15 Reasons that Week 3 Made Me Question Everything I Know about the NFL
Let's be honest. Most weeks, we all feel like we have a pretty good grasp on NFL landscape: who will win, who will lose, who will put up big numbers, etc.
Well, forget that. No one knows anything. Week 3 was about as unpredictable a week as I've ever seen, so I've taken the time to record 15 things that no reasonable person would have confidently predicted. This may also be an elaborate rationalization for why both of my fantasy teams lost this week.
1) Underdogs beat the spread in 12 of the week’s 16 games. Of those 12 underdogs, 8 won their games outright. Half of Week 3’s games resulted in upsets. Not a good week to bet on football.
2) The Jets won, nearly shutting out the Dolphins. Miami didn’t score until the final play of the game.
3) Case Keenum (369 yards) and Brian Hoyer (332 yards) recorded more pass yards than Aaron Rodgers (313 yards) and Matt Ryan (294 yards).
4) The Lions went from thinking they had won, to losing due to a 10-second runoff.
5) Five quarterbacks threw 3 interceptions each. Of those five quarterbacks, three belong to the NFC South.
6) The Raiders managed just 128 yards of total offense against the Washington defense, who allowed over 330 yards of offense to both the Rams and Eagles in their first two weeks.
7) Kirk Cousins threw for 365 yards, but 295 of those yards came off of short passes.
8) Rookie Kareem Hunt is the league-leader in yards from scrimmage with 538 yards. In second place is Todd Gurley, who is 157 yards behind.
9) The Patriots, who were 13.5-point favorites on Sunday, required a last-minute touchdown to beat the Texans.
10) Joe Flacco finished with 28 total passing yards, which is barely greater than the Jaguar’s 20 interception return yards.
11) Garbage-time expert Blake Bortles threw 4 touchdowns, none of which came in the 4th quarter.
12) The seemingly hapless Bills scored 26 points against the Broncos. Neither the Chargers nor the Cowboys surpassed 21 points against Denver’s defense in Weeks 1 and 2.
13) The Bears beat the Steelers with only 101 passing yards.
14) Cam Newton had 21 passing yards in the first half of Sunday’s matchup against the Saints.
15) The highest-scoring game of the week (and of the season so far): Ram at 49ers.
