2026 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 5

NFL Stat Oddity 2026
~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

Week 5 was just one of those NFL weeks where the island games had insane endings to cover up for a pretty bland Sunday afternoon. After consecutive weeks with 12 games with a comeback opportunity, blowouts were up a little on Sunday, though we did still finish with 10 such games in Week 5.

But I think Week 5 brought out the worst this season in coaching decisions, starting with Todd Bowles not kicking that field goal on Thursday night in Dallas. That game shouldn’t have been that close. London shouldn’t have ended the way it did with the Jaguars getting a walk-off field goal after a long kick return.

The Commanders-Giants game ending in a tie was absolute batshit and incompetence from a variety of people. The anticipated Seahawks-49ers game was deceptively high scoring as terrible ball security led to a ton of points from short fields. Then a dropped pass and questionable ruling on the field on the final play ended that one.

To cap it off on Monday night, Joe Brady and Sean McVay showed us why neither should be coaching at the Super Bowl this season. I’ve already led with this one week this season, but I’m really stunned at the lack of growth for this year’s Super Bowl contenders:

  • The Rams still suck miserably on special teams and it’s killing them at 2-3.
  • The Bills are even worse on defense and more reckless on offense under Brady and Jim Leonhard. A lucky 4-1 start.
  • The Seahawks are showing that 4-game run without a giveaway to end 2025 was a fluke outlier.
  • The Broncos still can’t score in the first three quarters.
  • Do you really trust the Jaguars or Vikings to win in January? Too bad you can’t combine Detroit’s offense with Minnesota’s defense.

That’s why I do like the concept of a Chiefs vs. 49ers rematch in February. Kenneth Walker is a new wrinkle. Mike Evans is a new wrinkle. These teams know how to win in the playoffs, and there’s no one in their conference they can’t beat this year. Alas, injuries can undo everything (maybe already did for the Chiefs; we’ll see) and we have a long way to go still.

But Bills-Rams was a grandiose display of just how little we’ve come from last season.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bills at Rams: Game of the Week

The Rams and Bills started the week with the best odds to win the Super Bowl, and they ended the week in the same position. However, I think Monday night’s 37-34 overtime final was proof that we shouldn’t trust either one of these teams to be there in February as they continue making the same stupid mistakes.

The first half was pure subversion. Josh Allen threw for 60 yards (40 on one short toss to Ty Johnson) and a pick. Puka Nacua looked like he was going to catch 18 balls for 100 yards in a run-and-shoot offense (he finished with 17 catches for 138 yards). The Rams had drives that were long on plays and short on points.

The second half, particularly the fourth quarter when five touchdowns were scored, was the shootout most expected. But at the end of the day, what did we really learn that’s new about these teams?

  • Allen still makes boneheaded decisions as he should have been picked twice in this one, and he was bailed out by multiple penalties on scoring drives.
  • James Cook still fumbles too often and in big spots like he did in overtime here.
  • The Rams still have a terrible kicker (Mevis) and generally terrible special teams, which cost them another game with two missed field goals and a long kickoff return to Buffalo to start the game.
  • Joe Brady’s passing game takes the air out of the ball as Allen somehow had 196 YAC on 210 passing yards and only 12 completions.
  • The Rams were too dumb to put a quarterback spy on him, so he ran for 121 yards, including several scrambles on the same kind of play that kept burning the Rams.
  • Even though D.J. Moore and Josh Palmer were out, the Buffalo tight ends and wide receivers combined for 100 receiving yards, and 57 of those were on one YAC play by Shakir in OT.
  • The Buffalo defense is lousy and worse than it was under Sean McDermott. Stafford threw 55 times and was sacked once while completing 40 passes.
  • The Bills were just fortunate that Sean McVay once again wimped out of a gutsy call to go for 2 and the win after Kyren Williams’ touchdown with 0:05 left.

In some games, you go to overtime at home. But in a game where five straight touchdowns were just scored, you go for 2 and the win. Why not? You’re almost banking on an outcome where you have to defend the Bills in overtime, probably give up another TD since neither of you can get a stop, then have to get your own TD, then probably go for 2 to win then. Why not just wipe out that injury risk on all those snaps and go for the 2 now while you have the terrible Buffalo defense reeling, and Stafford was dealing?

It made no sense in the moment, and I don’t think McVay in Year 10 is ever going to change. This is just who he is. Then in overtime, you get the Cook fumble, you get to the Buffalo 35, then you take the ball out of Stafford’s hands after he played such a clean game? Just nonsense. They ran Kyren on 3rd-and-5 for no gain on the outer edge of field goal range for their overweight kicker (I’m allowed to say it).

Even if the 48-yard field goal wasn’t getting blocked, it looked like he was going to miss it anyway with a bad kick. That’s just who he is.

Then after watching that sequence and the way the Giants-Commanders game ended on Sunday, Joe Brady and the Bills still screwed up their final drive. First, I think they caught a break with the refs letting the clock go down to the 2-minute warning as that quick no-gain run should not have taken 5 seconds when they ran it with 2:45 left. Saved them a delay of game penalty.

But at 2:00 and second down, you run two plays even if they’re knees, and then you kick the field goal in the final 40 seconds so that if it’s missed, you leave the Rams little time to go get the winner. They just kicked it immediately on second down to conclude one of the worst weeks of coaching decisions in the NFL that I can remember.

Fortunately, Tyler Bass was good from 45 yards this time, and in Year 9 in his eighth try, Josh Allen finally wins an overtime game in the NFL. But this type of game does not move the needle positively for me on these teams. If anything, it makes me want to trust them less, because Buffalo isn’t gong to win 37-34 games every week in the playoffs. No one does that.

Then the Rams are 2-3 and in danger of not even making the playoffs if they don’t get Garrett back soon and start playing up to their potential on defense. Even if they do, the special teams can still ruin it any given week as that continues to be a failure for McVay.

It was a spectacle Monday night. But a Super Bowl preview it was not.

49ers at Seahawks: Sunday’s Best

It’s actually comical to see the final score of 32-29 in a game with one touchdown drive longer than 24 yards. These teams were feasting on seven turnovers to set up short fields for scores, including one return touchdown by the 49ers. When George Holani fumbled in the open field just by dropping the ball, I knew I was watching something bizarre and fvcked up.

It wasn’t isolated to one or two players either. It was numerous players on both teams that kept losing control of the ball, which you wouldn’t expect to see on a nice weather day without rain or anything. It’s like these teams were nervous, which would be a weird position since they played in Week 18 for the No. 1 seed last year, two weeks before they met in the playoffs. Those were bigger games than Sunday.

I don’t think either quarterback was very good, though Brock Purdy got it together late and avoided some of the crucial mistakes Darnold had. The go-ahead touchdown drive with Purdy throwing the score to Brandin Cooks was his best drive of the day.

The Seahawks had a chance to tie or take the lead late, but JSN had a horrific drop in the open field after a strong game. Hate to see that in that spot. But on 4th-and-10, Cooper Kupp got 9 yards after diving out of bounds and stretching the ball.

This is another call in Week 5 that technically might be correct in the rulebook, but it just feels spiritually wrong, and it feels like something that has been inconsistently applied. I don’t like the way the end zone gets treated so differently from a first-down market at midfield. This feels like a play where Kupp left his feet while still inbounds and made a diving attempt for the marker and got there. I feel like that should be a first down even if I understand why it wasn’t per rules.

But that doesn’t mean it feels right or is a good judgment call. Hate to see a game end that way. The 49ers improve to 5-0, and the Seahawks look a bit vulnerable at the moment. The defense isn’t quite as impressive as last year, and Darnold is struggling.

But I still look forward to the rematch in Week 12 at the end of November. Just like to see a cleaner game.

Eagles vs. Jaguars: Inconceivable

I slept on this first half of what turned out to be a crazy London game. The shorthanded Eagles were hanging in there, though I think Liam Coen helped that with some of those fourth-down decisions.

I did not like the decision to go for 4th-and-5 at the Philadelphia 5 with 6:35 left and the Jaguars down 14-10. Lawrence threw wildly and turned it over on downs. Some will point to the long snapper issue making a field goal problematic, though I guess the end of the game proved that to be overblown.

But it kind of felt like that would sink the Jaguars no matter what they did as they got a touchdown on 4th-and-5 to Parker Washington on the following drive. And sure enough, the bad snap/hold ruined the XP, so the Jaguars were left vulnerable at 16-14.

The teams exchanged three-and-outs as the clock management wasn’t great on either side, and Jalen Hurts eventually got it back and got it done, setting up a 48-yard field goal with 0:08 left to take a 17-16 lead.

Game over? Not in today’s NFL. You really have to set up the field goal as the final play anymore as we’re seeing 7-8 seconds is enough for a team to win, even if they didn’t have a timeout like Jacksonville. The Eagles screwed up by not kicking deep for a touchback, and the Jaguars returned it 53 yards to set up maybe the deadliest long-range kicker in the NFL in Cam Little, who drilled the game winner from 57 yards out. Trevor Lawrence gets credit for a 4QC for the earlier touchdown but no GWD in this rare situation.

But you have to go for the touchback there and make them try to run some crazy play from the 35. Even a kickoff out of bounds in case you worry you won’t make it to the end zone for a touchback and putting them at the 40 would be better than what happened. I still say the Eagles had a shot to delay the tackle just a hair or two by not bringing the returner down immediately, and the clock would have just expired. Game over.

So many things went wrong in such a quick period of time, and just like that, the Eagles blew an improbable lead for the second week in a row. They went from looking like they’d save their season to possibly putting into motion the end for Sirianni and maybe even Hurts in Philly at this rate.

Ravens at Falcons: Falconing Returns

You know all about Chargering, the Chargers’ art of choking away games. The NFC has its own version in Atlanta called Falconing, and Super Bowl LI is their masterpiece that not even the Chargers can match so far.

Well, Sunday night was some on-brand Falconing after the Falcons blew their shot to win all three of their prime-time games no one but the NFL thought they deserved. Baltimore, even with backup quarterback Snoop Huntley, became the first team since the 2022 Cardinals (vs. Raiders) won a game after trailing by 8 points in the final minute. Same score too as both were down 23-15 before forcing overtime and winning on a touchdown.

Huntley has played well the last two years, and I think you could argue Baltimore makes the playoffs last year if they just started Huntley instead of Cooper Rush when Lamar was injured. But this was impressive on the road given Mark Andrews went all domestic terrorist again with a dropped touchdown, a fumble for a touchdown, and he couldn’t squeeze a 2PC.

Speaking of 2PC, the Ravens finally found a way to go to someone other than Andrews with the game on the line. After the late touchdown, the Ravens put Derrick Henry in the Wildcat and did a direct snap, which he scored on to save the day. Good to see something different here.

Sadly, Michael Penix Jr. did not finish this game with an injury, but since he did play on that last drive in regulation, he technically falls to 0-7 at game-winning drive opportunities with Atlanta.

After the Ravens consumed 7 minutes in overtime, it left the Falcons with little time to go get a touchdown. That’s an interesting part of the strategy to consider for overtime in the regular season when it’s 10:00 instead of 15:00 with a chance for a second OT quarter.

I’m normally pro-kickoff and go on defense, get the ball second so you know exactly what you need with the chance to play four-down football to get it. But I can admit it’s not a one-size-fits-all strategy, and some games I’ll be open to different strategies. This might be one of them as the Falcons looked tired after defending the late touchdown drive in regulation. By taking the ball first in OT, the Ravens could wear them down even more with Henry and company, which they did on their touchdown march.

Also, since you put the Falcons in a bit of a time bind with the long drive, it hurts their best part of the game in running the ball with Bijan Robinson. Granted, he was mostly held in check aside from a 38-yard burst, but the Falcons had to move quickly, and go figure it only took two passes from backup Tua Tagovailoa before we had a game-ending interception. Kyle Hamilton didn’t drop that one.

But that’s a good win to get to 4-1 for the Ravens without Lamar, and just another missed opportunity for Penix and the Falcons.

Colts at Steelers: Offense Returns to Pittsburgh

I felt really confident in the Steelers based on the way they turned the Colts over six times last year, the extra days of rest for old Aaron Rodgers since the Cleveland loss, and the way the Colts can’t rush the passer and gave up the most yards before contact on rushes.

While the game had no turnovers, the Steelers forced the Colts to kick five field goals and they ended their last two drives with fourth-down stops. On offense, the Steelers got two huge plays (80-yard catch, 50-yard run) out of Jaylen Warren for touchdowns, and Rodgers was getting the ball out quickly with few issues. That’s how you get a comfortable 34-22 win.

Rodgers became the oldest quarterback in NFL history to have three straight games with 200+ passing yards and 3+ passing touchdowns. The Steelers have three straight games with 24 points and 350+ yards of offense for the first time since the 2020 COVID season.

Now we’ll see if this offense can travel as the Steelers are going to the Bucs and Saints the next two weeks. They’re 0-2 on the road and 3-0 at home so far.

Broncos at Chargers: Regression Still Not Here for Both

What ever happened to close-game regression for the Chargers and Broncos?

  • Justin Herbert has failed on seven straight GWD attempts going back to Houston last year as the Chargers are the only team that’s 0-5 at 4QC/GWD in 2026.
  • Bo Nix is 11-1 in GWD opportunities since October 2025, including 3-1 this year.

When Tim Tebow shit the bed for three quarters and pulled out his voodoo in the fourth, people thought it was a fad. When John Elway did it for years in Denver, the fans loved it. When Bo Nix does it, I’m not sure what people think it is. I just know they generally don’t like it and don’t trust it.

But Sunday was another one of those games where Denver scored 13 points in the fourth quarter after trailing 17-10. This time, the Chargers kept turning the ball over, setting up Denver on short fields. I’m not convinced Denver going for the field goal on 4th-and-1 at the 1 in a tied game with 5:10 left was the right call, but maybe it doesn’t matter if Justin Herbert is going to throw this on 4th down right to the defense (look at the receivers to the left too):

There’s no injury to a receiver or offensive lineman that can explain that throw. Herbert is broken, he’s dead last in QBR (26.5), and I’m not sure we’ve ever seen anything like this.

The same can be said about Nix, who is now 12-5 (.706) at 4QC and 14-6 (.700) at GWDs. Regression has to hit at some point, doesn’t it?

Bears at Packers: Missing Caleb

Maybe it’s for the best that Mike Ditka’s (RIP) last Bears-Packers game was the playoff one from January as this 31-7 beatdown was not kind to Chicago. Just outclassed from the start on both sides of the ball, Jordan Love and Christian Watson had yet another good game against this defense, and Tyson Bagnet looked like an inexperienced backup quarterback who let the Jets intercept him four times (only one counted though).

Bagent was picked twice here, and Johnson didn’t go with Case Keenum until it was 31-7 in the fourth quarter, and the Bears still ended up turning it over or on downs on their last five drives.

Ben Johnson is just 2-7 against the NFC North, so his rivals aren’t impressed. I’m not ready to panic yet on this team as they clearly need to get Caleb Williams back at quarterback. But I do think there’s a real concern with this offense that having “too many weapons” means the young players (Odunze, Loveland, Burden) are not developing properly because they don’t have defined roles. Who really is the WR1 in this offense? Khalif Raymond has had nice games but he had 3 catches for 6 yards on Sunday.

Figure out the roles better. Meanwhile, I think the Packers have done exactly that with fewer weapons this year when you see Watson with 143 yards, Matthew Golden with 123 yards, and Tucker Kraft had 64 yards. Everyone else had 37 yards combined. Just lean on your best deep threat, your first-round speedster, and your very good tight end. I like that.

The Bears need to sort their offense out better.

Vikings at Saints: Justin Jefferson Deserves Better

The Vikings improved to 5-0 after a ho-hum 23-13 win in New Orleans. The offense was a bit better this week, and Justin Jefferson added a great highlight play with this touchdown in triple coverage that was all him.

Too bad he doesn’t get to play with an elite quarterback. But the Vikings relentlessly blitzed Tyler Shough and it worked again. While he only took one sack, he was 16-of-25 for 96 yards with two picks. Half of the Saints’ points were on a fumble return by the defense.

The Vikings are getting it done defensively under Brian Flores.

Browns at Jets: Blame It on the Rain?

A predictably close game that was lower scoring (17-12) possibly due to the rain. It also doesn’t help when your receiver (Isiah Bond) is catching a 30-yard pass and running out of bounds when he had a chance to go for a touchdown.

Keep in mind that drive would end with Cleveland punting on 4th-and-38 after Predator took a couple of sacks. But Watson also led a go-ahead drive in the fourth quarter that would have been a fourth-straight game-winning drive. Alas, the Browns missed the extra point, Geno Smith lost a fumble, and the Browns went three-and-out in the four-minute offense.

However, the punt ended up being a killer as the wet ball was too much for the punter to handle, and that led to a turnover on downs. The Jets only had to drive 23 yards for the game-winning touchdown, and Geno didn’t even complete a pass on the drive. Watson couldn’t answer on either drive in the final 3:01, and he was strip-sacked on 4th-and-11 to end the game.

Cleveland’s 3-game winning streak ends.

Giants at Commanders: How?

By now, you no doubt saw what happened in overtime after the Commanders blew a 14-point lead to Jameis Winston and the Giants. The Commanders were handed a golden opportunity for a win after the Giants already missed a 46-yard field goal and Cam Skattebo fumbled at the 24 in overtime.

The Commanders just had to spike the ball and kick a field goal in the closing seconds to get a big 30-27 win. But Jayden Daniels took the snap regularly, looked like he would just chuck it out of bounds, but then he took a dive and the clock ran out with the team out of timeouts. There wasn’t enough time for the spike.

Someone should probably get fired over this, and while I don’t think Dan Quinn did a good job on Sunday here, I have to believe this is on Daniels more than anyone. It’s not the first time he got caught trying to do too much at the end of a half or quarter and didn’t get a field goal attempt out of the deal. Whether he simply forgot the timeout situation or pulled a 2008 Donovan McNabb and didn’t know that a game could end in a tie, he fvcked up big time here.

And it’s a shame because he was close to doing the 200 yards passing/100 yards rushing thing in this game as he ran the ball well in his return from elbow injury. But a total brain fart in overtime denied the shot at a big win for Washington.

Maybe it’s fitting that the NFC East doesn’t get a single win in Week 5 despite two teams playing each other. Poverty division.

Raiders at Patriots: Moving in Opposite Directions?

The Raiders have lost two in a row after a 3-0 start while the Patriots have won two in a row after a 1-2 start. Drake Maye had arguably his best performance ever in the NFL in this game with five total touchdowns and 374 passing yards.

Just a dominant win, though I do see the criticism that the Patriots repeatedly got DPI flags on most touchdown drives in the game. But both teams were over 100 yards in penalties and the Patriots still crushed them.

It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if these teams move in opposite directions the rest of the season. Trajectory is back to looking up for Maye, who gets A.J. Brown back soon.

Lions at Cardinals: Detroit Gets First Road Win

The Lions might have the best offense in the NFL this year as long as the key players stay healthy. The defense isn’t good, but at least it got 5 sacks  on Brissett and held the Cardinals to 14 points at home until Trey McBride made an absurd touchdown catch in garbage time.

I’m still not that moved as the Brissett-era Cardinals are the master of losing high-scoring games like this.

Bengals at Dolphins: Burrow in His Element

Ah yes, there’s Joe Burrow in his element. Throwing four touchdowns (but not 200 yards) against a winless Miami team that has yet to hold a single lead this season. However, the Dolphins still found a way to get a push on the 7-point spread despite a terrible start by Malik Willis, which still makes me think the Bengals are fake contenders this year.

That defense hasn’t been championship caliber, and the offense is still a bit one-dimensional.

Texans at Titans: If a Bear Shits in the Woods…

You have to laugh at the Titans starting this game with a field goal before getting outscored 26-0 the rest of the day. No one scored a touchdown until C.J. Stroud ran one in himself in the third quarter. See, literally any quarterback can do it from 2 yards out.

