The Kansas City Chiefs and the Baltimore Ravens came into Sunday’s slate in very unusual circumstances – two of the best teams of the last few years were struggling. Both were 1-2, and after the Chiefs’ 37-20 blowout win on Sunday, the Ravens are in the kind of real trouble one doesn’t usually expect from such a normally stable franchise.
First, the Chiefs. This offense has been a problem transcended by Patrick Mahomes for a long time, for all sorts of reasons, but there was at least a one-week reprieve from such worries. Mahomes was dynamite, completing 25 of 37 passes for 270 yards, four touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 124.8. It helped that speedy receiver Xavier Worthy was back in action for the first time since Week 1, and Worthy lived up to his … well, worth with five catches for 83 yards. Mahomes threw touchdown passes to four different receivers and for the first time in goodness knows how long, Andy Reid’s offense was a fun watch.
Advertisement
Mahomes also made NFL history (again), but the revival of the KC offense as a whole was far more important. On throws past the sticks, Mahomes – who by metrics was the NFL’s least effective deep passer last season – completed nine of 14 passes for 133 yards, three of his touchdowns, and a passer rating of 134.8.
Not that the Ravens hit the field at Arrowhead Stadium with anything approaching a healthy roster, and it got worse as the game went along – especially when Lamar Jackson left the game in the third quarter with a hamstring issue. Linebacker Roquan Smith and cornerback Marlon Humphrey also went out, and Baltimore’s defense was already without pass-rusher Kyle Van Noy, and defensive tackles Travis Jones and Nnamdi Madubuike.
So maybe a victory against a battered opponent doesn’t mean Kansas City are completely back. But at least, at 2-2, they can still think about playoff tickets. We’ll find out more about what this really means when Mahomes and his crew travel to Jacksonville for next Monday night’s game against a surprisingly stingy Jaguars defense.
Meanwhile, the Ravens – 1-3 for the first time since 2015 – have to fight their way out of a deep hole. And if they have to do so without Jackson for any length of time, their odds become much longer: 1-3 teams don’t exactly go on to make the postseason regularly, never mind without their star player. For what it’s worth, Ravens head coach John Harbaugh’s description of the injury was: “There’s nothing that looks like it’s season-ending by any stretch for anybody”.
Advertisement
If the Ravens do have one fleeting hope, it’s that the rest of the AFC North isn’t exactly stunning. The Browns (more on them in a minute) are wasting a great defense, the Bengals are Joe Burrow-less, and the Steelers are a big bag of who-knows-what from week to week. A loss would have been far more damning for the Chiefs, who reside in the AFC West with the Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Chargers.
MVP of the week
Ashton Jeanty, RB, Las Vegas Raiders. It’s not often that a player on a losing team gets this award, but if Dallas Cowboys linebacker Chuck Howley can do it in Super Bowl V, Jeanty can do so despite his team losing a 25-24 heartbreaker to the Chicago Bears. While Raiders quarterback Geno Smith was busy extracting defeat from the jaws of victory with three interceptions, Jeanty – the sixth overall pick in the 2025 draft after a transcendent career at Boise State – finally looked like the back the Raiders wanted. Through his first three games, Jeanty had no shot behind a horrid offensive line, but some personnel and schematic changes – including offensive coordinator Chip Kelly allowing Jeanty to use the same standup pre-snap style that was so successful in college – finally paid off. Jeanty gained 138 yards and scored a touchdown on 21 carries, and he caught a couple of passes for 17 yards and two more scores.
If you’re mortally offended by the concept of MVP “losers,” there is another MVP of the week on the Bears’ side – safety Kevin Byard, who picked off Smith twice.
Advertisement
Video(s) of the week
There is only one choice for this, and Indianapolis Colts receiver Adonai Mitchell would obviously prefer that there wasn’t. Mitchell had first-round talent, but developed a reputation of not always being on the same page as the playbook dictates and he was taken in the second round last year. But he was on track for his first NFL touchdown against the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday, until he wasn’t. In the third quarter, Mitchell made one of the best catches you’ll see this season on a deep pass from Daniel Jones, had a free path to the end zone, and then engaged in a premature celebration.
Former Philadelphia Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson is the most (in)famous for this particular mistake, but he’s far from the only one. Last December, I wrote about an epidemic of players fumbling the ball before they reached the end zone, including Colts running back Jonathan Taylor.
It was a really rough day for Mitchell – in the first quarter, Rams safety Kam Curl gave Jones his first interception of the season on another deep target to Mitchell, and it didn’t appear that Mitchell was aware of the fact that Curl was about to jump the route. Then, with 2:25 left in the game – which was tied at 20-20 at that point – Mitchell’s holding penalty negated what would have been a 53-yard touchdown run by Jonathan Taylor.
The Rams scored a touchdown on their next drive, it ended 27-20, and Mitchell has to deal with the fact that he cost his team two touchdowns on one day in a career in which he’s never scored one. That’s tough to overcome.
Advertisement
Stat of the week
45. The number of times in his NFL career that Josh Allen has had at least one passing touchdown and one rushing touchdown in the same game. Allen reached that mark in the Bills’ 31-19 win over the New Orleans Saints, and that tied him with Cam Newton for the most such games in league history. It took Newton 11 seasons to get there; Allen has accomplished that feat in seven full seasons and four games. He is not just an amazing quarterback – the defending NFL MVP is a nonpareil power runner as well, and there are times when he resembles an athletic edge-rusher at his size.
