Six NFL teams emerged from Week 3 undefeated, the most 3-0 teams since 2020.
It’s a big number when considering how many preseason heavyweights missed the cut: Baltimore, Detroit, Kansas City and even Green Bay, which lost as an 8.5-point favorite at Cleveland.
The Pick Six column this week sizes up the remaining unbeatens, an eclectic mix featuring proven performers (Philadelphia, Buffalo), a franchise on the rise (Chargers), a solid playoff team (Tampa Bay), a would-be contender running on fumes (San Francisco) and a refreshing newcomer (Indianapolis). We’ll run through them in that order.
The full menu:
• Sizing up six 3-0 teams
• What to know about Vikings
• Bears channel 2007 Belichick
• Ignore coaches on Tom Brady
• Steelers defensive decline?
• Two-minute drill: QB injuries
1. It’s a fun mix of 3-0 teams this season. Here’s what is interesting about them.
Philadelphia Eagles
24-20 over Dallas
20-17 over Kansas City
33-26 over Los Angeles Rams
“I’m more afraid of the Rams than I am Philly,” an exec from another NFC team said. “I think Philly is suffering from a Super Bowl hangover, and I think there are ways to beat Jalen Hurts. They’ve got to be on it and run the ball perfectly.”
Do they?
Saquon Barkley’s 3.3-yard average per carry ranks 28th out of 32 running backs with at least 100 yards. No Eagles receiver ranks higher than 45th in yardage (A.J. Brown is on pace for 816 yards). Hurts ranks 21st in EPA per pass play. Philly ranks a just-OK 13th on offense and defense in EPA per play. Yet, here the Eagles are at 3-0.
If they hadn’t enjoyed so much recent success, we might hold these things against them. But unlike last season, when Philly started 2-2 before righting itself and winning the Super Bowl, the 2025 team is banking wins without playing its best ball. There’s an art to that, as Kansas City proved while going 11-0 in one-score games last season.
The Eagles’ defense is one of the NFL’s youngest in the past quarter-century. It held the Rams’ Matthew Stafford to two completions that gained 15-plus yards in 29 possible attempts. Only San Francisco has held the Rams to a lower rate of explosive pass gains in 40 games over the past three seasons.
In coming back from 26-7 to beat the Rams 33-26, the Eagles became only the fourth team since 2000 to win after trailing by 19 points in the first half of the third quarter. The 2016 Patriots did it in their famous comeback from a 28-3 deficit against the Falcons in the Super Bowl. Pretty good company.
Philly also became the first team since at least 2000 to block two field-goal tries in a fourth quarter when those kicks would have taken the lead or extended one.
Unsustainable stuff, but important for a good team with a chance to get better, health permitting (Lane Johnson’s stinger injury provided a big scare for a team that is highly leveraged).
Buffalo Bills
41-40 over Baltimore
30-10 over New York Jets
31-21 over Miami
Finding a way to beat the Ravens after trailing 40-25 in the final five minutes put even more distance between Buffalo and its mind-numbing, late-game meltdowns of yesteryear.
Otherwise, pretty much business as usual for Buffalo.
Having 10 days to prepare for New Orleans in Week 4 seems like overkill for the Bills after the Saints fell behind Seattle 38-3 in the first half of a 44-13 defeat Sunday. It also reflects one of the NFL’s easier remaining schedules (New England and Atlanta follow New Orleans, followed by a bye, which gives the Bills two weeks to prepare for … Carolina).
Los Angeles Chargers
27-21 over Kansas City
20-9 over Las Vegas
23-20 over Denver
The Chargers hired Jim Harbaugh to beat Andy Reid and Sean Payton. He’s beaten both already this season, plus Pete Carroll, the newest legendary coach hired in the AFC West. Controlling the season opener and beating the Chiefs in Brazil, when Kansas City was the team with the big-stage experience, sent a message.
So has the team’s approach with quarterback Justin Herbert, whose confidence appears to be growing.
The Chargers are coming out throwing (and throwing deep, at that) to a degree they did not last season, and to a degree their coordinator, Greg Roman, has never done in his previous stops. The results have been sensational, backed by a defense that ranks fifth in EPA per play.