But the Texans were always the better team here, and the result isn’t a surprise. The Titans are really that bad with no direction going forward. That new coaching staff has done zilch but make things even worse and more pointless in Tennessee.

Next Week

I just finished my Week 6 preview, and I can tell you the games aren’t that great this week. Seahawks-Broncos on TNF is actually one of the best games we get. The Jags are taking on Houston in London as a bit of a last-chance effort for Houston.

Ravens-Browns is a 1 PM highlight, I guess. Chargers at Kansas City should have been the premiere game but the Chargers are 0-5. Still, I’d be shocked if they don’t cover the spread (9). Bills-Raiders could be fun if only the Raiders play offense like they did in September. Dallas vs. Green Bay on SNF usually ends poorly for the Cowboys, though I guess a 40-40 tie last year was better than a loss.

Washington-49ers on MNF is the kind of game I could have used last night to get some work done early. But I’ll get everything done, go to bed, and recharge for the rest of the week. Look out on Twitter for my full Joe Burrow video spoofing A Few Good Men. I posted a trailer on Monday.

NFL 2026 Week 5 Predictions: NFC West Takes Center Stage Edition

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The NFC West was always the story of this 2026 season with three Super Bowl contenders in one division, and they take center stage in a soft Week 5 schedule that heats up late on Sunday afternoon and the best Monday night game of the year so far.

  • The 49ers are 4-0 and have played the best football of any team.
  • The Seahawks are 3-1 and have been out of the spotlight after Sam Darnold was injured on the opening drive of the season, and they lost to Washington in his return game. But they can get back on top with a win here.
  • The Rams are 2-2 after a much needed comeback against the Eagles, and maybe they can get on a roll by beating Buffalo in a clash of the teams with the best Super Bowl odds (what ever value that holds in October).

Just a huge week for these teams, and they’ll play the Chiefs later this season, and the Rams and Seahawks won’t meet until Christmas. But for an early Game of the Year in the NFL, it’s hard to beat 49ers at Seahawks tomorrow at 4:25. Brock Purdy has a chance to make ground in the MVP argument after his hot start, but he’s going up against an elite pass defense that destroyed his offense in the two meetings late last season.

The 49ers will have George Kittle this time after he was injured in the playoffs, and he looks great so far this year. They also have Mike Evans as a new weapon this year, and Deebo Samuel is back and looks fine. Purdy is playing as well as he ever has, and he did beat the Seahawks in Seattle to start last year as Mike Macdonald actually has a far better road record than at home.

But I think the Seahawks can flex that defense again, and I’m not sure the 49ers can stop JSN. The question is whether Darnold can step up under pressure as he hasn’t done a good job at all so far this year. It should be a good one.

On Monday night, can we just get a good game? They’ve all been blowouts so far. These teams met in 2024 and it was a 44-42 final even though the Bills consistently trailed by multiple scores. The Rams have to play a clean offensive game here as Matthew Stafford’s had too many turnovers already, and he’s getting a Buffalo defense that has already given up 29-31 points in three games. They look worse without Sean McDermott on that side of the ball, and the offense has been making plenty of mistakes the last two games after getting away with some reckless plays in the first two weeks.

Stat Oddity will be delayed until Tuesday as I have some work to do tomorrow night, and I want to make sure I cover MNF in it.

NFL Week 5 Predictions

Welp, Dallas had one of its worst losses on TNF against the winless Bucs, who failed to cover the spread in 13 straight games before that upset. Onto the next.

PHI-JAX: It feels like the sky is falling on the Eagles this week with injuries and Lane Johnson retiring. The Jags are used to this London thing. I’d be surprised if they didn’t win by more than a touchdown here.

CIN-MIA: Joe Burrow in his element, beating up a crap pass defense for a Miami team that’s yet to have a lead at any point this season. The wide receivers sound like they’ll both be active too for Burrow. I don’t expect to see him trailing late in this one.

MIN-NO: Someone has to end this Minnesota undefeated charade. I think the Saints have the right stuff to do it with Shough having that ability to shake off a bad half and get things going late. I think the Saints get a GWD.

LV-NE: Lots of injuries for the New England corners but the Raiders lack receivers. Tough call. I’m going to split the difference and take the Raiders ATS, NE ML as I think Cousins can keep this close with the way the Raiders have been scoring. But NE’s win last week should build confidence for Maye and company.

CLE-NYJ: Definitely feels like a game that will shine in the Witching Hour with a close finish between Watson and Geno. But I’m going to go with the Jets to get an interception in back-to-back weeks after getting that drought out of the way, and they’ll find a way to win this one.

IND-PIT: I like the Steelers at home. 10 days of rest for Rodgers, the Colts rank 32nd in pass pressure rate and 32nd in rush yards before contact per attempt, so I think Rodgers and Jaylen Warren play well. T.J. Watt and the defense show up at home against the offense they turned over 6x last season.

HOU-TEN: You know you’re terrible when you’re a 7-point home dog to an 0-4 team. But the Texans have blown 3 4Q leads, and I think they win big here as they’re just the better team on both sides of the ball.

NYG-WAS: Tough call but I’m going to give Washington a bone at home as Jayden Daniels needs to show he can stay healthy and get a big division win in an NFC East that is wide open.

CHI-GB: I remember picking the Bears to beat Washington right after Dick Butkus died, and I got a similar feeling here with Mike Ditka passing this week. I’m not sure if Ben Johnson has any history with him or if the young players even care, but I think Chicago shows out even with Bagent at QB again, I’m playing Colston Loveland for a TD, and I got the Bears winning this one as the Packers have played terrible football.

DEN-LAC: The Chargers are totally banged up again (OL, WR, Derwin James, etc.). Crazy how this happens so often. Look for Sean Payton to rub it in and run it up as Denver gets an easy win.

SF-SEA: Tough call as I do like the offensive juggernaut in the regular season. But I think the Seahawks find a way and win by 4+.

DET-ARI: Potential shootout but the Lions better win a road game here. Already lost at Buffalo and Carolina.

ATL-BAL: Underdogs have been kicking ass in prime time all season, but so have the Falcons the last two weeks. Conventional wisdom says Ravens fold without Lamar, but I think Tyler Huntley makes it competitive and the Falcons win by 1-3 points at the end.

BUF-LAR: I wouldn’t expect 44-42 but it could be. Rams still aren’t going to have Myles Garrett and Aaron Donald together, but I think Sean McVay can scheme up a bunch of big plays against this Buffalo defense, and look out for D.J. Moore’s injury report as his absence could be a notable loss for the Bills if he can’t go. But I’ll take the Rams at home.

2026 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 4

NFL Stat Oddity 2026
~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

With a month of the 2026 NFL season in the books, the last two weeks have really pushed this season into ultra-competitive territory as Week 4 was the second week in a row 12 games had a comeback opportunity in the fourth quarter.

That marks 39 of the first 63 games to have one (61.9%), and that percentage would be the highest season since 2011 if it stood. The last two seasons were both barely over 56% of the games featuring a comeback opportunity.

We’re also on pace for just over 55 double-digit comebacks from any point in the game, which would be a single-season record. We’re on pace for almost 81 blown leads (or comeback wins) in the fourth quarter, which would also be in record territory. Finally, the average margin of victory is 10.1 points, which would be the second lowest in history behind only 2022 (9.8).

It’s a competitive season where we may lack great teams again. That might just be the new norm in today’s sports with injuries playing a big factor. Still, it’s quite wild to see the Texans, Chargers, and Buccaneers all 0-4 despite favorable playoff odds going into the season.

It’s not like they haven’t been competitive:

  • The Texans have blown three fourth-quarter leads while no other team has more than one.
  • The Chargers are the only team that is 0-4 at 4QC/GWD opportunities.
  • The Chargers (0-4), Texans (0-3), and Buccaneers (0-3) are the only three teams who are 0-3 or worse at 4QC/GWD opportunities this season.

Also, I have to point out that Sunday was a particularly nice day for me after the two viral tweets I had last week about Joe Burrow and Josh Allen.

They both were in a position to make me look bad on Sunday, but they just reinforced my stances with Burrow falling to 1-35 when trailing in the final 8:00, and Allen royally blew a game against the Patriots with a game-ending interception he didn’t need to force.

Meanwhile, we start our recaps in Las Vegas in the battle of 3-0 teams with Patrick Mahomes tying another NFL record.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Chiefs at Raiders: Game of the Week

Every once in a while, I can get a game exactly right as I had the Chiefs winning a 30-27 game as they did in the big battle of 3-0 teams.

But it was still a confidence-building game for the Raiders as they hung in there with the Chiefs all day, and while they didn’t win like rookie coach Klint Kubiak predicted at halftime, they didn’t embarrass themselves like the Raiders often did in anything resembling a big game in the Derek Carr era. This team does feel different, and they were feasting on Kansas City’s defense with tight ends with almost no help from their wide receivers.

Maybe the Chiefs need to learn something from that as Sunday was a bit of a pyrrhic victory. They lost Rashee Rice and Tyquan Thornton, their two best wide receivers, though it sounds like Rice could be back after the bye, and Thornton might be able to give it a go if there’s a deep playoff run. But that’s a big problem going forward as you lose the only deep threat who has played so great with Mahomes. Get Tyreek Hill on Line 1.

But the Chiefs also exposed Mahomes to plenty more hits with two backups on the left side of the line after Andy Reid benched Kingsley Suamataia for personal reasons. The result was a game where Mahomes completed just 15-of-30 passes with three throwaways and two sacks. Maxx Crosby had five quarterback hits by himself.

Meanwhile, Kansas City’s defense hasn’t had a sack since the third quarter of Week 1, and they nearly blew an 11-point lead in the final 3:02. The Chiefs winning games this way is similar to 2022 or 2024, but you can’t cover up these flaws in the offensive line, wide receivers, and pass rush against better opponents, which are coming.

Right now, this team is basically succeeding on Mahomes making timely throws and Kenneth Walker breaking tackles on excellent runs because the run blocking just isn’t there. The bye actually comes at a good time to figure out how to adjust going forward.

It’s a nice 4-0 start and the rest of the NFL doesn’t look particularly strong, so you don’t want to waste the opportunity of a potential Super Bowl season here. But I just think the limited WR room combined with trying to do more play-action passing behind this line is not a great combination for keeping Mahomes upright for the long term this year.

Still, he put the team ahead twice in the fourth quarter on Sunday, giving him a 12th multiple game-winning drive (mGWD), tied with Ben Roethlisberger now for the most in NFL history.

Rams at Eagles: Possibly a Season-Saving Comeback

Come January or February, we could be looking back at this game as the turning point of the season. The Rams didn’t have Myles Garrett or Aaron Donald on defense. The Eagles didn’t have Lane Johnson, Dallas Goedert, or DeVonta Smith, and they lost Saquon Barkley early in this one.

Still, the Eagles led 20-10 with the ball at the Rams’ 2 with half a quarter left. They had a chance to put this team down to 1-3, and Nick Sirianni would have been 5-0 against Sean McVay.

And yet the Eagles lost this game at home in a comeback that was in some ways more shocking than the 19-point lead the Eagles erased against the Rams a year ago. The Eagles had two cracks from the 2-yard line to make this a 17-point game, which is exactly why you go for it there instead of kicking the field goal to make it 23-10, or a two-score game staying a two-score game. I don’t fault the decision, I just didn’t care for the play calls as neither worked.

Still, the Rams had 98 yards to go and Matthew Stafford wasn’t sharp on the day. But he hit some big throws, and a penalty helped the Rams get to the red zone where they finished off the 98-yard match with a Kyren Williams touchdown to make it 20-17 with 3:59 left.

The Eagles went three-and-out, which is what plagued them in 2025, and they’re next to last in that category in 2026 despite the coordinator change. Still, you could at least argue the injuries are killing them at the moment, but something is broken with their offensive system.

Stafford got the ball back, drove the team back into the red zone, and they weren’t relying on no stinkin’ kicker again this year. Williams had a brilliant 7-yard touchdown run to put the Rams up 24-20 with 1:10 left.

Hurts immediately took a sack, then another one as the Eagles went four-and-out after an incomplete pass on 4th-and-25. Total collapse by the Eagles while the Rams just saved their season that was slipping away.

Remember this one as the trajectory of these two teams could be heading in opposite directions the rest of the way.

Patriots at Bills: Possibly a Season-Saving Comeback II

September was a rough one for the Patriots, but they could right the ship with an upset in Buffalo, and that’s exactly what they got. It was similar to last year when the 2-2 Patriots were a big underdog in Buffalo, and they pulled off some takeaways and Drake Maye led the first game-winning drive of his NFL career.

On Sunday, I think Maye had the best win of his NFL career too. He did the things I’ve always criticized him for not doing:

  • He led a legitimate 4QC/GWD late in the game that wasn’t just a long touchdown run by his back.
  • He threw 37 passes in the game and only took a single sack to beat a winning team.
  • It’s the first time in Maye’s career he won a game where his defense allowed more than 24 points.

How bad is that Buffalo defense? The Patriots scored 10, 13, and 6 points on offense in the first three games and 29 on the road in this one. Maye’s only interception was a drop and bad deflection by Romeo Doubs, who made up for it later with two touchdowns.

Meanwhile, Josh Allen had been getting away with turnovers earlier this season, and I still think he narrowly avoided a grounding penalty for a safety in the third quarter of this one. But his mistakes caught up to Buffalo in the end of this one.

First, the Bills are absolutely terrible at 2-point conversions these days. After a Keon Coleman touchdown (he played great after D.J. Moore left injured), the Bills had a crucial 2PC to go up 28-21. They failed once again with Allen missing a wide-open tight end and forcing an incomplete pass. Buffalo only led 26-21, opening the door for Maye, who delivered on his 2PC pass to take a 29-26 lead.

Since the 2024 AFC Championship Game, the Bills are 2-of-13 (15.4%) on 2PC plays, including 1-of-10 with Allen attempting the 2PC pass. Now you see why he is the Tush Push guy at the goal line.

Down 29-26, Allen had plenty of time (1:42) to tie or win the game. But on a 2nd-and-6 at his own 40, he forced a deep throw and was intercepted. The Patriots got one first down and ran out the clock.

Huge win for the Patriots, who prevented the AFC East from being somewhat wrapped up by Week 4 for Buffalo, a team that is about to see the schedule get tougher too while New England’s eases up some.

But for Buffalo, you could argue this team is worse than recent years given the defense looks worse without McDermott, and the offense is still quite careless with the ball in big spots, and Joe Brady apparently can’t design 2PC plays, or Allen just can’t hit the throws like the 13-12 Philadelphia loss last year.

September’s over. The Bills need to get better.

Chargers at Seahawks: Probably a Season-Ending Loss

It’s not like I expected the Chargers to win at Seattle, but I thought Justin Herbert could do better than a DeShone Kizer-like stat line for much of the game. He was 5-of-14 for 36 yards and two picks at halftime.

Speaking of Kizer, he was 0-15 as a starter for the 2017 Browns, who finished 0-16. The Chargers have actually lost seven straight games going back to last year, and the offense has never been worse in the Justin Herbert era. In fact, this is probably the worst Chargers offense since the Ryan Leaf era.

Even after the Chargers managed to get this back to a 30-23 game with the ball, Herbert lost it on a fumble to end the game. It also reportedly is the first game in the play-by-play era (since 1977) where the first two plays from scrimmage were an interception from each starting quarterback. Odd.

But what a rough game with both teams registering 13 possessions. I’ll be very curious to see how the Seahawks hold up against the 49ers next week. As for the Chargers, they have the Broncos, Chiefs, and Rams up next, so 0-7 is not out of the question.

Again, the 1992 Chargers are the only team in the Super Bowl era to start 0-4 and make the playoffs. The 2026 Chargers are not the 1992 Chargers.

Cowboys at Texans: Probably a Season-Ending Loss II

The Texans had a great defense in 2024-25, and the vast majority of those starters were active again on Sunday. But for the third time this year, the Texans blew a fourth-quarter lead. No other NFL team has done that more than once this season.

C.J. Stroud has been a lighting rod for criticism, but this loss was not on him. He got Nico Collins back, and that helped big time as Stroud threw for 347 yards, two touchdowns to Nico, and he did it without a good running game (17 carries for 50 yards). He also had a clutch touchdown drive to take the lead with 2:23 left.

But the Cowboys finally sucked it up and had their own clutch drive as Dak Prescott led a 74-yard march for the go-ahead touchdown to CeeDee Lamb with 40 seconds left. Lamb had 17 catches for 189 yards, numbers that seem unfathomable against this defense in 2024-25.

Stroud only had 37 seconds to work with, and his Hail Mary attempt fell incomplete to end the game, dropping Houston to 0-4. It’s been a stunning collapse that is on the defense as much as the offense, if not more so given the hype of this unit and the Nico injury on the other side.

As for the Cowboys, it’s good to see them deliver in a situation like this even if the Texans are going through a rough period that could lead to someone getting fired if this keeps up.

Jaguars at Bengals: Jags Cruise Down Interstate 1-35 for Big Road Win

As I said in this week’s predictions, Jacksonville is the one opponent that Zac Taylor’s Bengals have repeatedly been able to beat in higher-scoring games and in crunch time. Sunday was shaping up to be another one as the Bengals were 21 yards away from pulling off a 12-point comeback all in the final 6:35, which would easily be the best comeback win of Joe Burrow’s career. He’s never won after trailing by more than 7 points in the fourth quarter.

Of course, it may not have been necessary if he didn’t throw a red-zone pick in a 16-10 game with 14:10 left. That was his second pick of the game and lucky it wasn’t a third after a bad one to Travis Hunter was negated by roughing earlier in the game. Penalties were massive in this one as both teams combined for 24 penalties for 233 yards.

But with Ja’Marr Chase knocked out with a concussion, Burrow had a chance to be the hero in a game he threw the ball 54 times for 428 yards. A game where his running backs had 12 carries for 17 yards. This was all on him.

And he blew it again by coming up short. After three good throws to start the drive, Burrow couldn’t get the Bengals any closer from the 21. He had a miscommunication on second down with a possible touchdown to Mike Gesicki, then he threw it short on 4th-and-10 to Chase Brown, who only got 9-of-10 yards to end the game. No dagger throw to put the team on top in the final minute again.

After the game, Burrow’s answer to the lack of balance was throwing it more. I didn’t hear him say they need to do whatever it takes to score more than 17 points as the defense, while not perfect, did hold a red-hot Jacksonville team to 22, only the second time in nearly a year that the Jaguars didn’t reach 23 points. Parker Washington had just a single catch for 7 yards and Lawrence was sacked four times.

But the Bengals (2-2) came up short again in the exact situation I point to them doing so with Burrow, who is now 1-35 when trailing in the final 8:00, a stat he was asked about this week. He had a chance to immediately fire back with his best comeback ever, and the end result was another loss.

Lions at Panthers: The Bryce Young Breakout Season or Detroit’s Defense Is Actually Horrible?

Are we truly witnessing the Bryce Young Year 4 breakout season for the No. 1 overall pick? He leads the NFL in passing yards (1,268) as no quarterback has thrown more passes (162), but he’s also averaging 7.8 yards per pass, a full 1.5 yards above his previous seasons.

He looked great on Sunday night against Detroit, and while the Lions are a contender for the worst defense right now, the fact is Young has been fairly consistent this year. He’s not just relying on fourth-quarter heroics anymore either. Getting Tetairoa McMillan has really worked out for him as the two had their best game together on SNF.

Meanwhile, the Lions have allowed the most points and yards on defense, and the offense hasn’t been great enough to win more than two of the games. They still have just one turnover in four games, so that hasn’t been the problem for Jared Goff yet. They just have to be close to perfect and can’t really settle for field goals or failing on fourth downs.

That happened a bit too much last night, and the last drive in particular with two minutes to go get a winning touchdown in a 32-26 game was absolutely abysmal.

Something just feels a little off about the Detroit offense right now. They have five capable weapons to throw to, though the running back depth is gone without David Montgomery there anymore. They are only 14th at converting third downs too, which you can stomach a little since Dan Campbell is more likely to go on fourth down. But the exact level of precision they need to overcome a bottom-ranked defense just isn’t there yet, so I think you’ll continue to see them struggle in such games.