Elsewhere around the league
— In their Sunday night game against the Green Bay Packers, the Dallas Cowboys spotted their guests a 13-point lead, which seemed especially generous after handing Micah Parsons to the Pack a month ago in a trade that had the Cowboys’ defense looking awful through the first three games of the season. But they fought back as the game ended 40-40, the second-highest score in a tie in pro football history, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a more exciting game in the annals of football than this one.
Eighty points would suggest the Cowboys defense is still missing Parsons badly – and perhaps that he hasn’t made the Packers D into a world-beating unit either. But that would be a disservice to excellent quarterback play from Dak Prescott and Jordan Love, who threw for three touchdowns each … and zero interceptions. When a game is as excellent as this – this catch was just one highlight – it’s best to forget the off-field wrangles and appreciate what a thrilling experience football can be. That seemed to be the case for Parsons and his old teammates too, many of whom he warmly greeted at the end of the game.
Advertisement
— The game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Minnesota Vikings, which marked the NFL’s first regular-season foray into Ireland, began as an unexpected quarterback efficiency festival. Neither Carson Wentz nor Aaron Rodgers threw an incompletion until Wentz was picked off by Steelers safety DeShon Elliott with 5:58 left in the first half. Wentz, who has been with a different team every season since 2020, then continued his usual dichotomy between “wow” plays and ones deserving of far stronger (and unprintable) adjectives.
In the end, this 24-21 win for the Steelers came down to Wentz’s final drive, which began with 1:08 left. With the ball at his own 20-yard line, and the need to get in field-goal range in a hurry, Wentz became a victim of his own worst tendencies. He got his team as far as the Minnesota 39-yard line before delay of game and intentional grounding penalties derailed everything. On fourth-and-17, Wentz threw over the middle into a gaggle of Steelers, and Elliott’s pass breakup ended the game.
Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell may be the NFL’s best passing game designer, but with a guy like Wentz, you can only lead him to water. Meanwhile, the Steelers were Riverdancing their way home.
— New York Giants head coach Brian Daboll did the right thing this week by announcing that Jaxson Dart would replace Russell Wilson as his quarterback, and the rookie pulled out a 21-18 win (the Giants’ first of the season) over the Los Angeles Chargers with a lot lined up against him. Dart had to play most of the game without Malik Nabers after the receiver, one of the NFL’s best, suffered a torn ACL on MetLife Stadium’s disastrous turf. Moreover, Dart was also facing a defense that came into Sunday ranked seventh in the NFL in opponent-adjusted efficiency.
Advertisement
It mattered not to the rookie, who completed 13 of 20 passes for 111 yards, a touchdown, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 96.0. Dart also rushed for 54 yards and another touchdown. At the 2025 scouting combine, Dart said that his ideal quarterback is Jalen Hurts, and this was a very Hurts-like debut: Do just enough as a rusher and as a passer to win.
— There was one pitched battle of 3-0 teams on Sunday, as the Philadelphia Eagles outlasted the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31-25 after running out to leads of 24-3 and 31-13 before Baker Mayfield and the Bucs woke up. This was an old-school pier-sixer all the way, to the point where you expected Brian Dawkins and Warren Sapp to come out and trade punches.
While the Bucs took far too long to get rolling offensively and were surprisingly compliant on defense, the Eagles simply did what they do – enough to keep the wins coming, impressive or not. Hurts completed 15 of 24 passes for 130 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions and a passer rating of 104.5 – this without completing a single pass in the second half. Saquon Barkley ran 19 times for 43 yards and a touchdown, and still the Eagles nearly won this one going away. While the Bucs have enough to impress most weeks, this was an instance in which they learned a lesson in how to win when you need to – no matter how it looks.
— One week after they were blanked 30-0 by the Carolina Panthers, who have one of the NFL’s worst defenses, the Atlanta Falcons came out against the Washington Commanders in determined mood. This time, in a 34-27 win that pushed his team to 2-2 on the season, Michael Penix Jr completed 20 of 26 passes for 313 yards, two touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 126.0. Maybe it was a wakeup week for Atlanta’s offense, but Penix looked more in control than at any other time in his NFL career, and running back Bijan Robinson (who could make an NFL roster as a slot receiver) added a career-high 181 yards from scrimmage. The NFC South is a bit more open after the Bucs’ loss, and the Falcons already have a playoff-level defense. If this is the true turnaround, Atlanta are suddenly a team to watch.
Advertisement
— It’s been a nice career for Joe Flacco, but it’s time for the 18-year veteran to hang ‘em up. The Cleveland Browns are wasting a great defense with abysmal quarterback play, and it happened once again in their 34-10 loss to the Detroit Lions. Only this time, the defense’s wafer-thin margin for error busted through against Detroit’s dynamic offense. Flacco completed 16 of 34 passes for 184 yards, no touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 39.3. Flacco has been a disaster all season, turning down throws NFL quarterbacks must make, and if head coach Kevin Stefanski wants any chance of competitiveness, he needs to put Dillon Gabriel out there once and for all. Testing a rookie QB worked for the Giants, after all.
Read the full article here