Sports Fountain’s NFL top 10 after Week 3: Bears crash the party
Case Keenum’s first NFL start in almost three years ended with two touchdown passes, a rushing touchdown and the Eagles heading home with seven points.
Philadelphia came to Chicago unbeaten. It left with a 27-7 loss to a team starting its third-string quarterback. If you needed one last reason to reconsider what the first two weeks had told us, Monday night supplied it.
Buffalo spent Sunday giving the ball away and somehow won anyway. Seattle gave it away less often and lost. The Raiders fell behind by 11 in New Orleans, then shut the Saints out for the rest of the game. Denver waited until halftime to start scoring.
There are victories that settle an argument and victories that leave you with another hour’s worth of questions. We got plenty of the latter; you’ll see as we delve into them.
Editor's Picks
For SportsFountain’s top 10, the whole three-game body of work counts. Quality of opposition, control of games and the circumstances of a loss all deserve consideration. Last week’s position does not come with a reservation for this week.
San Francisco stays first. Kansas City moves closer. And Chicago has done considerably more than borrow Philadelphia’s place.
1. San Francisco 49ers (3-0)
Week 3: Beat Arizona 36-30
Arizona kept making this uncomfortable, and Brock Purdy kept finding George Kittle.
Both of Kittle’s touchdowns came in the fourth quarter. When the Cardinals pulled within two late, San Francisco answered with another touchdown instead of leaving its exhausted defense to protect that margin. Purdy finished with 297 yards and four touchdown passes.
The detail I keep coming back to is the protection. Through three games, the 49ers have not allowed a sack. Giving this collection of receivers time to finish their routes is a fairly generous way to defend them.
Sunday was easily their least convincing defensive performance. Arizona ran 81 plays, and San Francisco could not put the game away nearly as comfortably as it had against the Rams and Dolphins. That goes into the assessment, too.
Still, the 49ers have won their three games by a combined 48 points. They have controlled two opponents and produced the necessary offense when the third pushed back. I am not moving them down because their first difficult finish arrived.
2. Kansas City Chiefs (3-0)
Week 3: Beat Miami 24-10
Kenneth Walker III is making Kansas City’s offense considerably more annoying to defend.
He scored on a run and a reception against Miami, and Patrick Mahomes completed 20 of 24 passes. On play-action, Mahomes went 11-for-12 for 183 yards and a touchdown. There is a useful relationship developing there: the run threat deserves attention, and the quarterback is quite happy to exploit that attention.
Miami did keep this close. The Dolphins had a chance to tie the game in the fourth quarter before Nohl Williams broke up a fourth-down pass. Kansas City then finished the job with a touchdown to Travis Kelce. Calling it a comfortable afternoon would give the Chiefs rather too much credit.
Their opening 31-10 win over Denver, however, looks better after the Broncos’ consecutive victories. That is an actual result strengthening Kansas City’s case, without needing to bring up anything Mahomes accomplished in another season.
The Chiefs have shown more balance than Buffalo and more offensive reliability than Minnesota. Next comes a trip to Las Vegas, where the other unbeaten team will have plenty to say about this order.
3. Minnesota Vikings (3-0)
Week 3: Beat Tampa Bay 23-16
Chicago’s Monday night performance was a pretty good advertisement for Minnesota’s previous Sunday.
The Bears scored 27 against Philadelphia a week after managing three against the Vikings. Minnesota followed that defensive performance by holding Tampa Bay to 16 on another road trip. Through three games, its opponents have scored 41 points.
Now, about the offense.
Kyler Murray returned and threw for 168 yards. Justin Jefferson left with an ankle injury. The Vikings finished with 230 total yards, and an 86-yard punt-return touchdown from Myles Price supplied a substantial part of the scoring. Nobody should confuse this with an offense comfortably dictating terms.
But I also refuse to treat special teams as an accounting error. Price’s return counts. So do Will Reichard’s three field goals, including a 56-yarder that broke a fourth-quarter tie. Those are winning contributions from players whose work deserves space alongside the quarterback’s.
Minnesota has a 17-point divisional win and two road victories. The offense gives me reservations about where this goes. The results give me very little room to pretend it has not earned this position.
4. Buffalo Bills (3-0)
Week 3: Beat the Los Angeles Chargers 24-16
Five turnovers usually send you to the postgame news conference with a loss to explain.
Buffalo instead got to discuss a comeback win, which ought to make the offensive film session only slightly less unpleasant.
After allowing 31 points in each of their first two games, the Bills’ defense repeatedly dealt with bad field position and kept the Chargers within reach. Los Angeles scored on only two of the five possessions that followed Buffalo turnovers.
The biggest intervention came after Josh Allen lost a fourth-quarter fumble. C.J. Gardner-Johnson intercepted Justin Herbert near the goal line and returned it 41 yards. Buffalo had given away another opportunity; its defense immediately took one back.
James Cook’s 154 rushing yards helped finish the rescue. There is something reassuring about winning on a day when Allen and the passing offense are having this many problems. There is considerably less reassurance in creating those problems against a team that is now 0-3.
