Week 3 in the National Football League has wrapped up, and what a week it was! The scriptwriters seemed to have it out for the teams at the bottom of the map, as every team located south of the United States suffered a loss.
The New Orleans Saints lost a nail bitter to the Philadelphia Eagles with a score of 15-12. The Houston Texans suffered a heavy 34-7 loss against the Minnesota Vikings. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were defeated by the Denver Broncos 26-7. The Green Bay Packers emerged victorious against the Tennessee Titans with a score of 30-14. The Seattle Seahawks secured a win against the Miami Dolphins with a score of 24-3. The Baltimore Ravens won over the Dallas Cowboys with a score of 28-25. The Kansas City Chiefs triumphed over the Atlanta Falcons with a score of 22-17, and the Buffalo Bills dominated the Jacksonville Jaguars with a score of 47-10.
Leading up to Sunday, the Saints were on fire, looking Super Bowl-bound. They came into the game averaging 45.5 points per game while holding their opponents to a mere 154.5 points. They looked like a completely different team on Sunday. The Eagles entered their home stadium, the same stadium where the Super Bowl will occur, making the high-flying Saints look mediocre. It’s like the two teams were playing hot potato. As bad as the Eagles tried to give the Saints the game, the Saints said, “Nah you can have it.” Eagles quarterback, Jalen Hurts did finish 29 of 38 with 311 passing yards, but he didn’t throw or rush for a touchdown and turned the ball over twice. Their running back Sequan Barkley and their tight end Dallas Goedert saved the day. Barkley rushed for 147 yards and scored two touchdowns. The most important touchdown came in the fourth quarter when he broke away for a 65-yard touchdown, the longest in franchise history, to give his team a 7-3 lead. The Saints would score a field goal and follow up with a touchdown, which made the score 12-7, but Goedert came up big right after. On third and 16, Hurts found Goedert for a 61-yard catch and run, which was the Eagles’ longest pass play in the final two minutes of a fourth quarter in 36 years, since Randall Cunningham’s 80-yard touchdown to Cris Carter with 1:48 left on a Monday night in 1988, to set up Barkley for a four-yard rushing touchdown, which put the game away.
The Texans came into Sunday looking like one of the young and exciting teams in the league, and the Minnesota Vikings humbled them in blowout fashion, giving them their first loss of the season, 34-7. The Texans had no answer for the Sam Darnold, Justin Jefferson and Aaron Jones trio. Darnold finished 17 of 28 for 181 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. Jefferson finished with six catches, 81 yards and one touchdown. Jones got 19 carries for 102 yards. Texans quarterback C.J. Stound probably had his worst game as a professional. He finished 20 of 31 for 215 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions, one came on his first pass attempt of the game. The Texans struggled to find their offense and defense. They were down 14-0 at the start of the game and only managed to score in the third quarter. However, they then gave up 13 more points in the fourth quarter. Despite this loss, Stroud remains optimistic about the season.
“Once we fix the negatives, we’re going to be rolling,” said Stroud. “I’m excited, man, because the only way we can go now is up, so I’m very grateful and blessed that we did get our tails whooped today and there’s something to learn from. I’m glad it happened early. Now it’s time to go to work.”
The Denver Broncos pulled off a major upset by defeating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 26-7, halting the Buccaneers’ and Baker Mayfield’s apparent resurgence. I’m 99 percent sure that nobody expected rookie quarterback Bo Nix to get his first win against the Bucc. The Bucc are considered to be a tough team and many experts predicted that they would handle the Broncos. In fact, the opposite happened. On the first drive of the game, the Broncos established their presence. Nix went 5 for 5 and drove his team downfield to cap off the drive with a 3-yard rushing touchdown. On the Bucc’s first drive, Mayfield, who looked good this year, threw an interception and gave the ball right back to the Broncos and they scored making the score 14-0. Tampa Bay scored in the second quarter, but so did the Broncos, as they went into the half with a 20-7 lead and never looked back.
The Dallas Cowboys extended their home losing streak to three consecutive games as a desperate Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens came into Jerry’s world and dominated. Don’t let the 28-25 score fool you, the Ravens ran all over the Cowboys. In the first half, the Ravens led 21-6. Jackson went 12 of 15 for 182 passing yards and one touchdown. He also rushed for 87 yards and scored one touchdown. His running back Derrick Henery got 25 carries and rushed for 151 and two touchdowns. What made the score look formidable was when Dallas scored 19 trash points in the fourth quarter. Dallas always accumulates trash stats to make the games look good, but if you watched the game, the Ravens were never in danger of losing this game.
It’s funny how some people thought Will Levis and the Tennessee Titans could beat the Green Bay Packers. Yeah, the Packers are playing with their backup quarterback Malik Willis, but Levis is playing like he should be a backup. Willis went 13 of 19 for 202 passing yards and one passing touchdown and six carries for 71 yards and one rushing touchdown. In comparison, Levis went 26 of 34 for 260 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions.
Despite the Atlanta Falcons’ performance throughout the year, their loss to the undefeated reigning Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, was somewhat predictable. The Miami Dolphins are playing with a quarterback whose name is not widely recognized, so their loss was expected. Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguars appeared disorganized when playing against Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills.
I don’t know if this was scripted or coincidental, but how did every team in the southern region lose? What’s the next trend in the NFL? Will all of the teams from the North, the Midwest, or the West Coast lose in week 4? The excitement is building, and we can’t wait to see what unfolds.