Herbert, trying to shake his reputation for big-game failures, led two scoring drives in the final five minutes against Denver in Week 3, one for the tying touchdown and the other for the walk-off field goal.
Facing second-and-13 from the Denver 39-yard line with 43 seconds remaining in a tie game, and with the Broncos possessing one timeout, the Chargers put the ball in Herbert’s hands from a shotgun formation. He hit Ladd McConkey for 12 yards. The Chargers then took Denver’s final timeout, sneaked Herbert to convert on third-and-1, bled the clock to five seconds and then sent Cameron Dicker on for the winning 43-yard kick.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
23-20 over Atlanta
20-19 over Houston
29-27 over New York Jets
Tampa Bay’s point differential (+6) ranks tied for the smallest of any 3-0 team in league history, per Pro Football Reference.
Only the 2020 Titans (11-5 for the season) and 2005 Redskins (10-6) started 3-0 without winning by more.
The Bucs have scored the winning points with 59, six and zero seconds remaining on the game clock. It’s been a scramble without three-fifths of their starting offensive line, plus receiver Chris Godwin. Losing Mike Evans to a hamstring injury Sunday complicated the picture even more with Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco and Detroit next on the schedule.
The good news is that Godwin and left tackle Tristan Wirfs could return in Week 4, and the schedule still promises five more games against the NFC South.
San Francisco 49ers
17-13 over Seattle
26-21 over New Orleans
16-15 over Arizona
There’s no denying the defensive improvement with coordinator Robert Saleh back in the role this season, even though Seattle, New Orleans and Arizona were the first three opponents. Nick Bosa’s injury outlook will be key.
Already playing without quarterback Brock Purdy, receiver Brandon Aiyuk and receiver Jauan Jennings, the 49ers lost Bosa to a knee injury of unknown severity while gutting out their Week 3 victory over the Cardinals. If Purdy returns in Week 4, the knee injury Mac Jones aggravated against Arizona won’t be as consequential.
Injuries seem to be the one constant with this team, so as much as fans might look forward to getting everyone healthy, what are the odds Trent Williams and Christian McCaffrey hold up? What will Aiyuk look like when he returns?
The 49ers’ bye isn’t until Week 14, the latest possible time, which seems about right, all things considered. In a best-case scenario, that lets San Francisco heal up for the home stretch after exploiting an easy schedule to bank ugly wins like the first three this season.
Indianapolis Colts
33-8 over Miami
29-28 over Denver
41-20 over Tennessee
It’s easy to forget the Colts went 8-9 last season when their primary starting quarterback, Anthony Richardson, completed 47.7 percent of his passes, while backup Joe Flacco went 2-4 as a starter.
This wasn’t a terrible roster, in other words.
Indy blew out the two bad teams it faced, while finding a way to defeat Denver. The offense probably isn’t going to rank second in EPA per play all season, as it does through three games, but it’s clear coach Shane Steichen can design a working offense now that he has a mid-level quarterback with athleticism (Daniel Jones) and a well-rounded receiving corps featuring rookie first-round tight end Tyler Warren.
Jones obviously wasn’t going to miss the Giants after what he went through with that organization. Think new Colts defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo misses Cincinnati?
2. Kevin O’Connell has been outspoken about franchises failing quarterbacks more than the other way around. Here’s the part you might have missed.
With so much focus on quarterback development, offensive play callers and schemes, it’s easy to overlook a long-established fact: A strong defense is a quarterback’s best friend, no matter how old the QB happens to be.
The Vikings won their first game with backup quarterback Carson Wentz in the lineup Sunday. On this day, they might have beaten the Joe Burrow-less Bengals if O’Connell himself had lined up behind center.
Cornerback Isaiah Rodgers scored two return touchdowns for a defense that produced 33.3 EPA, most for the Vikings in any of their 422 total games since 2000. The defensive effort by Minnesota in its 48-10 victory over Cincinnati placed a giant exclamation point on one of the leading reasons the Vikings have not failed their quarterbacks in recent seasons: Their defense under coordinator Brian Flores has carried them.
