Here are nine things that stood out from Sunday’s games in Week 3 of the 2019 NFL season.
Cleveland’s offense needs a spiritual realignment.
In the second half of last season, the combination of offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens and quarterback Baker Mayfield made the Browns the talk of the NFL. When Kitchens ascended to the role of head coach before the 2019 season and retained his play-calling duties … well, one hoped things wouldn’t go south as they have for many coordinators who have tried to wrap their heads around the bigger job.
So far, it’s not at all good. Mayfield, who set the rookie record with 27 touchdown passes in 2018, has just three touchdown passes to five interceptions. He’s completed 56.9% of his passes and has been sacked 11 times. In a 20-13 loss against the Rams on Sunday night, he was unable to get anything going in a late-game red zone drive in which he threw three straight incompletions and ended his team’s chances with a fourth-down interception.
And speaking of fourth down, there was the draw handoff to Nick Chubb on fourth-and-9 with 9:19 left in the game. Chubb gained just two yards, and the Browns turned the ball over on downs at the Rams’ 40-yard line. The preposterousness of this play call was historic.
There’s a lot wrong with this formerly incendiary offense, and with a 1-2 record, Kitchens and his staff had best figure it out and get things back on track quickly.
A lot of people were wrong about Daniel Jones.
It seems like everyone had something to say when mercurial Giants general manager made the call to select Jones out of Duke with the sixth overall pick despite his unimpressive college stats. Even when Jones impressed through the preseason, it was still thought that whenever the rookie replaced Eli Manning, he would see real regular-season NFL defenses and fold like a bad lawn chair.
Well. In his first regular-season start after Big Blue decided to sit Manning and put Jones out there, Jones went up against an improved Buccaneers defense and ripped it apart. He completed 23 of 36 passes for 336 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. Jones also countered Tampa Bay’s decision to play aggressive man defense by running for two scores. In doing so, he not only helped his team come back from a 28-10 halftime deficit, he also became the first rookie quarterback in the Super Bowl era to throw for more than 300 yards, pass for two touchdowns and score two rushing touchdowns in the same game.
A lot of people are eating their words on the decision to draft Jones as highly as Gettleman did (myself included). The Giants may have that rarest of all things — a legitimate transition from one franchise quarterback to another.
The Chiefs with a good defense? Watch out, NFL …
Going into his particular matchup against the high-caliber Ravens offense, Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo had two options: He could focus on Baltimore’s run game, load the box and let Lamar Jackson beat him over and over with accurate deep passes. Or, he could take away Jackson’s passing reads by dropping more defenders in coverage, essentially conceding the run and betting that no matter what the Ravens did on the ground, Patrick Mahomes would outscore it.
The final was closer than Spagnuolo would have liked, but in their 33-28 win, the Chiefs limited Jackson to 22 completions on 43 attempts, 268 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions. They also gave other defenses a paradigm for limiting Jackson: Don’t worry about the play-action and backfield motion; just let the Ravens do their thing and deal with Jackson in the post-snap phase.
If the Chiefs can continue their league-average or better performances on defense, and Mahomes continues to put up numbers we’ve never seen from any quarterback, it’s tough to imagine who can beat this team.
The Ravens proved that they have a well-rounded offense.
Things didn’t go the way the Ravens wanted against the Chiefs’ decision to turn Lamar Jackson into a runner, though that was quite the compliment for the second-year star. While Kansas City’s “electric fence” defense stymied Jackson for the most part on his downfield reads, the Ravens’ run game almost made Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo regret his decision to let the Ravens run.
Not only did Jackson use his Vick-like speed and elusiveness to gain 46 yards and score a rushing touchdown on just eight carries, but veteran Mark Ingram sliced through Kansas City’s fronts for 103 yards and three touchdowns on just 16 carries. With Gus Edwards’ efforts added in, the Ravens ended the 33-28 loss with 203 rushing yards and four touchdowns on 32 total carries.
Yes, the loss was frustrating, but John Harbaugh’s team can take consolation in that they’re not the one-dimensional, run-first unit we saw last year as Jackson developed his game. Now, if an opponent wants to focus on one thing or the other, Baltimore has an answer. It’s just that, in this case, the Chiefs had a better answer, and his name was Patrick Mahomes.
No matter how good you are, there aren’t a lot of adequate responses to that these days.
The Packers are winning with their run game and defense.
In the Packers’ 27-16 win over the Broncos, Aaron Rodgers was in an interesting and unfamiliar role — that of innocent bystander. Not that Rodgers had nothing to do with the win — he did complete 17 of 29 passes for 235 yards and a touchdown — but these are numbers you’d expect of a game manager as opposed to one of the most gifted quarterbacks in NFL history.
But here’s the thing that makes the 3-0 Packers particularly dangerous: For the first time in a long time, they don’t need Rodgers extending the playbook beyond its logical conclusions just to win a game. Now, they have the two-headed ground game monster of Jamaal Williams and Aaron Jones, who combined for 78 yards and two touchdowns on 23 carries. And they have a defense that absolutely shelled Joe Flacco, sacking him six times (including three from Preston Smith) and adding seven quarterback hits. Factor in a young, aggressive secondary,m and you have a team that doesn’t need Aaron Rodgers to be a superhero, and will just benefit all the more when he inevitably becomes one at various points through the season.