The good news is Detroit doesn’t have a daunting road schedule left with games at Arizona, Miami, Atlanta, Minnesota, Chicago, and Green Bay.

Packers at Buccaneers: Still Not Trusting the Packers

Again, we’ve seen the Packers lose to Tommy DeVito and the Giants in 2023, so nothing would have surprised me here against undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels and the struggling Buccaneers.

The Packers did fail to cover the spread (-3.5) thanks to some fourth-quarter blunders, including a deep red-zone fumble by Kaleb Johnson, and Jordan Love had another boneheaded interception late in the game in Tampa territory.

That gave Daniels a chance to be the hero with 4:18 left from his own 15. His passing in the game wasn’t good as expected, but he rushed for 55 yards and showed decent mobility. He only needed a field goal to tie. But a sack shortly after the two-minute warning killed the drive, and they just pressured him on 4th-and-11 to get home with more pressure that led to a meaningless interception as the ball was going back to Green Bay either way.

Tough way to start 0-4 for Tampa Bay, but the Packers don’t look that much better if we’re being honest.

Jets at Bears: Ben Johnson’s Laboratory

Ben Johnson is a wild one because he actually started the game with Case Keenum at quarterback and Tyson Bagnet on the field too, split wide. I think that should actually give Keenum credit for the win since he took the first snap at quarterback and handed off. But Bagent ended up throwing every pass in the game.

He did throw one interception that counted, ending the improbable 20-game streak without a pick for Aaron Glenn’s defense. Bagent also had three other picks negated by penalties, which is unfathomable for one game. Maybe the Jets are going to start getting huge positive regression in that category? Just need to stay onsides and stop committing penalties.

But the story of this game was the snap count. The Jets were doing a great job of hogging the ball early in the season, but the Bears had more first downs (34) than the Jets had plays (32) in this game, reportedly only the second time in the Super Bowl era this happened. Just pure domination as the Jets were 0-for-7 on third down and had 7 first downs in the game.

The Bears can run, they can win with three different quarterbacks, and the defense has really picked it up after an awful Week 1 (again, Carolina might just be good now on offense).

Chicago is looking like the real deal this year.

Cardinals at Giants: A Walk-off to Remember

I had the Giants winning as a home underdog, which made me a little surprised the spread was even in Arizona’s favor. But after an early 14-3 lead for the road team, I started wondering if that NFC West superiority was a real thing this season.

Fortunately, a game with Jacoby Brissett and Jameis Winston played out as you expected with fun touchdowns and turnovers loading up the stat sheets. It was a 27-24 game going into the fourth quarter before the scoring slowed down dramatically.

The Giants kicked a 52-yard field goal with 2:11 left to take the dreaded 6-point lead. I’ve never been a fan of that, but I’m not sure what you really can do on 4th-and-5 at the opponent 34. Kinda too close to take a delay of game and punt. A little too far to still want to go for it as a couple of first downs and the opponent is in field goal range.

Given Brissett’s historically-bad record at comebacks (6-27 record) and the fact that Arizona still had two clock stoppages, going up 30-24 was probably the right call. But that drive got to the 4-yard line, giving Brissett four cracks at it. He went to Trey McBride just once and Michael Wilson three times, but the last one was picked off and the Giants took it 98 yards to rub it in with the 12-point win. You’d prefer to just see the player take a slide and end the game instead of risking a fumbled return or whatever, but sometimes scoring is okay too with no time left. It didn’t affect the spread either way.

But man, with 4 yards to go, wouldn’t that be a nice spot to have a trustworthy receiver with a heigh advantage like Marvin Harrison Jr.? They got him a 12-yard touchdown early in the game, and he drew a pass interference flag that got them to the 4 in the first place. But nothing to him with the game on the line.

Titans at Ravens: Not Again, Lamar  

It’s funny how once Lamar Jackson went out with an injury, the RedZone channel basically forgot this game existed. I can understand that too. It was 24-7 at halftime and there wasn’t another touchdown scored until the Titans got one with 1:12 left to make it 24-18. But not enough time for anything but an onside kick, which failed.

Tyler Loop made a 64-yard field goal to end the half but also missed a 40-yard kick with 3:19 left that would have put it out to a 3-score lead. He’s a work in progress. The Titans are always a work in progress as Cam Ward and the offense have done so little this year.

But all eyes are on Jackson as he took a huge hit in this game at the sideline that you normally don’t see, then he left the game after getting injured on a sack right before the 64-yard field goal. Not good. Not this again as we wait to see if he’ll be active next Sunday night.

Commanders vs. Colts: The London Tradition

I remember a 2008 game in London where the Saints and Chargers played a 37-32 shootout and it was great. But the teams involved had a lot to do with it, and since then, the NFL loves sending teams like the Jaguars (usually bad) and teams with Marcus Mariota at quarterback overseas.

That’s why the games are usually low scoring and ugly to watch, which is why I tend to sleep in during the first 2-3 quarters and catch the ending. But I just so happened to be up early on Sunday, and I watched the whole game. If you like defense (great tackling, pressure on the quarterback), Colts-Commanders was a great game. If not, then it was skippable.

I really think my pick of Washington had some hope if Mariota didn’t get injured early. He was 3-of-4 for 46 yards and his 35-yard run finished as the team’s leading rusher. Rookie Athan Kaliakmanis (Christ, what a name) had to step in, and he threw some fearless deep balls that hit, but overall, he wasn’t going to get the job done.

Daniel Jones looked pretty bad, but the Colts got enough on the ground from Jonathan Taylor and company to eventually score 30 points and get the win. But I don’t see much playoff hope for either squad.

Dolphins at Vikings: It’s Not a Bad Beat

The Vikings improved to 4-0 even though the offense settled for five field goals and didn’t score any touchdowns for the second time this season. But tight end T.J. Hockenson, who caught all 13 of his targets, started a shitstorm when he slid down at the Miami 2 with a 15-10 lead as the clock moved to the two-minute warning. With the Dolphins out of timeouts, this game was over with three kneeldowns.

This is the right football play every single time. The game is over and you literally can’t lose unless you fumble the snap on a kneeldown. Yet, whether it’s people with Hockenson in fantasy or props, or it’s people who took the sucker line of Vikings -10 (without Jefferson? Really? I told you on Saturday it was Miami ATS all the way), they seem to think Hockenson should score a meaningless touchdown.

Open the schools if people don’t see why he did that, something many players have done over the years (Brian Westbrook in 2007, Peyton Manning in 2010, etc.). It doesn’t mean the game is rigged; it means you don’t understand strategy. Why risk more snaps when your players can get injured on any given one of them? The game was over.

Broncos at 49ers: The Way You Handle Bo Nix in the Fourth Quarter

Lots of long drives with punts and field goal attempts kept this to a 10-3 score going into the fourth quarter. That’s generally not when you want to see Bo Nix with the ball as he tends to turn into Joe Montana after looking like Cade McNown for the first three quarters.

But the 49ers handled him the best way you could by simply staying ahead of the scoreboard. The Broncos decided to kick a 40-yard field goal on 4th-and-2, and they trailed 10-6. Brock Purdy engineered a touchdown drive, which Nix answered with a touchdown and 2-point conversion to keep the heat on at 17-14 with plenty of time left (4:05) to get the ball back.

I’ve been working on game-sealing drive data, and while this wouldn’t count as one, it was perfection in the four-minute offense by the 49ers as a well-timed and schemed tight end screen to George Kittle broke for a 56-yard touchdown, and the 49ers were back up 10 points with 2:25 to play.

That’s already the second time this year the Broncos allowed a huge YAC play (50+ yards) to an “old” tight end after Travis Kelce got them in Week 1. If it wasn’t for what Patrick Mahomes is doing off an ACL, I think Kittle would be the favorite to win Comeback Player of the Year. He looks great after an Achilles in the playoffs.

The Broncos only had enough time left for a missed 58-yard field goal with 1:14 left. They would have needed an onside kick anyway. So, that’s one way to prevent a Bo Nix comeback. Just get one stop and keep scoring.

Next Week

Not a great start with Bucs-Cowboys on Thursday night. Eagles against the London Jaguars on Sunday morning is a big one for Philly to stop this slide, which isn’t looking likely. Jacksonville looks legit. Hard to believe Packers-Bears is losing luster because of how Green Bay is playing and not how the Bears are doing with BACKUP quarterbacks.

Pretty weak 1 PM slate when Raiders-Patriots might be the top game. Only three games in the late afternoon but 49ers-Seahawks is clearly the game of the week, if not the top game in the first five weeks of the season. We’ll see on SNF if Lamar Jackson can play in Atlanta. Bills at Rams is very interesting for MNF.

NFL 2026 Week 4 Predictions: Judgment Day Edition

~ Scott ~ 2 Comments

The calendar has moved to October, so we’re already at Week 4 in this NFL season. This is when shit gets real as some of these teams with poor starts could effectively be an afterthought tomorrow night if they fall to 0-4. We’re looking at the Chargers and Texans more than anyone, and don’t forget the Buccaneers are also 0-3 with a rookie quarterback (Jalon Daniels) about to start.

The only team in the Super Bowl era to start 0-4 and still make the playoffs was the 1992 San Diego Chargers, who turned an 0-4 start into an 11-5 finish and even won a playoff game. Maybe things are different now with 17 games and a third wild card spot, but 0-4 is a huge hole to dig from, and those teams have their hands full tomorrow with the Chargers facing Seattle off a loss, and the Texans have to outscore Dallas.

But you also get some huge divisional games as the Chiefs and Raiders battle for first place, the first time both teams were ever 3-0 when meeting in that rivalry dating back to 1960. If you argue no game with Derek Carr was ever truly a big game, then this is the biggest game for the Raiders since Super Bowl 37. A chance for the Raiders to show they’re legit as 84.7% (111 of 131) teams to start 4-0 since 1978 made the playoffs that year. Also a chance for the Chiefs to showcase they’re back to being the Super Bowl contender in the AFC. Not ‘a’ contender; the contender as they need to play smart and avoid the stupid mistakes they had in road losses last year like Jacksonville and Dallas.

Patriots vs. Bills is another division game where you damn near could see Buffalo mentally wrap up the division by Week 4 if they drop the Patriots to 1-3 here. That’d be a huge early lead in reclaiming the AFC East. Another tough opponent for The Schedule as the league really juiced up the first four games for New England this year. I’d argue they played more tough games in Weeks 1-4 than all of the 2025 regular season. Or at least an equal number.

You also have the Rams taking on the Eagles, and Sean McVay is 0-4 against Nick Sirianni. For shame. But there’s a lot of big-name injuries with that game, and one of those teams is about to start a losing streak after both were favored to win their divisions this year. The Rams are even in danger of starting 1-3 while the Browns are 3-1 after trading them Myles Garrett.

Crazy ass league. But it’s still early, though Sunday is getting late early for some of these teams who really need a win.

NFL Week 4 Predictions

JFC, Week 3 might have been my worst picks of all time as I was 2-14 ATS. I know 7-9 SU isn’t my worst week, but in a week where most games were close in the fourth quarter, I just kept coming out on the wrong side of things. But after picking Cleveland to win outright on Thursday, I’m already halfway to as many spread picks correct in Week 4.

2026 NFL Week 4 Predictions

IND-WAS: I can’t see myself getting up earlier than 11:30 AM for this one. But I think the Commanders always play well with Marcus Mariota for some reason, and they should feel energized after upsetting the Seahawks last week. I think they’ll get after Daniel Jones enough in this one to pull it out for the win.

TEN-BAL: Derrick Henry against his former team? Should be a good day for him. The Ravens need a blowout victory, and the Titans are the right kind of team to do it against as I just don’t see Cam Ward being able to keep up.

NYJ-CHI: Do teams really need to stick to the depth chart when it’s QB2 vs. QB3? I know you need to protect the ego of QB1, but I’m not sure when it comes to deciding between backups that you don’t just give Case Keenum another start after what he did on Monday night. But I was curious to see Tyson Bagent in Ben Johnson’s offense, and we’ll see if he can avoid being the QB who actually throws a pick to Aaron Glenn’s defense. But I think this could be a nail-biter. I’m still going to trust Johnson and the weapons for the Bears to score enough to cover even if it’s like a 24-20 final.

GB-TB: You never know what the rookie backup QB will do, and we’ve seen the Packers lose to Tommy DeVito before in prime time. But I’m still going to trust the Packers, with extra days off, to win this one against a Tampa Bay team that’s just been bad. I like Jalon Daniels to score a rushing TD though.

JAX-CIN: It wasn’t until Friday morning that I realized this game is in Cincy instead of Jacksonville. I’d probably take the Jags at home, but I think the Bengals get this one as they’re 4-0 against the Jaguars since 2020, and every game saw both teams score 20+ points. Don’t even be surprised if Joe Burrow improves his record to 2-34 when trailing in the final 8:00 as the Jaguars are one of the only teams that Zac Taylor’s crew, including games with Jake Browning at QB in 2023 and 2025, come through in the clutch for. I think Liam Coen’s offense can expose some things the Steelers did last week with this CIN D, but I still have some reservations about Trevor Lawrence in crunch time on the road.

NE-BUF: Might be an upset spot but the Patriots have some big defensive injuries, including Christian Gonzalez, and A.J. Brown is still out on offense. Could be a spot for TreVeyon Henderson to break one as he got the Bills twice for long touchdowns last year. But I still don’t trust the Patriots and the way they’re playing right now, so I’d pick the Bills to win by 7+ points.

ARI-NYG: The Cardinals haven’t shown a ton since beating the Chargers in Week 1. I think Harbaugh’s defense could succeed against a stationary Brissett, and I like Jameis to put up bigger numbers this week. I’ll take the Giants SU as the home dog.

DAL-HOU: I originally picked Dallas to win, but I see Nico Collins is back, and he changes the offense for Stroud, and he still gets a vulnerable Dallas defense. Out of desperation, the Texans find a way to get a win here.

LAR-PHI: It’s not good that it’s Week 4 and the Rams won’t have Aaron Donald or Myles Garrett against the team they haven’t been able to beat, and the team they blew a 19-point lead against last year. But when you swap Puka Nacua in for the Rams and DeVonta Smith OUT for the Eagles, I think that makes up the difference this time. I’ll take the Rams as I think they’ve shown flashes of great football while the Eagles struggled with the Titans and looked really bad against Case Keenum and the Bears on Monday.

MIA-MIN: Crazy 10.5-point spread when Justin Jefferson is out and the Vikings are getting so little out of the QB position. But I guess the Dolphins have been that bad even though they played the 49ers and Chiefs tough for 2-3 quarters before losing big. Still, I’m absolutely taking Miami to cover, and if I was the OC, I’d anticipate Brian Flores blitzing and counter with some designed runs and draws for Malik Willis. I’m playing his rushing props in this one (nothing else though).

LAC-SEA: Honestly, who knows? The Chargers blew a game in Buffalo despite 5 takeaways, and were dog shit at home to the Cards and Raiders. The Seahawks had that 10-point comeback against New England with Drew Lock, but they lost to Washington with Darnold back. I’m just going to trust the better defense and the home team to get it done. JSN is on fire too.

DEN-SF: Bo Nix vs. a Shanahan team in a close game? Not ideal, but I think the 49ers are playing elite offense and will either put it out of reach, or Purdy will come through late and they win this one by 3+. Decent game.

KC-LV: I keep bringing up 2025 Jacksonville and Dallas for the Chiefs, but I think this one plays out more like 2024 Carolina where they establish they’re the better team early. But the Raiders with Bowers back find enough holes on the defense to tie it late behind Cousins, and Mahomes has to go get a walk-off FG in maybe his favorite stadium to play. Chiefs win 30-27, a classic KC win without a cover.

DET-CAR: All the great games this week and they picked this one for SNF? Could easily see some Bryce Young magic in the 4Q, but I’m going with the Lions by a FG. Corners out for Carolina is too much to overcome in the end.

NO-ATL: I really think the winner of this game could go on to win the NFC South. I like some of what the Saints do with Shough, but I still like the talent around Penix more, and I trust Stefanski a little more than Kellen Moore at the moment. Tough atmosphere in the Superdome, but I’m going with Atlanta.

2026 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 3

NFL Stat Oddity 2026
~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

The 2026 NFL season was running low on close games with just 15-of-33 games presenting a game-winning drive opportunity to start the year. But Sunday changed that with 12 such games, and we saw nine game-winning drives after 10 in Weeks 1-2 combined. It was one of the most competitive days in NFL history, and the only surprise is none of the games reached overtime.

But despite 10 new head coaches and 21 new offensive coordinators, it’s surprising how little positive change we’ve seen around the NFL from last year.

Sure, the Patriots looking much worse against a tough September schedule isn’t a surprise. The Chargers, Texans, and Buccaneers are all 0-3 and playing poorly. But a lot of teams look like the teams we saw last year:

  • The Broncos are still relying on huge second-half comebacks while the Rams blew their third 16-point lead since 2025.
  • The Bengals are now 1-34 with Joe Burrow at quarterback when trailing in the final 8:00, and the Steelers had the Tomlin Special with an unexpected clutch win as a home underdog after the defense came up with the strip-sack.
  • The 49ers are piling up injuries and wins at the same time.
  • Jacoby Brissett is putting up passing volume and losses for Arizona at the same time.
  • Detroit needs to score 31 points to have a chance to win with their one-man defense (Aidan Hutchinson).
  • Geno Smith has improved the Jets’ offense, but he can’t help Aaron Glenn’s defense get a single interception (20 games and counting).
  • The Bills can still drop five turnovers at random, and Chargering is still on brand.
  • Kyler Murray hasn’t been efficient as the Vikings rely on improbable wins (par for the course for KOC).
  • The Cowboys and Ravens kept the win probability charting jumping in the fourth quarter, a reminder you can’t trust either team in big games.
  • No second-year quarterback magic to turn a team around after Jaxon Dart had a season-ending injury for the Giants, Cam Ward actually looks worse instead of better in Tennessee, and Tyler Shough can’t seem to play a 60-minute game for the Saints.

At this point, the 3-0 Raiders and 2-1 Browns might actually be the teams that shock the NFL world with their rookie coaches and different veteran quarterbacks taking over. But they’ll play their arch rivals in the Chiefs and Steelers in Week 4, so we’ll see just how real that change is and how much is playing opponents who haven’t actually changed much from 2025.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Bengals at Steelers: Game of the Week

I usually have a solid read on Steelers-Bengals game but not this time. I thought Aaron Rodgers was going to have to throw it 40+ times in a one-dimensional offense that had shown zero ability to run the ball, and they’d have to do it against a new-look Cincinnati defense that was stopping the run (149 yards allowed in two games) without Rico Dowdle, and Jaylen Warren was reportedly banged up in practice late in the week.

However, right from the first drive,  you could see Rodgers was dialed in and determined to shred a defense he attacked relentlessly in Cincinnati last year in the Unc Bowl. Rodgers was sharp, they moved the pocket for him so he wasn’t a sitting duck all day, and the receivers had fewer mistakes with drops this week.

Rodgers threw two touchdowns in the first quarter, breaking an embarrassing streak as the Steelers finally scored more than 7 points in an opening quarter. Their 72-game drought of not doing that was the longest (playoffs included) in the NFL since 1940.

And yet, it almost didn’t matter that Rodgers doubled the number of offensive touchdown drives this team had in Weeks 1-2 in one quarter, because the defense wasn’t showing up this week. T.J. Watt wasn’t getting his pressures, and the Bengals were slicing and dicing through a secondary that still didn’t have corner Joey Porter Jr. That led to a lot of free releases for Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase as Joe Burrow completed his first 14 passes, and he even got a touchdown to Higgins while Higgins’ ass was going to the ground.