O’Connell and Flores have won 23 games together. In those games, the Vikings’ defense has totaled almost 20 times more EPA than the offense, per TruMedia. Talk about not failing your quarterbacks!
Of those 23 victories, 14 came with Sam Darnold in the lineup, four with Kirk Cousins, two with Joshua Dobbs and one apiece with Jaren Hall, J.J. McCarthy and Carson Wentz. The defense outperformed the offense from an EPA standpoint 16 times in those 23 Vikings victories.
“I believe organizations fail young quarterbacks before young quarterbacks fail organizations,” O’Connell told “The Rich Eisen Show.”
The Athletic used the quote in a recent piece about why so many quarterbacks fail.
Counting playoffs, O’Connell and Flores have lost 15 games together. In those games, there was much less separation between the offense (-67.3 EPA) and defense (-77.4), while the special teams were better (+11.7).
The Vikings will need their defense to travel, with four of their next five on the road, including games against Aaron Rodgers, Justin Herbert and Jared Goff. Their next two home games are against Philly and Baltimore.
3. The Bears took it to Matt Eberflus the way the Lions took it to Ben Johnson. Most importantly, their QB played better for a second successive week.
The Ben Johnson bravado was on display throughout the Bears’ first victory of his three-game tenure as head coach, a 31-14 rout of the Dallas Cowboys.
Who goes for the end zone on fourth-and-goal near the 5 with a 10-point second-half lead? Very few, as it turns out. Johnson was one. The undefeated, scorched-earth version of Bill Belichick, circa 2007, was another. Neither devoted any energy toward making nice with the opponent.
Johnson, whose in-your-face exploits Sunday also featured a flea-flicker that Williams delivered to rookie Luther Burden in stride for a 65-yard touchdown, joined Belichick as the only coaches since at least 2000 to throw on fourth-and-goal from the 4 or longer while leading by 10 in a second half, per TruMedia.
Belichick did it against the Browns, who had fired him more than a decade earlier (less than a minute remained in that game).
Johnson did it late in the third quarter against his predecessor, Eberflus, who is now coordinating the Cowboys’ defense. That Dallas defense is not good, having allowed 450 yards passing to Russell Wilson in Week 2, so we shouldn’t read too much into Williams having a solid day through the air Sunday.
Still, after all the criticism that has rained down on Williams, it’s notable that he set career single-game bests Sunday for yards per attempt (10.6), passer rating (142.6), touchdown passes (four), EPA per pass play (.61) and, extra notably, sacks (zero!). Williams took 68 sacks last season, so any zero in that column means something.
As a coach noted in the Bo Nix section of 2025 QB Tiers, the way the 2024 quarterback draft class was perceived after last season will evolve as Williams, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, Michael Penix Jr., J.J. McCarthy and Nix continue to play.
4. Sean Payton downplayed Tom Brady’s dual role as Fox commentator and Raiders minority owner/in-game headset wearer. In other news, Tom Brady just secured a plum job for Payton coaching flag football in Saudi Arabia.
During the week, NFL coach after NFL coach downplayed concerns over the Raiders gaining a competitive edge from Brady’s work as the highest-paid sports color analyst in history. Were people really expecting Ben Johnson, Dan Quinn, Brian Schottenheimer or any of these coaches to cross another team’s owner, let alone an owner of Brady’s unique standing?
“There’s a reason they’re not blowing a gasket,” a coach from another team said. “It’s going to have to be the owners that do it. The owners know that Brady calling the games is a good thing.”
Not even the outspoken Payton seemed likely to cross that line publicly, even before Brady invited him to coach in the Saudi tournament.
“Of course he’s not going to say anything negative about him!” the coach added.
The Brady conflict-of-interest calculus is so simple.
Does Brady know more about the teams he covers for Fox than he would otherwise know about those teams? Of course.
Is Brady helping the Raiders more than he would help them if he were not a minority owner? Of course.
Is Brady more involved in football strategy for the Raiders than any other minority owner? Absolutely! Serena Williams (Dolphins), Condoleeza Rice (Broncos) and Magic Johnson (Commanders) aren’t on the headsets during games.
Is Brady the ultimate competitor? Yes. He has bent the rules throughout his career, incurring a suspension after he destroyed a cellphone containing 10,000 potentially incriminating text messages relating to disputed football inflation rates.
