense can give a quarterback a chance. J.J. McCarthy and Wentz gave the Vikings enough to win two of their first three games, and the Vikings are likely to contend all season no matter who their QB is. As for the Bengals, it’s going to be tough without Joe Burrow.
Graham: While the early games featured a mess of big defensive highlights, Isaiah Rodgers was otherworldly. The sixth-year cornerback had more defensive return yards in the first half than the Bengals’ entire offense generated through three quarters. Rodgers was a revelation, but he cannot be counted on as a gamechanger every week. Cincinnati’s systemic malfunction, however, proved its 2025 is probably unsalvageable. A bunch of Bengals refused to protect the ball. Top receiver Ja’Marr Chase, running backs Chase Brown and Samaje Perine and tight ends Noah Fant and Cam Grandy all fumbled. Quarterback Jake Browning was victimized by a couple bad bounces but got rag-dolled, as you would have expected behind that atrocious offensive line. We learned Bengals owner Mike Brown will never learn.
Nguyen: Browning is one of the better backup quarterbacks in the league, but playing against this Vikings defense is a monumental challenge. When you combine that with all the fumbling from the Bengals, you’re going to get a blowout. I don’t know if we learned a lot about these teams. Browning will have better days against defenses that aren’t as good as the Vikings’. Carson Wentz didn’t have to do much — he was 14 of 20 for 173 yards and two touchdowns — but it was a good sign that the Minnesota running game looked dominant with Jordan Mason.
Bigger missed opportunity: The Patriots turning it over five times and losing, 21-14, to the Steelers at home, or the Rams somehow not closing out that game against the Eagles?
Nguyen: The Rams losing that game will have bigger ramifications. They had a chance to start 3-0 and beat the defending champions at home. That game could impact the tiebreaker in a late-season playoff scenario. The Patriots are going to be a feisty team, but they aren’t expected to make a lot of noise.
Graham: A Rams victory would have been more compelling because they were on their way to embarrassing the defending champs in Philly, but the Patriots are desperate to change their identity and emerge from Bill Belichick’s shadow. New England lost in such an appalling way. Not only did it commit five turnovers, but two of them should have been touchdowns — a Drake Maye endzone interception and a Rhamondre Stevenson fumble on the goal line. Two other giveaways were on Pittsburgh’s side of the field. Maye was sacked five times and hit eight times, four by Nick Herbig, who came into the game with 15 career QB hits in 31 games. Mike Vrabel won’t transform the culture in New England like this.
Pompei: That would have been a massive victory for the Rams against the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last season. They could have remained undefeated going into a tough stretch of schedule (vs. Colts and 49ers, at Ravens), thinking they could beat any opponent. The Patriots are a rebuilding team without high expectations for 2025, but beating the Steelers would have given the team good feelings about the changes, and given a new coaching staff a little more locker room cred. But loosing hurts the Rams more than it will hurt the Patriots.
(Top photo: Maliek Collins Cleveland Browns celebrates after sacking Jordan Love. Photo: Jason Miller / Getty Images)