Roman Wilson did tip a Rodgers completion into an interception before halftime, and that was a big swing as the Bengals used that to get a game-tying touchdown drive to make it 17-17 at the break. The Bengals had their blunders on special teams with a roughing the punter and muffed punt, which led to more scores from the Steelers.

Tied at 27, Jaylen Warren had an 87-yard run negated by a holding penalty from D.K. Metcalf, who did a better job of minimizing his mistakes this week, but that penalty could have been a huge one. Speaking of huge, tight end Darnell Washington proved once again why it’s coaching malpractice that he doesn’t get more targets after his 47-yard YAC-filled stomping of the Cincinnati defense.

Warren should have had a 32-yard touchdown run to take the lead on the next snap, but he stumbled and fell, possibly winded from the 87-yard run that didn’t count earlier. In the end, that cost the Steelers 4 points as they couldn’t get the touchdown, but it did at least help burn over three full minutes off the clock.

Still, the Bengals were only down 30-27 and had plenty of time (2:08) from their own 30. But this has always been the test for Burrow and the Bengals, and sure enough, it was another failure as they looked out of sorts right from the start, needing to burn a timeout before the first snap from scrimmage on the drive as their process wasn’t ready to get the play in.

While Chase made a nice move to get 17 yards into Pittsburgh territory, the drive again went haywire out of the two-minute warning after Burrow threw a late checkdown to Chase Brown that lost 4 yards and 35 seconds on the clock. While Chase converted the 3rd-and-8 to the Pittsburgh 38, the drive was about to implode just as CBS announcer Ian Eagle said Burrow’s “had a flair for the dramatic” in his young career.

Derrick Harmon was the one this time with the pursuit of Burrow, who initially got away only to cough up the ball instead of protecting it on first down. The Steelers got the recovery with 44 seconds left and that’s all she wrote on this one. Steelers get the 30-27 win in exactly the kind of game the Bengals never seem to win with Burrow at quarterback.

Burrow is now 1-34 when trailing in the final 8:00 in his NFL career. The only win was in 2022 at New Orleans. Zac Taylor is now 2-18 (.100) when the Bengals allow 28+ points with Burrow at quarterback and 3-9 (.250) in such games without Burrow. Why do you have the most expensive QB-WR-WR trio in NFL history if they always lose this kind of shootout?

I have covered this for years, including this summer in my Cincinnati preview. The people who try to claim the stat is fake news are just angry that it’s undeniably true:

  • While Burrow is 6-21 (.222) at all opportunities when he’s trailed by one score in the fourth quarter or overtime, five of those six wins saw him take the lead for good before the 8:00 mark. Only the 2022 Saints game came later in the game.
  • If you study front-runner quarterbacks, which has included the likes of Len Dawson, Bart Starr, Kurt Warner, Cam Newton, and Aaron Rodgers in the past, you’ll find an uncanny correlation that not only do they tend to have fewer 4QC victories than their peers, but the quality of their successes are usually weaker (i.e. smaller deficits, performed earlier in the quarter instead of later, and usually against lesser opponents).
  • So, instead of using 7:30 to signify the last half of the fourth quarter, we can just round it to 8:00 because the stat is still 100% true. Burrow has one such win in his NFL career.
  • As for the other side of the record, Burrow has lost 36 games including the playoffs. He’s left two losses early before the fourth quarter even started (2020 Washington when he tore his ACL, 2023 Baltimore when he was injured on TNF), so we remove those two games, and that’s how you end up with 1-34.

It’s a horrific record for someone who is supposed to be a top quarterback. Patrick Mahomes is 17-35 (.327) in the same situation. Lamar Jackson is now 11-33 (.250) after starting 1-1 this season. Josh Allen is 15-42 (.263) after starting 2-0 this season.

This is who Burrow has been, and in his first opportunity to turn things around in an important AFC North game, he had one of his worst blunder drives yet.

Meanwhile, Rodgers becomes the 13th quarterback with 40 game-winning drives. It took him the most games (290), four more than Brett Favre needed, as they stand out as outliers here (fittingly).

NFL Quarterbacks - 40 Game-Winning Drives

But in a battle of two of the all-time frontrunners, Rodgers showed he’s still got something in that arm as long as his guys are catching the ball for him. Burrow’s still got some growth to do as he continues to come up short in these situations.

Tale as old as time…

Rams at Broncos: Is It Still 2025?

I wish I had more to say about this one, but you likely saw it play out on SNF with 40 points in the last 1.5 quarters after the Rams were seemingly in control with a 16-0 lead. But when you’re playing Denver, that’s not the end of the game anymore as Bo Nix just seems to wake up when he’s down in the second half.

This game was certainly in his 2025 wheelbarrow, but with Matthew Stafford throwing 55 passes and Nix throwing 34, you’d think the roles were reversed on who was up 16-0. But the Rams threw this one away in similar fashion to their blown leads of 16 and 19 to the Eagles and Seahawks last year on the road too.

Nix threw a bad pick that led to a Rams’ field goal, but then Stafford threw an ugly pick-six (his 33rd; the most in NFL history) that gave the Broncos a 23-19 lead. Stafford answered right back with big throws for 78 yards on three completions to Mumpfield, who was filling in with Puka Nacua out again.

But the Broncos had one more moment of controversy in them with Pat Bryant selling what looked like a game-changing interception in the red zone with 1:09 left. It sure looked like a pick after the receiver cared more about embellishing contact to get a flag than he did actually trying to catch the ball. That was one of the worst calls I saw all Sunday and would not have threw a flag there.

With new life, the Broncos found the end zone eventually with Nix doing the old Brees/Stafford sneak of sticking the ball out before pulling it back quickly. Down 30-26 with just 0:42 left, Stafford did a nice job of driving the ball to the 14 with a chance to win. But I’m not sure what Stafford thought he saw on the final play as the pass was easily intercepted, and Denver held on for the 30-26 comeback win to drop the Rams to 1-2.

The usual caveats: Puka Nacua and Myles Garrett were out. Pretty big deal when you’re talking about the receiver who always gets open and the reigning DPOY. Aaron Donald also isn’t fully back after two years off, and maybe he never gets back on track as an elite player. But he’s still not going to be 100% after two games.

We can’t really call the Rams a superteam if they’ve never put their best players on the field in the same game. However, those new additions at corner were supposed to fix a leaky secondary that hurt them in spots last year, and that was not the case in this game as Nix came alive with his receivers in the second half.

At least the special teams weren’t horrific for the Rams this time. But this was such a 2025 loss for the Rams and such a 2025 win for the Broncos, who got a whopping 10 yards on 7 targets out of Jaylen Waddle, who has been a bust in 2-of-3 games so far.

It’s early, but these teams still seem to be playing that volatile level of ball that could easily implode on them in a big game against a competent opponent.

Ravens at Cowboys: Brazil Gets the Full NFL Experience (Minus Overtime)

The field seemed to hold up fine in Brazil, though the game was fairly defensive for 2.5 quarters before things started to open up more. The Ravens didn’t ignore Derrick Henry in the second half this week, though they may have wished they had gone away from him on a 4th-and-goal from the 1 where he was stuffed for a 3-yard loss with the Ravens up 24-21.

The Cowboys actually turned that into a 96-yard touchdown drive to take the lead, then stuffed Henry again on 3rd-and-1 for a quick three-and-out. That’s when it felt like maybe this day would be different for the predictable Cowboys, who usually lose such a game. But then the offense went three-and-out, and Jackson drove the Ravens 64 yards for the go-ahead touchdown with 1:30 left.

Dak Prescott had the Cowboys driving again, though I think the DPI penalty on Nate Wiggins in coverage with CeeDee Lamb was a terrible call. That’s either OPI, something on both, or let them play and don’t flag anything. They picked the fourth and worst option.

But Dallas did not embrace the moment of the gift. You get first-and-goal at the 2 with one timeout left, you have to get that TD. Settling for the game-tying field goal is not great. Let’s win this now. But the Cowboys didn’t call great plays, they had a big false start penalty, and Prescott just threw the ball away on third down as he was allegedly directed to even though George Pickens appeared wide open in the end zone. Dak just threw it away over him.

I get the sense of caution down there, especially for the new overtime rules that make it fairer. But you have to try to get the touchdown, and I think Dallas missed a big opportunity there. They scored with 7 seconds left, then more mistakes happened.

First, I think the touchback at the 35 is a horrible rule. I know we’re never going back to the 20-yard line as was the standard in the 2000s. I could live with the 30-yard line after a touchback too if it means a few more kick returns. But the 35 is just absurd as you can now complete one pass and suddenly you’re in makeable field-goal range with the way the kickers are these days.

That’s what happened again too. Just when you thought we’d get overtime, the Cowboys kicked it deep, and that’s probably the worst time for Aubrey to have a big leg as it didn’t burn any clock and it put the ball at the Baltimore 35. Lamar Jackson threw a deep pass to Zay Flowers for 27 yards, and they got done with 0:01 left before using that final timeout. The kind of drive you don’t probably get if Flowers was inactive as you’re not trusting Rashod Bateman in that spot.

Can you trust second-year kicker Tyler Loop? A bit easier than his Week 18 gag in Pittsburgh as the playoffs weren’t literally on the line this time. If he missed, the game would have just gone to overtime. That’s why I think it’s a big confidence builder to see him make that one from 56 yards out to lift the Ravens to a 36-30 win.

It wasn’t the prettiest way to get there, but the Ravens didn’t blow another one. But if that ball was 5 yards further back, then you’re looking at a 61-yard field goal. That feels fairer than the 35 and a 27-yard pass getting you right not 56-yard range. Just my pet peeve and something I hope the league reconsiders.

Chargers at Bills: I Think I’m Out on Justin Herbert

As much as I wanted to slot Justin Herbert into the Dan Marino/early Peyton Manning/Drew Brees “Savior” archetype of great quarterbacks, he’s just not that guy anymore. Maybe he never was as his best years were his first two COVID-era years in 2020-21, and the Chargers wasted that potential.

Since then, it’s been a slow decline that we blamed on the turnover of his receivers and offensive line injuries. But in a situation that was supposed to open up the offense this year, Herbert has never been worse on the deep balls, and his decision making looks like that of a guy who is studying Madison Beer instead of his next opponent.

Even with his defense giving him five turnovers (sound familiar?), Herbert lost in Buffalo after throwing this fourth-quarter pick with a chance to add to the lead he did little to build in the first place:

The Bills were having their annual meltdown game with turnovers a bit earlier than usual, and yet Herbert couldn’t take much advantage as the Chargers had no touchdowns on their final 10 drives after starting the game with a 47-yard march after a James Cook fumble.

Josh Allen had the kind of 3-turnover game that reminds you why he’s never been a first-team All-Pro, but he got two more of his 1-yard push touchdowns to pad his total on the year. That was enough combined with a good running game from Cook (154 yards) to close the Chargers with the defense stepping up when it needed to again.

But I don’t actually buy that the Bills won a game they usually lose. They won a game the Chargers always lose. That’s just the truth. Now 0-3, it’s a matter of seeing how bad things can get for Harbaugh and Herbert.

Texans at Colts: Stroud Burnt By the Sun

An AFC South battle to determine who would get a win and who would fall to 0-3. In the end, the Texans took their lumps on the road, burning out in the awful sun-spotted Lucas Oil Stadium after giving up a late lead to Daniel Jones on a game-winning drive after C.J. Stroud had given his team a 17-16 lead with 1:48 left.

For all the hype about Houston’s defense, 2026 just hasn’t been their year. While they did force three takeaways in this game, they couldn’t stop the Colts from using most of the clock on the go-ahead field goal, leaving Stroud with just 11 seconds and no timeouts left to answer. His Hail Mary came up short, and for the second year in a row, the Texans are 0-3.

They obviously rebounded to make the playoffs just as they did from an 0-3 start in 2018 under a different regime. But this is unlikely to happen again, and with Nico Collins out, Stroud just doesn’t have his best weapon and he’s struggling to elevate the remaining receivers.

If Stroud really did turn down a deal worth over $50M, it’s going to probably be a big mistake as his value continues to drop each week while this team keeps losing. As for the Colts, I’m not sure it’s a win to get them on the right path to anywhere meaningful, but it’s good to get a win and avoid 0-3.

Chiefs at Dolphins: Vintage 2021 Chiefs Performance

The Chiefs have to be doing something right if they’re winning by 14 points on the road without playing even a B-game in my view. But the Dolphins being such a weak roster helped with that, and yet this was still a 17-10 game in the fourth quarter as the Chiefs looked like a vintage version of their flawed 2021 selves:

  • Rashee Rice tipped a pass into an interception after Patrick Mahomes hit his first 11 throws.
  • Kenneth Walker is breaking a ton of tackles because the run blocking isn’t good and he’s being met in the backfield often; the Dolphins have defended the run well this year (their only good unit, arguably) and they stuffed the Chiefs several times to keep this close for a while.
  • The Chiefs look like they’re back to a team where Mahomes and Kelce are carrying the load even though Kelce was only targeted on the first play (48 yards) and one of the last for a touchdown to put it away.
  • Mahomes was 20-of-24 with a throwaway and drop despite solid pressure in his face from the Dolphins.
  • Penalties on the offensive line made some drives harder than it used to be (redundant).

It’s a 24-10 win nonetheless, but it still feels a little disappointing given the way they started hot with two touchdown drives on offense. As for the controversial roughing the passer penalty, it’s a moot point. It only got attention because it benefitted the Chiefs even though the dreaded “body weight” rule for roughing has been in place since 2018 and we’ve already seen it applied in other games this year, including Vikings vs. Packers (the original inspiration for it) in Week 1.

Besides, there was a flag for defensive holding on Miami picked up on that play, so it was a first down either way for the Chiefs. I’m more worried that Rice dropped the ball on that play too, though he at least made up for some of his mistakes with 7 catches for 88 yards on the day.

The Chiefs are using more play-action, so that is a positive change for the offense. But if Mahomes and Kelce aren’t playing at a high level, what exactly is this team right now? Guess we’ll find out soon with tougher games to come.

Jets at Lions: The Mentee Can’t Intercept His Mentor

Geno Smith has definitely energized the offense for the Jets, and he’s no stranger to playing shootouts with the Lions in Detroit as he did with Seattle for a few years in a row recently. He threw for 321 yards on 31-of-37 passing in this one, and yet it wasn’t even enough to get to overtime as the Lions held on for the 31-24 win.

Without a running game to support him, Smith put on a good effort to bring the Jets back to a tie before the defense gave up another touchdown drive. Trying to answer, the fifth and final sack of the day forced Smith to cough up the ball with 45 seconds left to end the threat.

But the story here is Aaron Glenn’s New York defense has now gone 20 games without an interception. Since 1940, the only other streaks longer than 10 games belong to the 2024 Giants (11 games) and 2024-25 49ers (14 games). This kind of drought is more possible in today’s game with relatively fewer picks overall, but it’s astonishing that any defense can go 20 games without a pick.

Pure dumb luck should get you one on a fortunate bounce like we see in the NFL every week. I thought Goff would give them one against his team’s former defensive coordinator, but he hasn’t thrown any yet this season.

The Jets will give it another shot in Chicago next week against some kind of backup quarterback with Caleb Williams out 3-4 weeks. At least the offense is watchable this year, but it won’t matter if the defense isn’t getting any takeaways.

Vikings at Buccaneers: Defund the NFC South Pt. 1

At least we know the reason Kevin O’Connell never wins a playoff game is because he uses up all his devil magic to win regular-season games like this. The Vikings are 3-0 but at what cost? Kyler Murray finished this game, Justin Jefferson didn’t, and the offense was messy with 16 points on 13 drives. The reality was even worse than that average as they had great field position for the last two field goals after the Buccaneers punted nine times and threw two picks on their final drives.

Baker Mayfield tried to make something happen on 4th-and-13 deep in his own end, no man’s land, and he dislocated his thumb on the play. That led to rookie Jalon Daniels throwing a Hail Mary interception to end the game, but things were decided before that.

There’s just not much inspired football from the Bucs as the running game wasn’t there, Mayfield took six sacks against the blitz of Brian Flores’ defense, and you’re seeing a coordinator lead his team while a coach like Todd Bowles seems pretty aloof to the team surrounding him going back to late last year.

The Bucs are 2-10 since the bye week last year after a 6-2 start. I believe it’s 12 straight games where they didn’t cover the spread either, so this is underachieving of the highest order. Even in the NFC South, 0-3 is a rough hole to climb out of, and we’ll see what the prognosis is on Mayfield, but his extension is looking like a disaster.

Panthers at Browns: Defund the NFC South Pt. 2

Two teams that are tough to get a read on so far. The Panthers were scoring so well in the first two weeks, then were sitting on four field goals late into the fourth quarter, making it look like Cleveland still had Myles Garrett or something.

The Browns had that horrible Week 1 loss to the Jaguars, but they have calmed down on defense, and Deshaun Watson has found some success with his new receivers. He threw two touchdowns to Harold Fannin in this one, including the game winner with 1:48 left.

I saw a game similar to this playing out, but I thought Bryce Young would lift the Panthers to a GWD in the end. He had his chance, but like in the playoffs against the Rams, Young quickly went four-and-out. Then with one more chance in the final minute to set up a field goal, he threw a desperation interception with 0:09 left.

Suddenly, the 2-1 Browns are hosting the 2-1 Steelers for first place in the AFC North this Thursday night. As for the Panthers, I’m not sure where they go from here.

Raiders at Saints: Defund the NFC South Pt. 3

To end our NFC South trilogy, it looked like another banner day for Tyler Shough and the Saints after he threw four touchdown passes to his tight ends to take a 27-16 lead in the third quarter.

But this was the opposite script of what we’ve seen from him in the NFL as that great start led to a disastrous finish with the Saints turning it over four times in the fourth quarter, including three from Shough (two strip-sacks and a pick). The Raiders really had him in shambles.

Meanwhile, Kirk Cousins had another efficient game with 3 touchdown passes, and the return of Brock Bowers (10-116-1) was a reminder that he is the best in the game going forward at the position.

The Raiders are 3-0 as rookie coach Klint Kubiak is cooking, but we don’t have to wait long to learn just how real and sustainable this start is. The Raiders play the Chiefs, Patriots, Bills, and Rams in the next four games. We’ll review then.

Patriots at Jaguars: The Quarterback, the Schedule, His Coach, and His Lover

Getting blown out on a day no one else did is a bad look for the Patriots as this 35-6 loss was a brutal outcome for all involved. Drake Maye should get the headlines as the quarterback who has struggled for his last seven starts going back to the 2025 playoffs. I knew he’d struggle in the playoffs against real defenses, and I knew he’d have a tougher September against a schedule that wasn’t kind.

But I never imagined he’d be this overwhelmed and bad as the raw numbers don’t even do it justice when you consider the fumbles he didn’t lose. But on Sunday, he had some bad luck where a ball just came right out of his hand for a fumble when he was hoping to throw. Not that he was throwing it well in this game. Meanwhile, Trevor Lawrence had a nice day and saved his best throws for the red zone to cap off several drives.

However, Lawrence took the weirdest dive I think I’ve ever seen when he had a sure touchdown for the taking. There were just under 9:00 left with the Jaguars up 28-6, and Lawrence slowed down after breaking through tackles to take a knee at the 1-yard line instead of scoring to make it 35-6.

After the game, he mentioned he probably should have scored, then joked about Tuten’s fantasy scoring. Tuten ended up running in the 1-yard touchdown on the next snap anyway, so no harm there. But just a weird decision all around. Are you really that worried about the clock? I know New England was down 28-3 in the third quarter, but you’re playing The Adulterer and The Schedule, not The LOAT x2. Just score, man.

All we’re missing is some $1M position on Kalshi that Lawrence would NOT score a touchdown to make this a gambling conspiracy. But the Jaguars got the easy win while the Patriots are going to have to step up all around with Buffalo next.

Seahawks at Commanders: That Resets Expectations

I thought Seattle had a defense that was so reliable that you could lean on this unit to get through a rough patch even with Drew Lock replacing Sam Darnold. But despite Darnold’s return on Sunday and the Commanders starting veteran Marcus Mariota for an injured Jayden Daniels (elbow), Sunday was the day’s big upset as the Commanders took it to them in a 33-31 final.