Brady was on site at Soldier Field to call Chicago’s victory over Dallas on Sunday, one week before his Raiders face the Bears, and eight weeks before his Raiders face the Cowboys.
The Raiders were going to scout this Cowboys-Bears game regardless, but there are details about Chicago’s operation that only a quarterback with 381 total NFL starts and 20 seasons of Belichick-supervised film study might notice.
For decades, teams have used private meetings with broadcasters to build trust, enabling teams to share confidential information that, when used responsibly, can help crews avoid speculating inaccurately. Along the way, crews glean information that could be of value to an opponent. It could be something as simple as learning that the personnel department is super excited about a specific unproven player who might slip through waivers and land on the practice squad, unless an opposing team has inside info about him.
Brady is in better position to pick up on such things while working in his role as a broadcaster than he otherwise would be, even if teams are extra careful about what they tell him directly.
The league has prevented Brady from attending opposing teams’ practices but otherwise isn’t going to object.
“The league doesn’t do things in rare cases when they get positive PR,” an exec from another team said. “Brady’s a positive PR element. They like him doing the games. They like everything he does. So, he gets special treatment.”
The league has also allowed CBS’s J.J. Watt to call two of brother T.J. Watt’s games with the Steelers through three weeks, but he’s not a quarterback, and the only headset he wears belongs to CBS.
5. Here’s what to know about the Steelers’ defense following a historic day of collecting turnovers from the New England Patriots.
Two improbable defensive stops near their own goal line powered the Steelers to a 21-14 victory over New England in a badly needed bounce-back game for a defense under increasing scrutiny.
The dubious quality of the opponent provides a giant asterisk, but that cuts both ways, as we’ll see in taking a closer look at what’s going on with this Pittsburgh defense.
The Steelers ranked fifth in defensive EPA per play from Weeks 1-12 last season, exactly what we’ve come to expect from the franchise that brought us the Steel Curtain.
Then, everything fell apart.
Pittsburgh’s defense ranked 25th from Week 13 through the first two weeks of this season, counting playoffs. The Steelers are 21st since then after holding off the rebuilding Patriots.
Here’s where the quality of the opponent cuts the other way.
From Week 13 through the playoffs last season, Pittsburgh played a league-high six games against offenses that ranked among the NFL’s top eight in EPA per play from Weeks 1-12. That included Cincinnati twice, Baltimore twice, Philadelphia and Kansas City. The Steelers were among nine teams to play at least three games against those offenses. They ranked fourth among the nine in defensive EPA per play across those games.
Not great, but not terrible, either.
The dropoff raised alarms for one of the most well-compensated defenses in the league. Those alarms have continued to sound this season.
Needing four touchdown passes from a 41-year-old Rodgers just to beat the Jets in Week 1 feels only marginally more sustainable than forcing all those turnovers Sunday.
“Rodgers is like a Tier 2 player, maybe a low Tier 2 player,” an exec said. “The one thing he will do twice out of the 17 starts is take you on a magic carpet ride. Unfortunately for Pittsburgh, they used one of those up already.”
Even after the victory at New England, Pittsburgh is off to its third-worst three-game start on defense during the Mike Tomlin era, as measured by defensive EPA per play. The 2012 and 2014 Pittsburgh defenses were quite a bit worse through three games. Those units finished eighth and 25th, respectively.
Letting a bad team get to the 2-yard line repeatedly, only to force turnovers, worked for the Steelers against the Patriots, including after New England went 92 yards in 17 plays, consuming 7:13 of the second quarter. Cam Heyward made two vintage Cam Heyward plays. It was exactly what the Steelers needed, but not a reliable formula.
This game marked only the fifth time in 13,558 total team games since 2000 that a defense collected two turnovers after allowing its opponent to reach its 2-yard line, per TruMedia. Largely as a result of those plays, the Steelers finished with +27.0 EPA on defensive turnovers. That was Pittsburgh’s best single-game mark in 436 total games since 2000.
Great, but not sustainable.