New England’s historic streak continues … with asterisks.
With 2:03 left in regulation of the 2018 AFC Championship game, Chiefs running back Damien Williams crashed in for a two-yard touchdown run. That was the last time the Patriots allowed an offensive touchdown. They limited the Rams to three points in Super Bowl LIII, beat the Steelers 33-3 in the 2019 season opener, and shut out the hapless Dolphins 43-0 in Week 2.
Things were a bit different against the Jets in that the Jets scored 14 points, but the Patriots’ defensive streak remained secure. The touchdowns came on a punt return fumble recovery and on a pick-six by safety Jamal Adams against backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham. As for Bill Belichick’s defense? It was another lights-out game. Quarterback Luke Falk was limited to 98 yards and an interception on 22 passing attempts, and Le’Veon Bell gained just 35 yards on 18 carries.
The first team in the Super Bowl era not to allow a rushing or passing touchdown in their first three games of the season, the Pats can tie a record held by the 1976 and 2000 Steelers if they keep the Bills out of the end zone on offense next week. Five straight games in the modern offense-heavy era would be one of the most impressive achievements of the Belichick era, and that’s saying a lot.
Jacoby Brissett is a legitimate starting quarterback.
Through three games as the Colts’ starter in the (surprise!) post-Andrew Luck era, Brissett has completed 71.7% of his passes for 646 yards, seven touchdowns and one interception. It’s a big step forward from his 2017 season, when the former Patriots third-round pick was pressed into service after Luck was lost for the season to a shoulder injury. After Luck’s bombshell retirement last month, general manager Chris Ballard and head coach Frank Reich didn’t panic, because they knew what they had in Brissett — a well-developed young quarterback who could work well in Reich’s offense.
To prove their commitment to Brissett, the Colts gave Brissett a contract extension through the 2020 season that gives him nearly $28 million in new money, puts a $21.5 million cap hit on his 2020 campaign, but still leaves him as the eighth-highest-paid quarterback in the NFL based on per-year value, behind guys like Kirk Cousins and Jared Goff, whom Brissett has outperformed in 2019. He completed 28 of 37 passes for 310 yards and two touchdowns in a 27-24 win over the Falcons on Sunday, and at 2-1, the Colts have managed to transcend a quarterback retirement that would have left a lot of franchises on their knees.
The Panthers officially have a Cam Newton problem.
It’s not that a healthy Newton couldn’t do what backup Kyle Allen did against the Cardinals on Sunday, and it’s not that Allen will ever do it again. Completing 19 of 26 passes for 261 yards and four touchdown passes in his third NFL game is singularly impressive, even coming as it did against the Cardinals’ unimpressive secondary in a 38-20 win.
But with what Allen did, and adding in that Newton hasn’t been effective since he was waylaid by a shoulder injury in the 2018 season, one begins to wonder if Newton’s current foot injury becomes more of a preferred participation issue if Allen comes anywhere near this performance against the Texans next Sunday. The Panthers had lost Newton’s last eight starts, and while that’s not all his fault, the fact that Allen could lift this offense above the fray does say something.
The Panthers are on the hook for a $23.2 million cap hit in the 2019 season as part of the five-year, $103.8 million contract extension Newton signed in 2015. In 2020, they’d have to give up $21.2 million in cap space to keep Newton, while releasing him would cost just $2 million in dead cap.
There are times when performance and economics combine to make a scenario very obvious.
The only person in the NFL who can stop Russell Wilson is Brian Schottenheimer.
In the first half of Seattle’s 33-27 loss to the Saints, Russell Wilson completed 13 of 14 passes for 155 yards and a touchdown. The Seahawks’ running game, which is what offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer and head coach Pete Carroll would prefer to lead with, managed 90 yards on 18 carries if you include Wilson’s 41 yards on five carries. Chris Carson gained 48 yards on 12 carries and was taken out of the game due to a persistent fumbling problem.
At the half, the Saints led 20-7. Halfway through the third quarter, Teddy Bridgewater put New Orleans up 27-7 with a one-yard touchdown pass to Michael Thomas. At that point, it seemed that the Seahawks finally wanted to put their offense behind Wilson’s arm. It almost worked, as Seattle’s franchise quarterback ended the game with 32 completions on 50 attempts for 406 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. He also added two rushing touchdowns, becoming the first NFL player since 1950 with more than 400 passing yards, two passing touchdowns, more than 50 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns in a single game.
The shame of it is that Wilson had to go into panic mode in the second half. Seattle’s run game has been one of the league’s least effective this season, and it seems that only when that run game collapses in on itself does Schottenheimer deign to put the game plan into the hands of his quarterback, who is clearly one of the NFL’s best. The Seahawks should be leading with Wilson and the passing game, but their insistence on a philosophy that doesn’t suit their personnel is a real problem — and cost them their first home loss in September in the Pete Carroll era.