As it turns out, maybe Jaxon Smith-Njigba is the most consistent part of this team as JSN put up 10/128/2 on 14 targets with Darnold back. JSN is having another elite season, but is it coming even more at the expense of the rest of the offense? The running game certainly didn’t show up (17 carries for 39 yards), and Darnold threw a bad pick-six in the fourth quarter when it was 27-24. They tried chasing that touchdown back the rest of the game.

 But I’m not sure I’d freak out too much about the 27 points the defense allowed here. The Commanders had touchdown drives of 21 and 43 yards, which were set up on short fields by the offensive turnovers. The Commanders didn’t run well (32 carries for 82 yards), but it is troublesome that Mariota was efficient with three touchdown passes.

Then again, Mariota always seems to play well for the Commanders when he has to assume the job. I don’t know if it’s the kind of win that can prevent a lost season in Washington, but Dan Quinn needed this one badly and got it when we least expected it.

The loss ended up not hurting the Seahawks that badly since the Rams also lost on Sunday night.

Cardinals at 49ers: Brock Purdy MVP Campaign?

I’ve established the NFL has a Big 3 at quarterback in Mahomes, Allen, and Jackson. But if you’re going to pick who that No. 4 guy is, based on achievement, consistency, efficiency, impact, and the full body of work, I think 2026 is the season where Brock Purdy can earn that distinction.

He already had an MVP-caliber year in 2023 where schedule sequencing did him in. If the Baltimore game was in Week 4 instead of Christmas, and the game where he shredded the Eagles was on Christmas, he probably wins that MVP.

But I’m not going to talk about who deserves the 2026 MVP after Week 3. I’m just going to say that Purdy has probably been the most consistent, high-efficiency quarterback through Week 3, and if he can keep up a level of play like this while the schedule gets tougher and the injuries keep mounting up for the 49ers (Mike Evans left this game early), then the narrative will be there for a Purdy MVP campaign.

They won this game against Arizona by a final score of 36-30, and even though Arizona never had a possession down one score in the final three quarters, they kept the pressure on the 49ers. But Purdy kept answering, and while the play didn’t count as a touchdown because of a holding penalty on George Kittle at the end, Purdy had a 45-yard touchdown run that showed more athleticism with his legs than anything I’ve ever seen from the likes of Joe Burrow or Justin Herbert, the quarterbacks he’s competing with for that No. 4 spot behind the Big 3.

He finished that drive with a 20-yard touchdown pass to Kittle anyway, so no harm done on the penalty. The 49ers also started the day with a 3rd-and-12 designed lateral that got the ball in the hands of Deebo Samuel, who took it 80 yards for a touchdown. But since he never got a real catch in the game or even a target, he finished the game with 80 receiving yards and a touchdown on 0 catches (0/80/1) – a true stat oddity in NFL history.

The previous known record for receiving yards without a catch, at least based on available data, was 65 yards for Timmy Brown on the 1961 Eagles against the Steelers. I actually tracked down the video too and it’s funny.

It has to be alarming the rate of injuries that are piling up for the 49ers, but as long as Purdy is upright, you feel like he can make this work as he’s playing at a really high level right now in his fifth season.

Titans at Giants: Cam Ward, the Nonchalant Bust

With the Titans starting 0-3, I think these last few games show us why this team gets buried in the 1 PM Sunday window instead of any national games, why the Jets fired Robert Saleh, and why the Giants fired Brian Daboll. They are a terrible football team right now, and this 12-7 dud against the Giants featured two plays that could even define the Cam Ward era in Tennessee.

First, what is this nonchalant pocket walking when you’re down 12-0? Did you not see the hit Jaxson Dart took last week to end his season? You can’t possibly think this is a good idea to test the speed of NFL pass rushers by being so casual back there.

Maybe Mahomes could get away with that and even make it look cool by making a play, but that’s not for Ward. By the way, that drive ended with three straight incompletions from the Giants’ 7 for a turnover on downs. Fun.

Then when Ward needed to be more decisive and possibly scramble for all he can get with two timeouts in his pocket in the closing seconds of a 12-7 deficit, he decided to throw and threw a horrific game-ending interception.

I wanted to give Ward a fair shake and try to see the positives weighed against the negatives of his situation. But the guy just does nothing to elevate or excite his team. This is why the Titans were a flagship member of the Three Stooges of Who Gives a Fuck? Right there with the Washington franchise and then take your pick of Brady and Belichick’s AFC East Stooges (just not Buffalo anymore).

Blow it up in Tennessee and start fresh again in 2027 if this continues.

Next Week

Thursday night is Steelers vs. Browns with both teams having a winning record. We almost never see that. Colts-Commanders to start Sunday overseas is not a game that’ll get me up at 9:30 AM. But I’m sure I’ll catch the end of it.

The 1 PM slate has Patriots-Bills, Rams-Eagles, and Jags-Bengals. All interesting games where we’ll see if 2025 repeats itself in those matchups. Denver at San Francisco isn’t bad in the late window, but Chiefs at Raiders with both 3-0 is a first for that rivalry. We’ll see if the Chiefs can reestablish their AFC West superiority against a team that’s been scoring to start the year under Kubiak. Should be a good one.

Detroit at Carolina is not good for SNF on a day with so many better choices, but maybe the Panthers can get some scoring going. Saints-Falcons on MNF in the Superdome could be the game that actually launches one of these NFC South bums on the path to a division title. The only question is will they get to 9 wins or are we headed for another 2010 NFC West or 2020 NFC East situation? I’m warming up to the idea of Atlanta, but we need to see more from Penix.

NFL 2026 Week 3 Predictions: Two Bits Edition

~ Scott ~ Leave a comment

It’s already Week 3 in the NFL, and we’ll see if the offensive fireworks of Week 1 return, or if we’ll get more low-scoring games with quarterback injuries like Week 2 had in abundance. Either way, it’s just two bits of information so far. Still, not many teams have shown excellence on both sides of the ball outside of the 49ers.

I can remember years ago facing backlash for using a full season’s worth of data (or multiple seasons) to draw conclusions or at least suggest things. Today, the Twitter Chart Bros don’t need more than a week or two to post stuff and act like it’s indicative of what will happen the rest of the year. After all, you could really take any two-game sample from a season and find weird things. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be the norm for anyone or any team based on what’s happened so far. I’ve also never seen any evidence that Weeks 1-2 are more predictive than Weeks 7-8 or Weeks 12-13.

It’s just two games, but that doesn’t mean some teams aren’t in need of a win in a big way this weekend. The 0-2 teams really can’t afford to start 0-3 as someone will in the AFC South between the Colts and Texans. The Chargers are also facing the scariest proposition of starting 0-3 with a game at Buffalo after already blowing their “easy home games” to the Cardinals and Raiders, both 26-14 losses. That’s rough.

But the struggles of Jordan Love and Justin Herbert have been a big part of the quarterback discourse this week after the Packers also lost on Thursday night by three touchdowns at home to the Falcons. They barely beat the Jets on Sunday in overtime too as both teams just look like bad football teams right now.

Sure, the Packers don’t have Micah Parsons, and Love lost some of his receiver depth (Wicks and Doubs; Jayden Reed injured in Week 2). Josh Jacobs also screwed things up off the field, but how much would he rush for behind this offensive line that’s been a big problem so far?

Herbert has had receiver drops, and Joe Alt hasn’t looked up to par in his return from injury at tackle. The interior line is not good. The defense has taken a step back without coordinator Jesse Minter. Jim Harbaugh hasn’t had the answers yet.

It’s a tough spot for any quarterback to be in when your receivers aren’t trustworthy, your line stinks, running game is an afterthought, and the defense isn’t special. In the past, only the elite of elite quarterbacks could really excel in that position like a Marino, Peyton, or Mahomes. That’s why it always made sense to pay the best quarterbacks only the biggest bucks while quarterbacks like Love and Herbert are close to the top salary despite not elevating enough to that level to say it’s worth it. Not to mention it’s a cost that makes it harder to build up the rest of the roster.

Alas, it’s been two weeks (three for GB). We’ll see if these teams and quarterbacks can turn it around, but it’s not looking good for Herbert and Love in 2026.

NFL Week 3 Predictions

Yep, I didn’t trust the Falcons and they proved me wrong in a big way. Another bad prime-time game this season.

CAR-CLE: I almost took the Browns but let’s go with the Panthers to get a one-score win on the road. Bryce Young upstages Predator in the clutch.

NYJ-DET: Let’s see if Geno Smith, who had some nice games in Detroit when he was with Seattle, can keep the ball away from the opponent like he has the first two weeks for the Jets. The Lions have been shaky, and I think Jared Goff is going to throw the pick (or more) to Aaron Glenn’s defense to break the drought in Glenn’s return game against his mentor. I’ll still take the Lions to win by 1-6 in the end, but I think the Jets can make life difficult on them.

JAX-NE: They haven’t met since London 2024 and much has changed since, including the coaching staffs. I’m going to cautiously pick the Jags to bounce back after the Denver loss, score enough points at home, and Maye isn’t playing well enough right now (still no A.J. Brown) to trust him to win this one.

HOU-IND: I picked the Texans to win the division, so I’m going with them to avoid 0-3. Better defense. Offense has been hit or miss so far.

LAC-BUF: It would be such a typical NFL thing for the Chargers to win in Buffalo after shitting the bed at home the first two weeks. Mike McDaniel has also had some success at scoring with his Miami offenses in Buffalo before. A lot of pressure on Herbert right now, and we know the Bills have allowed 31 points in both games. However, the Chargers have 31 points in Herbert’s last three starts. The best I can do is a cover and one-score loss on the road as I see Herbert with a 4QC chance in this one that comes up short.

KC-MIA: First road game for Mahomes since Thanksgiving in Dallas, I believe. One of the weakest opponents he’s faced in years, so I think the offense does well. Malik Willis might be good for scrambling props if they play man against his weak receivers. Chiefs covering is always tricky, so I could see a 31-21 final where Chiefs don’t cover here.

CIN-PIT: Bengals usually play better in PIT than they do at home in this rivalry. I think the defenses dominate the day, the Steelers won’t be able to run, so I love Aaron Rodgers over 34.5 pass attempts. Only concern there is he takes too many sacks and gets injured. But I just don’t see them running the ball well here with an injured Warren and that new defensive front for the Bengals.

SEA-WAS: Darnold in, Daniels out. Not sure it makes a huge difference for either team to be honest, but then I remember the way Darnold absolutely shredded this defense last year on SNF in the game Daniels foolishly got injured for being in the game so late. But I’d expect the Seahawks to win by 8+ here.

TEN-NYG: Dart is gone. I think Jameis with prep to start will play better. Still don’t trust the Titans to win games.

ARI-SF: Hard to believe this is the first time the 49ers have started 2-0 with 20-point wins. Division games are weird, so this may be a struggle more than expected, but I like them by double digits. Give me a Mike Evans TD and Kittle over in yards.

MIN-TB: Sounds like Kyler Murray is back, but I’m going to throw the Bucs a bone at home to avoid 0-3 and steal this one in the 4Q. But it’s been a rough start, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the Vikings are 3-0.

BAL-DAL: Hopefully the field is good in Brazil. I remember the Ravens nearly blew a huge lead in Dallas in 2024 and only won by 3. That weighed into my pick and almost made me take Dallas ATS. But I think the Ravens recover from last week’s blown lead and get the win by 4+. No Zay Flowers is rough though. I just trust the Baltimore run offense to dominate.

NO-LV: Should be a game that goes down to the wire. I am starting to trust Tyler Shough in those moments, and I still think the Raiders are 2-0 fool’s gold. I’ll take the Saints though it could be a push on the spread.

LAR-DEN: Rams in prime time again and after a short week with Puka still injured? Denver can put Surtain on Davante. I don’t love the matchup, but I also think the Rams can dominate Bo Nix’s offense, and Stafford could pull it out late as we finally see some close-game regression start for these teams. Rams lost so many close ones last year while Denver won so many (including another last week). But I think the Rams get it done at the end of the game.

PHI-CHI: I really wanted to see what Ben Johnson can do with Tyson Bagent. But it sounds like Case Keenum is the starter Monday night and that stinks. I’d probably avoid betting on this game, but I think Eagles get it done.

2026 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 2

NFL Stat Oddity 2026
~ Scott ~ 4 Comments

This is a throwback to the 2010s when I used to post my NFL recap column (starting with Captain Comeback in 2011) on Tuesdays before I started doing it here for Monday morning. I learned you can do it a lot faster when you’re not trying to painstakingly recap the play-by-play on those critical drives, creating GIFs and all the other stuff I did to crank out super-long pieces every week.

But I had other work to finish for Monday, so this is a day later for hopefully the only time this season, and I also wanted to write about MNF as I really did anticipate that matchup between the Rams and Giants.

Naturally, the game was a bust after Jaxson Dart was knocked out on the first drive with a knee injury (sprained MCL, allegedly) that fortunately wasn’t a season-ending ligament tear.

But that was the story of this weekend. Quarterback injuries and the defenses fighting back in a big way after a record-setting scoring number in Week 1. Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels were injured on freak-accident plays. The NFC already has been without Sam Darnold and Kyler Murray after they were injured early in Week 1, and the Falcons subjected us to watching Cooper Rush start for two weeks as a third-string quarterback.

That’s already six quarterbacks down in the NFC, and the only miracle is maybe none of them are season-ending injuries. Still, it’s a bummer as a lot of them are young players trying to lift their teams up to relevancy.

Meanwhile, things in the AFC felt like a return to normal:

  • Buffalo getting “Super Bowl bound! Best QB ever!” hype after blowing out a bad defense on TNF in September.
  • Kansas City winning a 33-30 overtime game where the passing game carried the team.
  • Bo Nix in his element, getting a fourth-quarter comeback after trailing 13-6.
  • The Chargers shitting their pants at home to lose 26-14 for the second week in a row.
  • The Dolphins looking like one of the worst teams ever in September before they inevitably find a way to the most meaningless 6 wins ever.
  • The Steelers looking totally lost on offense and embarrassing themselves in New England.
  • And the Baltimore Ravens choking away a double-digit lead at home.

Ooooo, and it’s alright and it’s comin’ on

We gotta get right back to where we started from

We’re back to normal. But I would point out this season is off to a slow start in close games. We had seven games with a comeback opportunity in Week 1, then eight this week. That’s 15/32 (46.9%). But there were six game-winning drives in Week 2, so that counts for something.

I’m not going to get too in the weeds about games from Sunday, but here are my thoughts on a difficult week for scoring and injuries. I said on Saturday in the predictions piece that these injuries are really mounting up at receiver, and when you throw in some rain in some of these games, it’s not that surprising it ended up being an offensive dud.

Minus Sunday night, of course.

This season in NFL Stat Oddity:

Colts at Chiefs: Game of the Week

I don’t know if the Chiefs will win the Super Bowl this year. But after Sunday night and some of the things that have happened around the NFL, I’m back to believing they can. As long as you have Patrick Mahomes playing like this, you always have that chance.

After his return game was one of his least effective in his career from a passing standpoint, Mahomes ripped it all over the field on Sunday night, leading the offense to 523 yards in a 33-30 overtime win where he picked up his 11th multiple game-winning drive (mGWD; the NFL record is 12).

Mahomes threw for 382 yards despite some big drops from his top receivers. He came through in the clutch multiple times just as he did against the Colts last year in the only close game the 2025 Chiefs won (0-10 otherwise; 0-8 with Mahomes otherwise). So, there’s some déjà vu to this one as we can put to rest the Lou Anarumo angle after Mahomes beat his defense for the fifth year in a row.

But the arm looked healthy, accurate and decisive, and still the most clutch quarterback in the game as you saw on the 3rd-and-12 in overtime for a 30-yard gain to Tyquan Thornton, the savior in this offense with the flaws Rice and Worthy have. Then Travis Kelce also looked vintage with 9/101/1. Another impressive outing for Kenneth Walker too (178 YFS).

This was the most 2018-22 Chiefs game we’ve seen since 2023, and that’s also because of what happened on the other sides of the ball. It’s your classic Spags game: You give up 30 points to an offense that lost its best receiver (Pierce) early, you get no sacks on Daniel Jones, Jonathan Taylor had some nice runs, but you get some credit for not giving up a touchdown in overtime after the Colts turtled following the overturned fumble. I also agree with Mahomes that it’s great they overturned that as the refs controversy shit would be over the top the rest of the year.

But the Chiefs had a lot of penalties (8-86), more special teams errors, Butker missed a kick (but made the biggest ones). I guess the only thing missing was the obligatory fumble, but games like this is what made the Chiefs so fun to watch in 2018-22, and their absence from 2023-25 made things a difficult grind. Not that this wasn’t a grind and tough win too. It just feels different when the offense is moving like this.

But this is Kansas City, and as long as you have that quarterback upright, they can beat anyone anywhere. After watching Baltimore blow another lead at home, and after watching the Bills give up 31 to Houston and Detroit, are you really going to bet against Mahomes if it comes down to those matchups again?

Plenty of directions this season can go from here, but Sunday night proved that Mahomes can still get it done at the highest level, still can throw it deep when he needs to, and he can still run when he has to have it or to protect himself.

He’s still the best to do it.

Giants at Rams: Dodge Dart

(That’s a Kind of Like Spitting reference, FTR)

This game had so much upset potential with how good the Giants looked in Week 1, how bad the Rams were in Australia, then you throw in the two biggest non-quarterback injuries the Rams could least afford (Myles Garrett and Puka Nacua) and 0-2 was a real possibility for the Super Bowl favorites.

Then Jaxson Dart injured his knee on the opening drive, and it was as if the life was sucked out of the team, and not in a fun way (“Big Blue Meets Bonnie Blue”). Backup Jameis Winston is usually good for a couple of touchdowns and interceptions, but even he couldn’t get them into the end zone in a snoozer of a 28-6 final. I guess Australia might have just been the travel fatigue and that will be the worst version you see all year of this team.

My apologizes to Davante Adams for even questioning if he was washed, because he played one of the best games I’ve ever seen him have, barely missing 200 yards with two scores. With the way Stafford and Adams were shredding that defense, I’m not sure if it would have mattered if Dart played the whole game. Maybe that injury demoralized the whole team, but it’s more likely this game just showed there is still a wide gap between the two, and beating up Dallas in Week 1 isn’t indicative of a team ready for a deep run.

But it would have been fun to see what Dart could do against a real contender. I always joke about Dart’s rivalry with the blue medical tent because of his reckless play, but it’s hard to fault him for trying to throw from the pocket when he got injured. Just a bad collision after he got the ball away. The good news is he avoided the ACL from the early reports, so if it’s an MCL sprain, we’ll see him again soon. But what will the team’s record be by that point?

Didn’t see anything from Aaron Donald, but when you’re away from the game for that long, it’s going to take more than a game to shake off the rust. He’ll be fine. The Rams were nowhere near fully loaded and still crushed a team 28-6. That’s encouraging for the Super Bowl picks.

Still, the Dart injury was a bummer to end the week after mostly all bad games on Sunday.

Saints at Ravens: See, Jesse Minter IS a Harbaugh

You can’t even chalk this one up to more “Tyler Shough and Awe” in the fourth quarter. This is just what the Ravens do, year after year. I caught some flak earlier this year when I said the Ravens hiring Jesse Minter was like hiring a younger Harbaugh the way he’s stalked John and Jim around different jobs the last decade. He’s like a Harbaugh nepo baby without the blood genes.

But I was told he’s younger and things would be different. Yet, in the first real chance he had at it, he blew a double-digit home lead just like John Harbaugh would.