The Steelers have so far faced Justin Fields’ Jets, Sam Darnold’s Seahawks and Maye’s Patriots. Wentz, Flacco and (likely) Jake Browning are next on the schedule — tuneups for later games against Justin Herbert’s Chargers and Lamar Jackson’s Ravens.
6. Philip Rivers never missed a start in 240 chances. What’s the deal with Joe Burrow?
So many top quarterbacks own impressive ironman streaks. Toughness is part of the equation. The best quarterbacks might also prepare their bodies the best — they certainly can afford to — and use their knowledge of the game to minimize exposure to high-risk situations. Getting rid of the ball quickly requires a level of in-game processing that not every QB possesses or utilizes in that way.
Is Burrow’s pass protection so bad in Cincinnati that his elite processing doesn’t matter? Is there more he could do to stay on the field? Is his body simply not as sturdy as some other quarterbacks’ bodies?
With Burrow set to miss weeks and possibly months after suffering a turf-toe injury, I’ve put together a table showing availability rates for all quarterbacks voted into Tier 1 at least once since Quarterback Tiers debuted in 2014. Burrow ranks 13th among the 16. He would fall to 15th if he missed six more games.
Note: Non-injury-related absences — like for a benching (Matt Ryan), suspension (Tom Brady) or holdout (Deshaun Watson) — were not counted in possible games started.
• Speaking of QB hits: Daniel Jones took a couple of hard ones unnecessarily in a 41-20 Colts victory over Tennessee, something to watch as the season progresses, given his injury history.
• Ominous Falcons loss: The Carolina Panthers hadn’t won a game by 30 or more points since beating the Falcons 38-0 during Carolina’s 2015 Super Bowl season. The current Panthers are not close to that 2015 team in talent or performance, which makes their 30-0 victory over the Falcons in Week 3 such a bad loss for Atlanta.
The Falcons are 3-8 over their past 11 games, same as the Patriots, Saints and Raiders, who all have new coaches. Only the Browns, Jets, Giants, Bears and Titans have worse records over that stretch. Even Carolina is better than that, thanks to the Panthers’ victory Sunday.
This Falcons loss was so bad that coach Raheem Morris pulled quarterback Michael Penix Jr. in favor of Kirk Cousins with more than 10 minutes left in regulation.
After starting 6-3 under Morris last season, the Falcons are now 9-11 across his tenure. They were 9-11 in their final 20 games under previous coach Arthur Smith.
• Clock ticking for Russ: Giants fans booed when coach Brian Daboll platooned backup quarterback Jaxson Dart instead of leaving Dart in the game against Kansas City. The switch from Russell Wilson to Dart is coming at some point, but if the team can get through its Week 4 home game against the Chargers, three of the next four are on the road, away from the MetLife boo-birds. Will that factor?
I’m not sure the Giants can wait that long after Wilson lost his eighth consecutive start, counting his final four with Pittsburgh last season, playoffs included. That is the longest losing streak of Wilson’s career as a starter. The Giants’ defense was at fault in Week 2 against Dallas, but that kind of nuance isn’t going to overcome the fact that this coaching staff and this front office need to change the subject.
Perhaps that is why coach Brian Daboll would not commit to Wilson as his starter Sunday night.
• Inexplicable Packers: The Cowboys have long been classic front-runners, leaning into their successes only to stumble unexpectedly. But it wasn’t Micah Parsons, the former Cowboy, who said he thought the Packers could go undefeated this season. Left tackle Rasheed Wallace was the one who said it after the Packers’ 2-0 start. Green Bay left Cleveland with a 2-1 mark after blowing a 10-0 lead to lose 13-10.
The Packers lost outright as 8.5-point favorites. They are 31-7 (.816) under LaFleur when favored by at least five points, above league average (.774).
When Wallace dreamed aloud of an undefeated season, he probably did not know Cleveland was 13-5 at home (.722) against teams with winning records since Kevin Stefanski became the Browns’ coach in 2020. Only Buffalo (10-3) and Kansas City (12-4) have better home records against winning teams since then.
Cleveland’s home record against winning teams includes a 6-3 mark over the past three seasons.
(Photos of Justin Herbert, left, and Jalen Hurts: Sean M. Haffey, Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)