The defending Super Bowl champions lost at home. Jameis Winston won a game 12 to 7 without turning the ball over. A 56-yard field goal in Brazil decided another. Week 3 did not go according to seeding.
The upsets
Commanders 33, Seahawks 31. Washington beat the defending champions, who had not lost since November, on a 50-yard Medrano pick-six with 3:57 left. The Commanders forced three turnovers and scored 21 points off them, and it was their first win of the season. It is also the game the federal government bought ad time inside, which is its own story.
Steelers 30, Bengals 27. Aaron Rodgers and Pittsburgh took it, and the defense closed it out with a strip sack of Joe Burrow in the final minute.
Ravens 34, Cowboys 31. Decided in Brazil on a 56-yard Tyler Loop field goal. Baltimore goes to 2-1, Dallas falls to 1-2.
The Giants got one
Giants 12, Titans 7. Not a thing of beauty, and it counts the same.
Jameis Winston did not turn the ball over. For a quarterback whose career has been defined by exactly that, in his first full week as the starter, that is the entire story. New York moves to 2-1.
We wrote last week that Jaxson Dart is out for the regular season with a torn meniscus plus MCL and PCL damage and that the next ten games would tell you what Winston is. One of them now says he can win a low-scoring game by protecting the ball.
Who is 3-0
Five teams: the Bills, Chiefs, Raiders, Vikings and 49ers. Las Vegas at 3-0 is the one nobody predicted.
The BeezLoop Take
The Seahawks result is the one that matters most and it is only Week 3, which is the correct amount of caution to apply. Defending champions lose September games. It happens every year and it predicts almost nothing.
What is more interesting is how these went. A strip sack in the last minute, a 56-yard kick, a 12-7 grind. None of these were decided by the better roster imposing itself. They were decided by one play, which is what the league is engineered to produce and why the preseason power rankings are worth what you paid for them.
Winston is the story worth following. Twelve points is not an offense anybody wants, and a quarterback with his history going a full game without a giveaway is genuinely meaningful. The Giants lost their rookie for the season and their backup just won them a game by doing the one thing he has historically not done. If that holds for a month, New York has something it had no right to expect.
Dallas at 1-2 after losing on a 56-yard kick in Brazil is the kind of loss that produces a week of noise and should not. Tyler Loop hit a 56-yarder. There is no coaching decision inside that. The Cowboys have real problems and this particular result is not evidence of them.
Is Jameis Winston protecting the ball a real change or one good afternoon?
Is Jameis Winston protecting the ball a real change or one good afternoon?
Should a defending champion losing in Week 3 mean anything at all?
Should a defending champion losing in Week 3 mean anything at all?
More: why Green Bay keeps calling the worst play it has, and the Falcons put 35 on the Packers on Thursday.
Sources: NFL.com · NBC Sports · FOX Sports live blog · CBS Sports
[…] from the week: the defending champion Seahawks lost and Jameis Winston won a game 12-7 without a turnover, and why Green Bay keeps calling the worst play it […]
[…] on BeezLoop: the defending champs lost and Jameis Winston won a game 12-7, and our Week 2 […]