  • The Ravens were outscored 15-0 in the fourth quarter.
  • Shough was 27-of-34 for 252 yards and led scoring drives on 5-of-6 drives to end the game.
  • Derrick Henry had just 5 carries in the second half after he had 11 carries for 51 yards and a touchdown in the first half (consistent gains as his long run was 8 yards).
  • Henry had 14 successful runs on 16 carries, and yet they got away from him while the offense couldn’t move the ball in the second half.
  • Tied 17-17 in the fourth quarter after the defense was flagged for holding that led to a game-tying 2PC for the Saints, the Ravens faced a 3rd-and-1 at their 37. Jackson threw deep instead of going back to Henry, then they punted.
  • With 8:06 left, the Saints burned 6:38 and scored the game-winning touchdown on a Shough sneak on 4th-and-goal from the 1 with 1:28 left.

Do I think Shough actually broke the plane and scored? No, not from the few angles I saw. Do I think the Ravens were screwed? No, they were actually helped by this since the refs didn’t call an obvious facemask on the player pulling down Shough. That would have made it first and goal, and the Saints would have ran the clock down (Baltimore out of timeouts) and kicked the short field goal on the final play to win 20-17.

Calling that a Shough touchdown actually saved the offense time to get a drive. But this is a spot where I think Jackson has underwhelmed in his career where you absolutely need a touchdown in the final minutes.

I’m not surprised he didn’t get it done again, ending with an ugly interception that probably looks less ugly if the target wasn’t an oblivious Rashod Bateman, the de-facto WR1 for the day because of Zay Flowers’ injury. Bateman is like the Xavier Worthy of the Baltimore offense. A first-round pick that really shouldn’t have been, he just never has developed a great chemistry with Jackson. They had numbers together in this game, but when it came time to close and then time to tie, they couldn’t connect and I think Jackson put a little too much on the last pass that caused it to sail over a receiver barely looking for it. Because that’s who Bateman is in this offense.

You add it all together, and you get yet another blown double-digit lead at home for the Ravens. Can’t blame this one on Harbaugh too unless you want to acknowledge they hired the closest thing they can to a younger version of Harbaugh.

Bengals at Texans: Stroud of Mystery

Man, what another weird f’n game with the 2026 Bengals. Last week, they recovered four fumbles against Tampa Bay. This time, they let C.J. Stroud throw for 353 yards on 55 attempts, no interceptions, and somehow the Texans only scored 6 points.

That’s never been done before in NFL history. A quarterback throwing for 350+, no picks, and his team scored fewer than 10 points. Never happened until Sunday, and the fact that they let Stroud throw 55 passes in a game without Nico Collins and a game they never trailed by more than 14 is preposterous. Stroud also led the team with 29 rushing yards as David Montgomery had 6 carries for 10 yards. Are we supposed to believe the line was really that outmatched up front against Dexter Lawrence and company? I have a hard time buying that.

The Cincinnati offense was about what you’d expect. Joe Burrow took 5 sacks against a proud pass rush, but Ja’Marr Chase showed why he’s arguably the best there is with two touchdowns, including one beauty for the highlight reels. But Chase and Higgins had almost 85% of Burrow’s passing yardage.

This game was put on Stroud, and 6 points on 13 drives with no turnovers and only one missed field goal is wild stuff. Granted, they were 0-for-4 on fourth down, the hidden turnovers in the box score. But what a strange gameplan from the Texans.

Packers at Jets: New York Errors

After two weeks, I get the sense the Packers are going to be worse than expected and the Jets better than expected this season. New York really should have won this game instead of blowing a 10-point 4Q lead and losing overtime. I noticed in Week 1 the way they were controlling the ball in Tennessee, and they were doing it here. The final margin in time of possession was 37:40 to 26:57 but the Jets also held the Packers to 1-of-9 on third down and 0-of-1 on fourth down.

The Jets are just the second home team since 1991 to lose a game after:

  • Scored 17+ points
  • Converted 8+ third downs
  • Allowed 0-1 third down conversions
  • At least 37:00 time of possession

Teams in this situation are now 69-2 since 1991. The other loss was the Colts in the 1995 opener against Cincinnati, and that was different since they were down 21-10 in the fourth quarter and forced overtime before losing. The Jets blew the double-digit lead here.

But I guess the Packers have been here before under Matt LaFleur and Jordan Love.

But Aaron Glenn is going to keep costing the Jets games like this. Up 10, they gave up 38 yards on a DPI penalty to wipe out a 1st-and-25 situation. Tied at the 2:00 warning, they try to run on 3rd-and-2, didn’t get it, then failed on a 4th-and-1 run at midfield that could have easily cost them the game in regulation if the Packers didn’t go 4-and-out. I think you have to let Geno throw on that 3rd-and-2, then you can work on the clock and setting up the last-second FG.

In overtime, Smith took two straight sacks to kill that drive on a three-and-out. But why would you even choose to receive first in overtime? You’re the home team, you’ve been moving the ball all day while Love struggled to get chunk plays. Force the Packers to go first with the constraints of conservative three-down football, then you can answer with four-down football, knowing exactly what you need.

But the Jets went three-and-out, and the Packers only needed a couple of first downs to get in range for the 26-yard field goal. Cue another stupid 15-yard flag on Glenn’s defense to help it along too, a unit that still doesn’t have an interception in his 19 games.

Vikings at Bears: Cancel the Ben Johnson Statue

When I wrote about Week 2 reversion from Week 1’s high scoring, I never thought 9-3 was a possibility in Chicago a week after 59-37 in Carolina. I need to start paying more attention to the weather reports even in September for some of these games, but some rain still shouldn’t have been enough to produce such a ridiculously low score here. Don’t forget the Bears can run the ball with multiple 100-yard rushers last week.

But what a tough day for the Bears in the face of Brian Flores’ mad blitzing ways. The Bears had 10 drives that ended in:

  • Four punts
  • One FG
  • One blocked FG
  • One interception
  • One Swift fumble at the MIN 1 on 1st-and-goal in the third quarter (killer)
  • One end of half after Williams took a sack after having 0:20 left to work with
  • One turnover on downs to end the game on a fourth-down sack

It’s not like the Bears couldn’t do anything (297 yards and 17 first downs). They just didn’t finish enough drives, and the Swift fumble and blocked FG were real killers.

But the game will likely be remembered best for the Caleb Williams injury. Just a freak accident where he tried to dodge a sack from behind and pulled up after blowing a hamstring. My question would be, should they have just kicked the 26-yard field goal on 4th-and-1 on the previous snap with 8:30 left in a 6-3 game?

Anymore, coaches turn down the field goal to go for it, but it’s not like the game was hanging in the balance on that drive. It was 6-3. There’d be another possession. I think coaches are getting a little too caught up in taking the lead when you can tie it and change the game state that way. Also note that four plays later, he ended up having to kick the tying field goal anyway. It just cost him his quarterback and a full 2:00 off the clock.

Of course, you still have to make the kick, which didn’t happen because of a block. The Vikings actually put together a long drive to get a field goal to make it 9-3, then Tyson Bagent only had 1:00 to go get a touchdown with no timeouts. I thought he did an impressive job to give them a shot from the 12. Just couldn’t cover those final 12 yards in the red zone as Flores’ defense delivered one more time.

While the Bears think about their quarterback situation, what are the Vikings thinking these days? They’re the first team in NFL history to win four straight games with four different starting quarterbacks (Max Brosmer, J.J. McCarthy, Kyler Murray, Carson Wentz). This might be one of the more fraudulent 2-0 starts we’ve seen, but we’ve seen Kevin O’Connell find weird ways to win these close games before.

But what a brutal day for Chicago that I guess could have been worse.

Steelers at Patriots: Darkness Retreat Sounds Good About Now

Aaron Rodgers might be retiring sooner than later if more games like Sunday happen. He was bad, the coaching was bad, the receivers (especially D.K. Metcalf) were awful, the running game didn’t exist, and the offensive line was abysmal.

I think they covered up the line last year with Rodgers getting the ball out short and fast to the running backs and tight ends. This year, Metcalf is dropping all the important balls, Michael Pittman Jr. was already out with an injury, and rookie Germie Bernard looked good until he bobbled a pass in the red zone that went down as an interception for Rodgers, which I’m sure pisses him off since he complained for six days about the drops and flags he didn’t get in Week 1.

Teams see they can’t run and they can just tee off on him right now. It’s a mess, and it’s somehow worse than what they looked like last year. The defense was fine on Sunday outside of the long touchdown run given up to TreVeyon Henderson. He can do that though.

But I thought Drake Maye had another struggle game. T.J. Watt is playing great in this new defense. The only reason they had a chance in the second half was this defense. Maye followed up his best throw with a bad pick, his fourth already. Still taking 3 sacks a week this year. He needs to get right, but at least Romeo Doubs pulled in a big catch to show he’s not worthless.

Still, 23 points in eight quarters for the New England offense. That still sounds better than the 8.0 points per game the Steelers’ offense has.

Browns at Buccaneers: Nasty Business

The early returns on the 2026 Buccaneers are horrific. Baker Mayfield is playing some of his worst ball after he got thoroughly outplayed at home by Deshaun Watson on the other side, and it’s not like the Browns still have Myles Garrett on defense. I expected him to come out of that long weather delay and immediately throw a pick. Instead, he just couldn’t find anything and the Bucs turned it over on downs in a 23-19 loss.

Then you have a bad defense for Todd Bowles, not much going for rookie Rueben Bain Jr., and this 0-2 team is fortunate to be playing in the NFC South.

They even let Watson get this done without a running game as he led the team with 22 rushing yards. The rest of his team had 16 carries for 22 yards. A carry job by Predator.

This is why it’s better to fire a coach a year early than a year late.

Commanders at Cowboys: “Shit” Indeed, Tom Brady

It’s funny how FOX paid Tom Brady $37.5M per year just to call shitty NFC East games every week where he even dropped a “Shit!” on air after the replay of Jayden Daniels’ nasty elbow injury before halftime.

What’s not funny is that I think Dan Quinn just screwed his team’s season and his quarterback’s health for the second year in a row. It was keeping him in a blowout vs. Seattle last year when he was injured, then they rushed him back. On Sunday, it was 3rd-and-goal at the 1 with 0:03 left in the half, Washington down 17-10.

You’re getting the ball to start the third quarter. Knowing that fact, kick the FG, make it 17-13, then go get more in the second half. Plenty of game left. The whole mechanism of this play f’n stunk as it doesn’t look like anyone on Washington ever tried to run a route. What was Daniels supposed to do if he didn’t trip on his lineman’s foot?

He tried to protect himself, injured his elbow, and it just never should have happened. They’re doing him worse than this franchise did RG3.

As for Dallas, what can I say? Dak was great, but he usually is against Washington. I need to see something new. Dan Quinn will not be the coach of the Commanders in 2027.

Jaguars at Broncos: Bo Nix in His Element

The Broncos picked up their first win with another low-scoring 4QC led by Bo Nix, who turned a 13-6 deficit into a 20-13 win. It’s a familiar script from 2025, and they turned around their 34-20 loss to Jacksonville with a much better game defensively and arguably a weaker one on offense.

At least Jayden Waddle came through with over 100 yards, but it doesn’t seem like they are getting Courtland Sutton going this year with Waddle there now. They’ve still got a long way to go offensively, but the rookie back (Coleman) made some promising plays.

The Jaguars are leaning heavily on Parker Washington right now, which makes sense when he’s playing well and you’re playing a team with Surtain at corner. But at some point you have to get Jakobi Meyers and Brian Thomas Jr. involved too. Not much from the running game either as Tuten is no Kenneth Walker, and the Broncos didn’t have a historically-bad tackling game this time.

But we’ll need to see better from both teams in Week 3. Jags host the Pats, and Broncos host the Rams on SNF.

Seahawks at Cardinals: JSN Couldn’t Resist the Pretty End Zone

Not sure how or why my mind works this way, but I wrote that title because I was thinking of the unique paint job the Arizona grounds team used in this game, and that Jaxon Smith-Njigba couldn’t resist visiting it three times. You know, the same way demon pastor Kenneth Copeland “couldn’t help but buy” that private jet cause they “made it so cheap for me.”

Yep, that’s somehow my reference point here. ‘They made that end zone so pretty for me, I couldn’t help but visit it three times.” – JSN

Also, is it wrong that my first thought after this game ended Sunday was confirmation that the Chargers really suck? They made this Arizona team look good while the Seahawks, even with Drew Lock starting, just embarrassed them in a similar fashion to last year where the defense shut down Jacoby Brissett, and JSN proved he is quarterback-proof with 9/155/3.

The Seattle defense is still very much a problem for the rest of the NFL. Onto the next.

Eagles at Titans: The Good and Bad of Jalen Hurts

I thought Jalen Hurts played really well outside of the two picks. Great on third downs, and another game-winning drive with a clutch touchdown in the final seconds to a receiver no one heard of – legitimately, not the fake 2001-06 Tom Brady narrative. Just clean up the mistakes, do more damage on early downs.

Much better fight from Cam Ward and the Titans over Week 1. Obviously still a tough defensive matchup for him. Tough loss but a step in the right direction.

Raiders at Chargers: Ruh-Roh, San Diego

Justin Herbert has not been good since the calendar turned to 2026. On the one hand, if I had my choice of spending extra hours watching “Cardinals/Raiders film” or spending hours of direct contact with Madison Beer, I’m choosing the latter every single night. Ladd McConkey probably open somewhere. Johnston too. And even if I throw to the open guy, he still might tip it up in the air for an interception. So, screw it. I’m enjoying life.

No doubt, the Chargers have been the most disappointing team through what was supposed to be their two easiest games. Herbert’s been bad, but as much as I don’t want to be his apologist anymore, this latest 26-14 home loss as a big favorite actually is easy to defend for him. It just is as much as I hate to admit it.

  • I just showed you the first pick that was a perfect throw on third down to David Njoku on a deep ball. Should have been a conversion and likely scoring drive. Damn Cleveland players.
  • The first drive of the game was a 58-yard missed field goal by Dicker the Kicker. Isn’t he supposed to be great?
  • He started the second half with a 74-yard touchdown drive.
  • Now behind 17-14, a drive was ruined in short yardage with a 1-yard run on 2nd-and-2 followed by an aborted snap from the center (Slaughter). Punt.
  • That combo of line + failed running game in short yardage ruined the next drive with a holding penalty (1st-and-20), then Hampton ran for no gain on 3rd-and-2. Another punt.
  • Driving to midfield with 3:52 left before Hampton goes all Melvin Gordon with the choke-time fumble, leading to a 16-yard touchdown drive for the Raiders.
  • Now you’re down 24-14 with 2:59 left, a near-impossible hole to dig out of, and Herbert throws his second pick on a 3rd-and-11 heave.
  • He gets the ball back deep in his own end (94 yards to go), and holding in the end zone by Joe Alt leads to a safety. Game over.

That sounds like a piss-poor team effort instead of the quarterback letting them down. I think Week 1 was worse than this for Herbert. Now he’s got to play at Buffalo this week, so good luck avoiding 0-3. If they couldn’t beat the Cardinals and Raiders at home, I hate to think what that final record is going to be for the team I picked to go 11-6 and win the division.

Obviously, I’d pick the Chiefs now, but I thought that Mike McDaniel and the healthier offensive tackles would make the difference here. I also always believed in Jim Harbaugh’s coaching, and I’ve believed in Herbert since 2020. But this season has been a disaster and we may not have seen rock bottom yet.

Yet, Herbert gets to go home and rock that bott-You get the idea. He’s not unlucky off the field at least.

Raiders are probably the biggest 2-0 fool’s gold in the league right now, but good on Klint Kubiak to take advantage of the opportunity.

Dolphins at 49ers: Purdy Perfection

This was just a 14-6 game at halftime because it was on pace for just 10 possessions. The Dolphins kicked three field goals (missed one), and the 49ers had two long touchdown drives. That would have been incredible if they kept that pace, but in the second half, the Dolphins never scored again while the 49ers went 5-for-5 at scoring touchdowns before eschewing the perfect game with a big lead and punting twice before running out the clock.

An easy 35-13 win where Brock Purdy was 20-of-22 for 287 yards, 2 TDs, and no sacks. He also had 30 rushing yards (rest of team: 65) and a touchdown on the ground, giving him a 99.7 QBR, which apparently ranks as the No. 8 game since 2006. But if you look at the list, Purdy is the only quarterback in the top 15 to have at least 11 EPA in his game.

Going to be a long season for Miami. With the 49ers, I just worry they’re losing too many receivers after Demarcus Robinson left injured in this one.

Panthers at Falcons: Maybe Atlanta Should Trade for Bryce Young…

The Mercedes-Benz Stadium seems to bring out the best in Bryce Young, even going back to his days at Alabama:

  • Bryce Young’s 1st NCAAF Start: A 44-13 win vs. Miami where Young was 27-of-38 for 344 yards, 4 TD, 0 INT.
  • 2021 SEC Championship Game: A 41-24 win over 12-0 Georgia where Young was 26-of-44 for 421 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT, 40 rushing yards, 1 rushing TD.
  • 2024 Season at Atlanta: 251 yards and 3 TDs with 0 INT in a 44-38 overtime win, his only NFL win when Carolina allowed more than 30 points.
  • 2025 Season at Atlanta: Led a 14-point comeback in a 30-27 OT win where he was 31-of-45 for a career-high 448 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT.
  • 2026 Season at Atlanta: Easy 34-3 win where he was 23-of-36 for 287 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT.

His first NFL start was also in that building, and that one didn’t go well. But we can give him a pass for that. Maybe the Falcons need to ditch their quarterback calamity and trade for Young so he can play in HIS building half the year. I’m not even joking that much.

A joke would be starting your first two games with Cooper Rush at quarterback. Fortunately, we should see Penix on Thursday night.

Next Week

I just finished my Week 3 preview of the top five games, and [Bernthal voice] let me tell you something, it’s not a good slate. The closest thing to a marquee game is SNF (Rams at Broncos), and the Rams really haven’t played a watchable game yet as this will be their third straight in prime time (locally, at least). But we’re being subjected to the Falcons in prime time a lot in the coming weeks, so at least it’s going to be Michael Penix Jr. in Green Bay on Thursday night.

Sunday, Chargers at Buffalo should have been good, but I ended up not even writing about it since I don’t expect much from the 0-2 team that couldn’t beat the Raiders and Cardinals at home. Jags-Patriots is interesting, Steelers are in a bad matchup with the Bengals, and the Chiefs need to plaster Miami in their first road game this season.

Baltimore at Dallas, the field could be compromised in Brazil. But that’s potentially a good one in the late-afternoon window. Eagles-Bears, let’s just say I’m intrigued by the thought of what Tyson Bagent can do in Ben Johnson’s offense. He won’t go off script like Caleb, so Ben might have to Neuralink this one and get the backup to throw it exactly where he wants. Could be interesting.

NFL 2026 Week 2 Predictions: The (Maybe) Reversion Edition

~ Scott ~ 1 Comment

NFL teams tied the Week 1 scoring record with just under 50 points per game to start the 2026 season. When you watch the Lions and Bills play a 41-31 game on Thursday to begin Week 2, you might start thinking we are headed for an all-time scoring season around the league after a few years of stagnation.

But no so fast. I don’t think we should let the defenses of the Bills and Lions dictate what’s going to happen around the league this Sunday. It could be another high-scoring week, or we might see some reversion to where teams were a year ago as opponents dictate so much of how games play out.

You can say this every week once an NFL season is underway, but it’s going to be fun figuring out what was real in Week 1 and what’s going to look completely different this Sunday in Week 2. Every year you get good examples of this switch up in Week 2.

I’ll note some things below that I think are real and going to happen again as well as some new twists. But I’d also like to point out that if you are expecting a lot of scoring again, maybe the oddsmakers have prepared for a dull Sunday of scoring. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many games on FanDuel where the player with the second-best odds for an anytime touchdown is priced this high:

  • PIT-NE: Jaylen Warren (+190)
  • TB-CLE: Emeka Egbuka (+155)
  • GB-NYJ: MarShawn Lloyd (+140)
  • PHI-TEN: Jalen Hurts (+140) [He’s often better than even]
  • SEA-ARI: JSN (+135) is #1, Jadarian Price (+170) is No. 2
  • DEN-JAX: B.Tuten (+170)
  • SF-MIA: Mike Evans/De’Von Achane (+140)

I doubt we’re getting a fairer shake from the oddsmakers this season. We might just be in store for some overcorrection for last week’s scoring, or we should acknowledge that a crazy number of injuries, especially at WR, have helped produce this.

Zay Flowers (BAL), Nico Collins (HOU), A.J. Brown (NE), and Michael Pittman Jr. (PIT) are all out at WR. Ladd McConkey (LAC) and Puka Nacua (LAR) have their status up in the air as both LA teams need a win. The Falcons are starting QB3 Cooper Rush again. Carson Wentz makes his first start of the season for Minnesota, though that could be a good thing for Justin Jefferson (2 TDs last week). Joe Burrow is questionable to play (maybe that one’s redundant). D.J. Moore (BUF) left Thursday night’s game injured, and I kind of loved that since it helped me hit 3 SGP on what looked like a night where he wasn’t going to do much.

It’s a long season but you can feel like you’re out of things quickly once those injuries start piling up. Then with the Giants potentially going to 2-0 and dropping the preseason favorite Rams to 0-2 to end this week, my Super Bowl pick might be in shambles before the first day of fall.

NFL Week 2 Predictions

I had a so-so Week 1 but no problem with TNF and Buffalo covering. They probably should have won by more than 10 points too.

CAR-ATL: You can’t lose to Cooper Rush and expect to be taken seriously, Carolina. They’ll get the win after showing they can score last week.

NO-BAL: Tricky without Zay after already losing some WR depth, but I can see the defense making life tough on Shough, and I got some props on Wester (30+ yards).

GB-NYJ: Possibly a step towards getting fired during the season if LaFleur loses this one. Jordan Love also wouldn’t help his status if he broke the Jets’ INT drought. But the Packers gotta find a way to win one.

CHI-MIN: I think some of last week carries over for Chicago and they post a good number to clear the over 26.5 points. I don’t think Wentz will protect the ball while trying to keep up in a shootout, so Chicago -4.5 is a top spread pick for me this week.

CIN-HOU: I originally had HOU -2.5, but after seeing Nico Collins is out, I think he’s such a crutch for Stroud, so I don’t expect the Texans to win this one.. 4Q could be comical with the lack of comebacks for both QBs in their careers.

PIT-NE: I was thinking of betting on Michael Pittman Jr. to step up big for Rodgers as I don’t expect much for Metcalf vs. Christian Gonzalez. Then I see MPJ is out too. Guess we’ll find out if the Steelers are a good team based on whether Drake “The Schedule” Maye plays well or struggles with them. The Steelers had 5 takeaways to upset the Pats on the road last year. But that’s a Tomlin type of win. Unless T.J. Watt is a superhero again, I don’t see the Steelers winning this one.

CLE-TB: Baker will shit all over the Browns. He just had to stop fumbling vs. Bengals last week. This should be a rout though I don’t like spreads of 8.5. But the Bucs need to win by 14+ to feel better about Week 1.

PHI-TEN: Titans just looked so lifeless vs. Jets last week. I can’t in good faith trust them here.

JAX-DEN: Jaguars won 34-20 at Denver last December. I think it’s closer this time and the Broncos don’t tackle as horribly as they did Monday vs. Chiefs. But I do like Trevor Lawrence to Parker Washington to get the upset win and drop Denver to 0-2. This time they lose a close one, the kind of game they kept winning last year.

LV-LAC: Ugh, won’t put much into this game with the way the Chargers stunk last week. Raiders did some competent things vs. Miami. The Chargers should win but you never know. Cursed.

ARI-SEA: Another tricky one cause the Cardinals played well, have better coaching, and the Seahawks don’t have Sam Darnold. I couldn’t go all the way in picking them to pull off another upset, so I hedged on the spread. But there’s upset potential and for all we know, the Cardinals could be 2-0 and on top of the NFC West after Monday night.

SF-MIA: A 2-TD spread for Week 2 is nasty but the Dolphins earn it. I think 49ers win by 14+ and I like Mike Evans to score a TD again.

WAS-DAL: Tough call here as it can be close again for the Commanders like vs. Eagles in Week 1. But I know they were blown out in Dallas last year. “Bill” not scoring a TD cost me some incredible wins, so I’m staying away from that game as I just don’t know what this WAS offense is since 2025.

IND-KC: These two rarely play a normal game, so I’m hedging on the classic Chiefs win but don’t cover. Daniel Jones is 1-15 in prime time, and KC’s defense was the most reassuring thing about last week’s performance. Got to see a better passing game, and I worry about the LT situation forcing them to either throw really quick so nothing develops downfield, or they risk Mahomes running around. That’s what’s missing in the KC passing game. They can’t comfortably hold the ball for 2.6-3 0 seconds and just scheme guys open. It’s either coming out in under 2 seconds or he’s extending it past 3.5 with improv, which opens him to injury risk.

But the Colts were the defense that Mahomes threw for his most yards against in 2025, and it was a game with rare clutch moments from Rice and Worthy. I think they get it done, though nothing would ever surprise me in a game involving the Colts against KC.

LAR-NYG: If Puka Nacua doesn’t suit up, I think you have real concerns here as Davante Adams might be washed at this point. Not a WR1 anymore. Then on defense, at least Aaron Donald is back, but what is he after two years away? Then no Myles Garrett (knee). The Giants moved the ball so efficiently last week while the Rams looked toothless on defense and totally lifeless on offense. John Harbaugh as a big underdog? I can dig it. Might end up regretting the pick, but I called the Falcons upsetting the Rams on MNF late last season. I’m not sure Dart can get his first NFL game-winning drive, but this would be a nice spot for it.

Give me the Giants to shock the Rams to 0-2.

2026 NFL Stat Oddity: Week 1

NFL Stat Oddity 2026
~ Scott ~ 5 Comments

I saved this Word document as “Close Encounters – Week 1” after forgetting I’ve given this weekly NFL recap a totally different name than the one I always wanted to use going back to even 2013. But this is Stat Oddity, and we may have just started the 2026 season with the highest-scoring Week 1 in the Super Bowl era.

Or maybe it’s the highest-scoring Week 1 Sunday since 1970 as we want to forget Wednesday and Thursday happened (and for good reason). Either way, the 10 new head coaches and 21 new offensive coordinators led to a lot of points but not a ton of dramatic finishes. We’ve had 7-of-15 games with a comeback opportunity (four successes), though three games did end with a game-sealing drive (Steelers vs. Falcons, Bengals vs. Buccaneers, and Giants vs. Cowboys), and that’s a stat I’d like to cover more thoroughly later this season.

While Week 1 isn’t everything, I think it’s important to make a good early impression and show that it is a new year and things are going to be different. The Cardinals, Ravens, and Giants got that memo. Not so much for the Browns, Titans, Chargers, Packers, and Cowboys. And despite Week 1 wins, I’m not sure the Bills, Steelers, Bengals, and Lions should feel overly confident just yet.

Let’s recap the 13 Sunday games from Week 1.

Bills at Texans: Game of the Week

If you watched DeMeco Ryans’ Houston defense take on Joe Brady’s Buffalo offense the last two seasons, then Sunday’s game was culture shock:

  • Josh Allen wasn’t 9-of-30 passing or dropped for 8 sacks this time; he was 20-of-29 for 334 yards, 2 sacks, and one of the most vertical games of his career with Dalton Kincaid (130) and D.J. Moore having huge games.
  • C.J. Stroud didn’t even play in last year’s win (Davis Mills did), but he had one of his better games here with 26-of-38 passing for 274 yards, 2 touchdowns, and no picks after his ugly postseason run in January stalled contract extension talks for this season.
  • Houston’s new running back, David Montgomery, had 79 total yards and scored 3 touchdowns.
  • It was 24-21 at halftime, a higher-scoring game than these teams have had in four full meetings in Houston in the Allen era.

But I hope this game doesn’t have a huge impact on the AFC playoff standings or the MVP race or Coach of the Year race, because the beginning and end were frankly ridiculous on both sides, and it exposed some of the reasons I still wouldn’t trust either team in January to win the conference and get to the Super Bowl.

Sure, the middle was back and forth, lots more scoring than usual for these teams when they match up, and exciting to watch. But that’s not a good sign for Buffalo’s defense in its first game without Sean McDermott that you’re letting Stroud light you up for 31 points, or that he was 9 yards away from scoring 38. Where’s all this aggression we’re supposed to see from new coordinator Jim Leonhard?

Allen started the game with a terrible 2-yard loss on 4th-and-1 in scoring territory, then they already resorted to their 3rd-and-long lateral play just to put together a 4-yard field goal drive to start the scoring after Stroud lost a fumble on the third play for Houston.

But the last 6:38 really fry me from both sides:

  • Down 31-30, Allen fumbles the snap and is fortunate to recover, leading to a quick three-and-out.
  • The Texans know a 1-point lead isn’t good for shit and they may not even see the ball again, and yet they do the ultra-conservative move of run/run/pass before their own three-and-out.
  • On what became a 96-yard game-winning touchdown drive for Buffalo, James Cook fumbled on the first run and Buffalo’s incredible fumble luck struck again as they recovered this one in the open field.
  • After getting to the Houston 34, Allen decided to throw a deep ball for the end zone with 1:48 left instead of working the clock to try to set up a field goal as the final snap, and it ended up being an atrocious dropped interception by Kamari Lassiter.

I’m not going to call it an obvious game-ender since the Bills still had three timeouts and enough time to get the ball back in a 1-point game. But it absolutely could have won the game for Houston, and he just dropped it. Then one play later he gets beat on the coverage for a touchdown to Josh Palmer. Then like clockwork, the Bills screwed up another 2PC, so they left themselves vulnerable at 36-31 to lose to a touchdown.

And since the Bills went for the chunk plays again, Stroud had plenty of time to make a legacy drive with 91 seconds, two timeouts, and 71 yards to go. We haven’t really seen him do this since that great drive to beat Tampa Bay in his rookie year, but the problem there is Stroud almost never pulls off these drives in the NFL. He’s now 2-11 at 4QC opportunities in his career.

But this could have been his moment in a big game to start the season on a high note. It looked like he might do it after getting the Texans to the 9-yard line with 25 seconds left after more breakdowns in Buffalo’s secondary. But then Stroud just ate a sack, lost 9 yards, and had to burn the last timeout. That’s the kind of play where your quarterback has to send the ball through the eighth row. Just inexcusable to take a sack.

Then two plays later with the game on the line from the 18, he does it again after a hurry-up snap, which never seem to work in the NFL anymore unless you can catch them with 12 men on the field. But I think the hurried snap led to panic in Stroud, and he coughed up the ball for his second fumble of the game to blow it.

So, I don’t think this game does anything to really move the needle for these teams when it comes to getting to the Super Bowl. I think they both showed some of their usual flaws with the Bills’ defensive shortcomings and tendency to make crushing mistakes at the worst times, and Stroud can’t be trusted on a GWD situation.

The best thing it does for Buffalo winning is it makes it less likely they’ll have to go back to Houston for a rematch in January.

Cardinals at Chargers: Upset of the Week

Every season there’s usually a big upset in Week 1, and it just so happens to be Cardinals at Chargers this year. I had a bad feeling, which is why I picked the Cardinals +9.5 ATS. My thought was the Cardinals moved the ball really well last year with Jacoby Brissett, they moved it as well as anyone in the 2026 preseason under new coach Mike LaFleur, and the Chargers were replacing Jesse Minter at defensive coordinator and could struggle there.

But I trusted Jim Harbaugh and his BFF Justin Herbert to win this one at home as they have much harder games to come. Mostly, I thought Mike McDaniel would have a big impact on the offense, allowing for more explosive plays now that Herbert has more receivers beyond Ladd McConkey, the two tackles were healthy, and McDaniel’s Miami offenses usually peaked in September. It felt like a slam dunk for a 30+ point outing for Herbert against one of last year’s worst defenses.

It never materialized. The Chargers never led, the Cardinals had the two longest gains of the game, and the Chargers didn’t run the ball well, had little going for them outside of Ladd McConkey (left injured too), and Herbert took three sacks as they beat up the interior of his line instead this time.

You have to love the play late in the game where three Chargers blocked one Cardinal while two free rushers got in on Herbert for a sack.

It was one of the worst performances for the Chargers in the Harbaugh era. Maybe the Cardinals are a surprise team this year, but I have a hard time believing they’re still not headed for last place in the best division. The Chargers just seemed really out of sorts on offense, and that Minter-less defense wasn’t impressive at all. Brissett’s only sack didn’t lose any yards, and they gave up a touchdown on the opening drive to rookie back Jeremiyah Love.

Arizona somehow has two wideouts playing better than Marvin Harrison Jr. now as Kendrick Bourne caught all 8 of his targets for 75 yards, but even MHJ had a 33-yard grab, the longest play of the game.

Remember when McDaniel was supposed to unleash Herbert’s arm? We’ll have to wait to see it I guess as it was a total dud in Week 1, and that screwed up a ton of bettors, including my best parlays on Sunday.

Does Madison Beer even know about Chargers BINGO and the level of curse she’s getting involved with here? It runs deep.

Bears at Panthers: Did Ben Johnson Know What He Had?

Ben Johnson might be a mad genius after all. Proclaiming this summer that he wants to break the 2013 Broncos’ single-season scoring record, his team went out and dropped 59 points in Carolina in Week 1. Not bad for someone coaching a team that many soured on and expected to be a prime regression candidate in 2026.

For the record, I picked the Bears to win 10 games and get a wild card berth in my predictions. But I’ll entertain the scoring record if they can drop a healthy number on Brian Flores’ Vikings in Week 2 as the Panthers just lack the key pieces for an adequate defense this year.

Still, 59 points on the road is a crazy number to start the season. In fact, the 96 combined points are the most in a season opener in NFL history. That’s also why I wish Johnson would realize his goal is not a good one as high-scoring juggernauts just don’t win Super Bowls. You need balance, and giving up 37 points to the Panthers is not a good sign for their defense.

Granted, putting pressure on the Panthers to keep scoring, the Bears were able to make the fourth quarter pretty much irrelevant, which was always going to be key this year after the way they won so late in games in 2025. That’s one way to avoid that. They also still forced three turnovers after leading the league in turnover differential, so that’s a good start on that front too.

They also did this with Colston Loveland not catching a pass, Rome Odunze catching two passes, and 32-year-old receiver Kalif Raymond led the way with 84 yards on 8-of-9 targets caught. Go figure, Johnson imports a Detroit receiver and he immediately leads the team in Week 1 after he’d be maybe fifth on your depth chart in terms of your best receiving option.

Throw in an elite running game that piled up 291 yards with Caleb Williams running for 65 yards and two touchdowns to complement two 100-yard rushers, and you have some real potential to light up the scoreboard all year. I don’t know about the scoring record, but they definitely can outdo what they did last year.

Either way, the Bears are going to be a lot of fun this year, and that’s one of the best things about Johnson hooking up with Caleb in Chicago. Making the Bears must-see TV for their offense for the first time ever basically.

Packers at Vikings: The Body Weight Rule Strikes Again in This Rivalry

Why does the body weight rule always seem to pop up in Packers vs. Vikings game the last decade?

It’s still hard to believe the Packers turned a 22-10 lead with 20 minutes left into a 39-22 loss. They knocked out Kyler Murray, who saw his first game with Minnesota end on an interception on his first throw, then a nasty hit to the head for a concussion. Enter Carson Wentz, who took three sacks against a defense still missing Micah Parsons (ACL), and some would say a few more should have counted.

It ended up being a controversial day for officiating in this one. I thought Jordan Love was having one of his best games ever until he wasn’t in the fourth quarter. Everything turned for the Packers after they declined the points on a 40-yard field goal that would have put them up 25-17 with 13:17 to play because the Vikings were offsides.

It’s a defendable call. You try for the 4th-and-1 at the Minnesota 17, you burn more clock if you convert it, then you have chance to make it a two-score game or at least get the shorter field goal eventually. Except Love did the sneak, and the virtual measurement said he didn’t get it, so the Vikings got the ball back down 22-17. I can’t really fault Matt LaFleur for that one.

Then on a weekend with some shaky game-winning drives (Bills), the Vikings really took the cake here. Typical I guess when Carson Wentz is the one coming off the bench to lead it, but Green Bay thought it stopped him on a 3rd-and-11 only to get caught for an illegal contact to extend the drive. Then they got another 3rd-and-3 stop on an incomplete pass only to get hit with a ridiculous roughing the passer penalty. Then a Wentz interception on third down in the end zone was negated by defensive holding.

Did Tom Brady host a LOAT seminar this summer that only Wentz, Burrow, and Allen had the details for? How to will the defense to commit multiple penalties on the same GWD? How to get the opponent to drop your picks and how to will your defense to recover fumbles?

Eventually, Aaron Jones scattered into the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown combined with the 2-point conversion pass to Justin Jefferson, who looks elite with any quarterback besides J.J. McCarthy (and I guess Max Brosmer).

Down 25-22, the Packers lost yards on three straight plays as Brian Flores kept blitzing Love, and he was sacked on back-to-back plays, including a fumble that set up the Vikings for a 1-yard touchdown drive to make it 32-22 with 4:48 left. Love was picked off on a deflection two plays later and the rout was on.

The Packers lost their sixth-straight game for the first time since the year before Brett Favre wound up in Green Bay. They’ve also blown their third multi-score lead in that time.

It’s a brutal way to lose a game you felt like you had control of for most of the day. But anymore, the Packers have shown they can blow just about any game. Makes you realize why teams usually just fire the coach who loses his last five games in a season…

Buccaneers at Bengals: Fumble Luck Sliders Maxed Out Already?

The 33-27 final score suggests a shootout, except in true Cincinnati fashion in the Joe Burrow era, it really wasn’t one. Both defenses scored a touchdown, but the Bengals’ new defense stole the show by forcing the Buccaneers into four lost fumbles (three by Baker on wild scrambles or strip-sacks). That means 50% of Tampa Bay’s eight drives ended with a lost fumble.

That’s impressive stripping, but it’s obviously not sustainable to force and recover that many fumbles, and Mayfield was still 23-of-28 passing for 216 yards in the game. The Bengals will have to get better there but at least they got the turnovers and also sacked Mayfield four times as his first game after the $55M AAV extension was a disaster.

Cincinnati’s offense moved the ball decently, doing its best on third downs (8-of-14). But it wasn’t a clean game for Joe Burrow as he threw another pick-six, something that plagued him in 2025 when he came back. That always seems to throw him off, being the perfectionist, the rest of the game too, but Evan McPherson was able to make a 58-yard field goal to save one drive for more points. Ja’Marr Chase was unusually quiet with 12 yards on the day.

But after a Mayfield scramble for a touchdown made it 33-27 with 3:19 left, the Bengals were aggressive in the four-minute offense and Burrow was able to put the game away with his receivers, converting three passes for first downs, then a 3rd-and-1 keeper to ice the clock for good.

The Bengals should feel encouraged about winning a game where Chase did little and the defense had all those turnovers. But Burrow can’t be happy about another pick-six, and he knows those turnovers aren’t always going to be for him on the other side every week.

As for the Bucs, the good news is they play in the NFC South where every team is 0-1, which is right on brand. I’d expect Baker to bounce back with a huge game against the Browns next week.

Cowboys at Giants: Is New York Ready for This? Dallas Was Not

I give the NFC East a hard time because I feel they’re usually pushed on us in national games because of the size of their media markets instead of the value of their product. Cowboys vs. Giants has been an especially egregious rivalry to feature in the last decade as Dak Prescott has dominated New York. After getting swept by the G-Men in his 2016 rookie season, Prescott won 14 straight starts in 2017-25 before leaving Week 18’s irrelevant game early, and the Giants went on to win that one.

That means for the first time since his rookie year, Dak just lost a game he finished against the Giants. It only involved the only game since 1991 (if not all of NFL history) where both teams converted over 72% of the time on third down, hence seven possessions for each team.

Sure, there was a time in the previous decade (2006-15) when this was good when it was Eli Manning vs. Tony Romo in entertaining games. But watching the Giants try to outscore Dak with Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley just wasn’t that fun.

However, he may have new competition to deal with as Jaxson Dart opened his second season with one of his best games, leading the Giants to four touchdowns on six drives before running out the final 5:21 on the clock in a 28-20 game on his seventh possession. Keep in mind one of the only two stops the Cowboys had involved a Cam Skattebo fumble, so Dart was very protective of the ball and extremely efficient.

Dart showed patches of elite drive efficiency as a rookie, and that was impressive given he almost never had his best wideout (Malik Nabers) and best running back (Skattebo) together because of injuries. In his first full game with them, he did this as the revamped Dallas defense actually took some steps backwards with poor communication on the field. I also think adding Isaiah Likely at tight end is a big move as he can finally unleash himself from playing behind Mark Andrews in Baltimore. Matt Nagy gets a lot of grief, and I never bought for a second the Kansas City decline in 2023-25 was his fault, but he delivered in Game 1 as OC of the Giants.

John Harbuagh also found a lead he couldn’t blow, though both teams had some stupid penalties on the night. Dallas just had the last few critical ones like when Javonte Williams was penalized for taunting for celebrating a touchdown too early by pointing. That cost his team, which was down 14 points before his score, a chance to go for two early, then the Cowboys missed the 15-yards deeper extra point, keeping it a 28-20 game.

Then with the Cowboys down to two clock stoppages with 2:10 left, they pulled Dart down by the facemask at midfield, drawing another 15-yard flag and automatic first down.

After watching the other teams with second-year quarterbacks fail to impress on Sunday, maybe the Giants with Harbaugh and Dart are the one to watch for a breakout season in 2026. Guess we’ll find out next week when they play the 0-1 Rams how much of this is new leadership and better health vs. how much is playing a dumb team like Dallas.

Commanders at Eagles: Ho-Hum, the Eagles Won, and Stefon Diggs Is Still Dumb

It pains me to say this, but Jayden Daniels is getting close to unwatchable territory. The Eagles have a good defense, but he’s solved them before as a rookie (2024) when they were Super Bowl-worthy. But on Sunday, even with healthier weapons than he had last year, he really struggled to get the ball downfield, and that’s why it was 17-9 going into the fourth.

Fortunately, Daniels made some nice scrambles and smart throws to lead two late touchdown drives to keep this one competitive. Unfortunately, Stefon Diggs went full diva with a penalized celebration for humping the goal post after his first touchdown with the team. That cost the Commanders a shot at the game-tying two-point conversion with 9:59 left.

The Eagles answered with a touchdown to Dallas Goedert, his second of the day, as they found ways to score in both halves this time after they started to scare you with 2025 déjà vu after starting the second half with three straight three-and-out drives. But Jalen Hurts played one of his best games of the last two years, and Dontayvion Wicks stepped up with 73 yards and a touchdown. Like I said before the season, I actually think Hurts will be better without A.J. Brown this year.

Still, it wouldn’t be an Eagles game without a close finish, and after Daniels threw a touchdown to make it 24-22, the Eagles weren’t fooled at all by the little shovel pass attempt to tie it, so they stuffed that.

The Eagles recovered the onside kick and that was it. I get that the Eagles have a nice pass rush and secondary, so that’s how you end up with Terry McLaurin catching two passes for 14 yards. But rookie Antonio Williams was productive (4-64-1), and Diggs did well (4-55-1) penalty withstanding. They have a good mixture of weapons around Daniels this year, so we need to see better results as it’s hard to believe this guy was the uber-efficient and consistent rookie we saw in 2024.

Saints at Lions: Too Close for Comfort in Detroit

Not sure any win feels more like a loss in Week 1 than Detroit over the Saints. Like the Bengals, the Lions were a team hoping for an easier schedule and better health to key players will lead them back in the playoffs this year. It should have been a layup to get the Saints at home in Week 1 as a 6.5-point favorite, and despite some boring early action – save for a ridiculous call of an incomplete pass when it looked like Jared Goff fumbled the ball backwards – the Lions led 21-0 more than halfway through the third quarter.

Tyler Shough had some good moments last year as a rookie but they all came against losing teams. He was losing his shit for much of this game with numerous sacks and turnovers, but he shook it off and ended up throwing 56 passes for 410 yards and 3 touchdowns. Four straight scoring drives ended up tying the game at 24, and I agree with the decision to tie it on an extra point with 1:07 left (too much time).

In fact, the Saints got the ball back with 0:27 after forcing a three-and-out (not Jared Goff’s best day), and Shough almost worked the ball into game-winning field goal range. A 62-yard field goal is feasible these days, but Daniel Carlson was way off on his attempt, so we went to overtime.

I think the Saints were right to go on defense first as you want the ball last with four-down football and knowing exactly what you need. The Lions drove 70 yards for a touchdown, making it look easy with Amon-Ra St. Brown catching his second of the day, but the game is no longer over even in the regular season.

Shough had his chance, and he led another 80-yard touchdown drive with 1:34 left. You’re not playing for a tie in Week 1, so I agree with the decision to go for two here by Kellen Moore. Shough had to hold the ball, and the defense was good enough to force Lance out of the back of the end zone as I’m not sure he was going to be able to catch it in bounds.

The Lions held on for the 31-30 win in a game that looked like it might end with under 30 combined points for a while there. We’ll see where the Saints go from here, but a bit of a red flag for the Lions in nearly giving this one away. Tough game up next with the Bills too on Thursday night to christen their new stadium in a meaningful game.

Falcons at Steelers: A Mike Tomlin Tribute

For the first time since the 2006 season, the Pittsburgh Steelers played a game without Mike Tomlin as their head coach. But he may as well have been there spiritually as this was a struggle-fest against a third-string quarterback (Cooper Rush) that was right up Tomlin’s alley.

The reunion of Mike McCarthy with Aaron Rodgers led to the quarterback throwing his most passes in the first half of a game since 2020. But there wasn’t a lot of success down the field, the running game never materialized, and while newcomer Michael Pittman Jr. looked good (caught all 3 targets for 58 yards), Rodgers still stuck to his guys from last year as DK Metcalf, Pat Freiermuth, and Roman Wilson combined for 21 targets. Eleven more went to the running backs on those little swing passes Rodgers fell in love with (out of necessity) in 2025.

I would have loved to see rookie Germie Bernard get a target but he didn’t. I would have liked to see more Pittman Jr. usage. Maybe they were saving things cause they thought they could get past an injury-riddled Atlanta team – how the fvck are you this banged up in Week 1? – and can show more against New England next week. But I was kind of disappointed in the offense scoring 13 points and needing T.J. Watt to take over with two sacks and a brilliant pick-six to provide the winning margin in the end.

With that said, like last year, Rodgers’ arm still looks strong despite his age. He also threw some great passes through defenders down the middle of the field, and his receivers (Metcalf and Wilson particularly) let him down multiple times with drops. So, his numbers could have easily been better here.

But slumming it in a 13-10 game with a badly injured team starting Cooper Rush – swinging it out to Bijan Robinson was the only play he seemed to have – and still needing a Watt pick-six and Nick Folk to blow multiple field goals is such a nice tribute to Mike Tomlin.

Ravens at Colts: Unleashing the Triplets

After the Colts marched right down the field with seven straight passes from Daniel Jones to get a Jonathan Taylor touchdown run, you thought maybe this is going to be the first half of 2025 all over again.

Then the rest of the game happened, and now I’m thinking those first 4.5 minutes may be the peak of the 2026 Colts’ season. Zay Flowers caught a 49-yard pass on the first play from scrimmage for the Declan Doyle offensive era in Baltimore, and the Ravens were soon on their way to 41 points with huge games from Lamar Jackson (324 passing yards on 25 attempts), Flowers, and Derrick Henry (144 yards, 3 touchdowns).

That’s the “Triplets” approach after the Ravens lost some depth this offseason. But it could clearly work well. Unfortunately, Flowers left after putting up 150 yards and a touchdown after a hamstring injury, and those can always linger. Hopefully he’ll be okay as it will be harder to throw efficiently without that major piece available.

But it’s a good debut for Jesse Minter as the Ravens had no issues salting the game away, taking a 38-16 lead in the fourth quarter and winning 41-23. I didn’t see much from Daniel Jones in this one, but there will be easier games for the Colts to come. Just not enough easy ones to take them as serious contenders in this AFC.

Jets at Titans: Not the Revenge Game That Robert Saleh Had in Mind

About the only way Robert Saleh and Brian Daboll’s debut with the Titans could have gone worse was if Cam Ward threw a pick-six to the Jets after they had zero picks in 17 games last year. That streak added another game, but it didn’t even matter as they won 23-10 in a stinker of a game that should really crush the hopes of Titans fans that this year would be better.

I wouldn’t even call it very efficient offense from the Jets as they were only 2-of-12 on third down. But Geno Smith strung together some drives in his return to the team, took no sacks, had no turnovers, and they kept the ball for 38:46 as the Titans could barely run any plays.

Hell, maybe they should have thrown some picks and forced some things with Ward. On multiple occasions down three scores in the final 18:00, Saleh punted like a coward, including once from the New York 43. Calvin Ridley didn’t even have a target while new rookie wideout Carnell Tate had four catches for 38 yards.

Just a miserable day for the Titans, who appear to be directionless.

Dolphins at Raiders: And the Award for Worst Wide Receiver Room Goes To…

I’m still amused that they matched up the two worst wide receiver rooms in the league for rookie coaches in Week 1. But in the end, Klint Kubiak’s scheme won out because he could still get running back Ashton Jeanty properly involved with 147 yards from scrimmage and two receiving touchdowns. With Brock Bowers out, Jeanty led the team with 45 receiving yards.

Malik Willis was basically what you’d expect on a reworked team with little around him. He led them in rushing (39 yards), scored a touchdown that way, and was completing a fair share of passes early before taking 5 sacks and ending with 13 points.

Long year for the Dolphins to come, and I’d be surprised if the Raiders had many more wins too when the schedule gets much tougher. Even in this game, Kirk Cousins threw two picks and barely averaged 5 YPA.

Browns at Jaguars: If You Haven’t Already, Get Used to This, Cleveland

The Browns are used to terrible seasons as they were 0-16 in the last decade. But they could be a special kind of awful in 2026 after going with Deshaun Watson at quarterback and trading Myles Garrett for Jared Verse while installing a new defense sure to be worse than the one Jim Schwartz coordinated.

I’ve been building up Cleveland for the No. 1 pick in the draft with a season likely to be embarrassing on both sides of the ball, and they lived down to those expectations on Sunday with a 34-10 loss in Jacksonville that wasn’t even as close as the score suggests. In fact, Watson’s 46-yard touchdown pass to rookie Denzel Boston in garbage time gave him passable stats by the naked eye, but don’t let one meaningless score massage those numbers too much.

The Browns scored 3 points on their first 8 drives with Watson, which is terrible production as he wasn’t getting anything out of their only two receivers worth a damn in the last two seasons in Jerry Jeudy (2024) and Harold Fannin Jr. (2025).

The defense was absolutely shredded by Trevor Lawrence, who was 18-of-23 for 245 yards and 4 touchdowns to four receivers with Parker Washington (5-83-1) leading the way again.

Get used to more Cleveland blowouts like this in 2026. We’ll learn exactly where Jacksonville is at in Year 2 for Liam Coen with the Broncos, Patriots, Bengals, Eagles, and Texans up next before an early bye.

Next Week:

Should be plenty of points scored in Lions-Bills on Thursday night. Early Sunday has interesting games like Bengals-Texans, Steelers-Patriots, Vikings-Bears, and we’ll see if the Packers can stop the bleeding at the Jets. Could be another stunner in Arizona if the Cardinals get to a 2-0 start by beating Seattle, which will likely be without Sam Darnold (hip). Jags-Denver might be the main attraction at 4:25. Colts at Chiefs for SNF is a display of two teams who have slumped hard since their last meeting in November. Then the Rams suddenly have their hands full against the Giants without Myles Garrett.

NFL 2026 Week 1 Predictions: Award Winners Edition

~ Scott ~ 2 Comments

The 2026 NFL season got off to an underwhelming start on Wednesday and Thursday, and I’m already sweating my Super Bowl pick of Rams over Bengals. But there is something bittersweet about watching Drake Maye and Matthew Stafford struggle to score points in their openers after they were the MVP race (by default) last year.

Speaking of awards, I’m going to drop my final picks below after the Week 1 picks. I’m usually late like this, but it’s not like I planned on picking anyone from the first two games for any of the awards this year anyway.

The NFL Kickoff Blues (NE vs. SEA, SF vs. LAR Recap)

Either defenses are way ahead of the offenses right now, or this act of not playing anyone in the preseason any snaps might finally be biting teams like the Rams in the ass. Sure, the travel was significant for the Rams and they’ll always talk about that for the Australia game. Stafford having his least effective outing as a Ram and Myles Garrett producing zero pressures while looking winded would certainly qualify for weird outlier unlikely to ever repeat itself.

But there were other questionable coaching things like how they used their new corners in coverage, and Davante Adams got one snap near the end zone after dominating in that area last year. Do the Rams think he’s washed? Very curious moves all around. Aaron Donald also didn’t play, so the supposed “super team” was far from top shape. After losing six games by a combined 21 points last year, the Rams got their asses kicked by 20 points in Week 1.

Meanwhile, hats off to the 49ers. Mike Evans looks ready to perform the deluxe Jauan Jennings route, making key catches on third down and providing a good-sized target in the end zone for Brock Purdy. George Kittle didn’t look too slow after the Achilles. They oddly limited CMC’s touches early, though it helped him break some nice runs in a good second half. Deebo looks good and they clearly understand better how to use him than the Commanders did. I kind of forgot about Deebo going back to be honest. That helps for the Pearsall injury and then their new rookie (Stribling) also got injured. But Fred Warner was awesome at linebacker in his return, and I possibly undersold this veteran team with just 9 wins. But it is a long season, and they have had McVay’s number over the years.

As for the first game, what have I been saying about Drake Maye? Terrible in crunch time, doesn’t handle good defenses well, and I wasn’t sure swapping Stefon Diggs and Kayshon Boutte for A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs was going to have a huge impact on him because of how well the other two played with him last year.

Sure enough, Brown gets injured and will miss 4-6 weeks. Doubs was horrible with a fourth-quarter drop that I honestly think could be a worse drop for Maye than any drop by a receiver in Tom Brady’s 20-year career with the Patriots. It was that bad and it led to another bad interception, though he saved the worst one for last with the game on the line with a game-tying FG in his back pocket. Just an inexcusable decision and throw.

Meanwhile, Drew Lock led the only fourth-quarter lead change in the last five NFL games after the Seahawks lost Sam Darnold on the opening drive. Damn. At least it doesn’t sound like more than a 1-2 week injury for Darnold.

But the Patriots are at a real risk of starting 1-3 or worse this month, playing several of the teams who beat them last year. I had them penciled in for 10-7 and the No. 7 seed, but you should absolutely be worried about Maye in crunch time as he’s now 1-8 at 4QC. And their insistence on running on early downs is what I believe is their way of protecting him from taking bad sacks or throwing bad picks cause he gets impatient and tries to play hero ball at times.

That’s why I didn’t rank him as a top 10 QB going into the season. I can only go by what we’ve seen, and he’s just not there yet.

But in watching two prime-time bores, does anyone else feel like the best part of the NFL regular season these days is that witching hour around 3:20-4:20 PM ET on Sunday? When you get that block of 8-10 games and there are several one-score games going at once and some dramatic things happen. That anymore is the highlight of the week most of the time if you ask me. These prime-time games almost seem purposely inept offensively for gambling reasons, and that’s soured me out on even trying to build parlays or collect game script data like I should be doing.

We’ll see if the overall trend in Week 1 is poor offense around the NFL, or if it’s just a case of Maye can’t figure out Seattle, the Seahawks lost their QB on drive 1, and the Rams and 49ers were sent to Australia for no good reason.

NFL 2026 Week 1 Picks

Couldn’t get a spread win on either game so far but here’s hoping for some better games this Sunday and Monday night.

NFL 2026 Week 1 Picks

BUF-HOU: Josh Allen is 0-4 as a starter in Houston in his career. It’s still Joe Brady’s offense vs. DeMeco Ryans’ defense, and while a C.J. Stroud disaster-class scares me on the other side of the ball, I think Houston can pull it off here.

CHI-CAR: Which team regresses harder in close games? I still think the Bears are clearly the better team and I trust Caleb more than Bryce Young.

CLE-JAX: I think the Browns have potential to be bottom 3 on both sides of the ball. I see Liam Coen getting his offense going early this season in Year 2, and I like the Jags by 9+ points.

ATL-PIT: The Steelers have to take advantage of a team going into Week 1 with a third-string QB and without its top pass-rushing duo. I think Aaron Rodgers plays well, and Mike McCarthy knows what Cooper Rush can and can’t do. Steelers by a TD or more.

NYJ-TEN: Robert Saleh revenge game. I think he puts the heat on Geno, and Cam Ward has a nice day to get a home win.

NO-DET: Saints could be a surprise team but I still like the Lions at home with that offense putting up enough to win by 7+.

BAL-IND: I see the Colts putting up a fight (Steichen has had success vs. BAL) but the Ravens redeem themselves with Tyler Loop providing a game-winning field goal to win by 3 points.

TB-CIN: Might not be a 50+ point shootout and probably shouldn’t be if the Bengals want to start thinking they’re moving in the right direction defensively. But I think they handle business here and start 1-0.

WAS-PHI: I see Jayden Daniels giving the Eagles a scare but the home team wins by 1-5.

GB-MIN: I like Kyler Murray’s debut game to be spoiled by the Pack with a close win.

MIA-LV: Nothing like matching up the two rookie coaches with the worst WR rooms in the NFL in Week 1. Brock Bowers out too. But I’m going to put some faith in Kirk Cousins over the unpredictability of Malik Willis and that new-look Miami team. Hell, the unpredictability might be a reason to pick Miami but let’s just go with the home team with the OC-turned-HC who won the Super Bowl.

ARI-LAC: I think Mike LaFleur’s Cardinals give the Chargers a scare in their first game without Jesse Minter as DC, but Herbert plays really well and they win by 1-9.

DAL-NYG: One of my key upsets this week, I like John Harbaugh to win his debut with the Giants with the defense leading the way after some dumb Dallas mistakes.

DEN-KC: Could be your classic Kansas City finish where the opponent covers but the Chiefs win by 1-2 points. But it sounds like Josh Simmons won’t play at left tackle, and I said after Super Bowl 59 that I am done picking the Chiefs in games where they face an elite pass rush without a starting LT. I think it’s absolutely malpractice to go into a season opener with an undrafted rookie LT with no real experience at the position to go up against Nik Bonitto in Mahomes’ first game back from a torn ACL. Broncos usually play KC tough anyway under Payton, so I think they can win this one while the Chiefs can do better in the upcoming games on the schedule.

NFL 2026 Season Award Predictions

My final picks for the 2026 NFL awards:

  • MVP: Justin Herbert
  • OPOY: Ja’Marr Chase
  • DPOY: Will Anderson Jr.
  • OROY: Carnell Tate
  • DROY: Rueben Bain Jr.
  • Comeback Player: Patrick Mahomes
  • Protector of the Year: Penei Sewell
  • Coach: Jesse Minter, Ravens

For MVP, I’ll just say Joe Burrow is my most-bet player and I really do believe he can win it. But after the way my final 2026 predictions played out with the Bengals getting a wild card and the Chargers winning the AFC West, and the way I like Ja’Marr Chase for OPOY, I think sanity would win out in that scenario and Herbert would get it when it’s perceived that the defense improving a lot is a reason for the Bengals to return to the playoffs. And the offense takes a step forward while the defense goes back a little for the Chargers.

But I’m sure there will be plenty of arguments for that to come, and hopefully my picks are in the conversation somewhere.