The win over Detroit remains a strong part of Buffalo’s case. Sunday showed a defense capable of helping. I would like to see both units play well on the same afternoon before moving the Bills higher.
5. Las Vegas Raiders (3-0)
Week 3: Beat New Orleans 35-27
Brock Bowers missed two games, returned and caught 10 passes for 116 yards and a touchdown. Apparently, he did not need much time to get reacquainted.
The Raiders were already winning without him. Now Kirk Cousins has his best receiving option back, and Las Vegas has added a comeback on the road to an increasingly respectable September.
The Saints led 27-16 before the Raiders scored the final 19 points. Their defense forced four fourth-quarter turnovers, including Jeremy Chinn’s strip-sack on fourth down and Nakobe Dean’s forced fumble to end New Orleans’ last chance.
Here is the number that deserves more attention than any preseason opinion about this team: Las Vegas has not allowed a fourth-quarter point through three games. The takeaways have been dramatic. The ability to finish keeps showing up.
Four turnovers in one quarter will not be a weekly service. Tyler Shough also threw four touchdowns before the Raiders finally interrupted him, so the defensive celebration needs some perspective. But Las Vegas has earned the right to enter its matchup with Kansas City as a serious opponent, rather than a nice early-season curiosity.
6. Chicago Bears (2-1)
Week 3: Beat Philadelphia 27-7
The quarterback makes the headline. Holding Philadelphia to seven points makes this a top-10 performance.
Case Keenum threw for 247 yards and accounted for three touchdowns, while Chicago’s defense produced three takeaways. The Bears won decisively despite having to reach well down their quarterback depth chart. That is a substantial coaching and team accomplishment.
Philadelphia also opened the second half with three consecutive three-and-outs. Nine plays, seven yards. Chicago gave the Eagles opportunities to respond and then sent their offense straight back to the sideline.
There is still a strange set of results here: 59 points against Carolina, three against Minnesota, then this. The Vikings game cannot disappear just because Monday was enjoyable. Neither can a 20-point win over an unbeaten opponent be dismissed because Keenum was the one delivering it.
I give Chicago the edge over Seattle because its best win is now more convincing, and its loss came against a team that remains unbeaten. Projecting the next month with an unsettled quarterback situation is another conversation. This ranking gives the Bears credit for what they just pulled off. Seattle fans, don’t be offended.
7. Seattle Seahawks (2-1)
Week 3: Lost to Washington 33-31
You can do an awful lot well and still deserve to lose.
Seattle averaged 6.8 yards per play against Washington’s 4.0. Sam Darnold returned and threw for 379 yards and four touchdowns. Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught 10 passes for 128 yards and two scores. The offense was hardly incapable of doing its job.
It also contributed directly to Washington winning.
The Seahawks lost the turnover battle 3-0. Two giveaways set up touchdowns, and Kain Medrano returned another interception 50 yards for a score. Explaining the defeat through those mistakes is fair, and of course, treating those mistakes as something separate from Seattle’s performance would be absurd.
There is enough good football here to keep the Seahawks comfortably in the conversation. Darnold moved well in his return, and the passing game produced explosive results. But the 13-10 win over New England has lost some of its shine after Jacksonville dismantled the Patriots.
Seattle falls because Sunday was a winnable game it mishandled. It stays because one sloppy loss does not erase the convincing work against Arizona or the quality still visible in this offense.
8. Denver Broncos (2-1)
Week 3: Beat the Los Angeles Rams 30-26
Denver is developing an interesting approach to the first half: leave itself something enormous to fix.
The Broncos trailed the Rams 16-0 at halftime, then scored 30 points after the break. That followed a comeback from 13-3 down against Jacksonville. Bo Nix scored the winning touchdown against Los Angeles with 47 seconds left. The finishes have been excellent. The need for them is getting a little excessive.
Talanoa Hufanga was central to the latest escape. His 66-yard interception return put Denver ahead in the fourth quarter, and his second interception ended the game. The defense had already forced three consecutive punts to begin the second half, giving the offense time to recover.
I wrestled with putting Jacksonville ahead of Denver. The Jaguars’ two wins have been much more comprehensive. But these teams played eight days ago, Denver won, and it has since added another victory. That direct evidence gets the Broncos the nod.
The 31-10 loss to Kansas City still limits the enthusiasm. Now they visit San Francisco. Spotting that offense another substantial lead would be an ambitious way to spend Sunday.
9. Jacksonville Jaguars (2-1)
Week 3: Beat New England 35-6
Jacksonville has beaten Cleveland and New England by a combined 69-16. A team doing that to two opponents should not need much help getting noticed.
The Patriots game also had a useful answer to what went wrong in Denver. There, Jacksonville let a second-half lead get away. Here, it kept playing.
Travis Hunter intercepted Drake Maye in the end zone before halftime. Later, Parker Washington had a touchdown wiped out by a penalty, then caught a 17-yard touchdown on the next play. A 15-play drive ended with Jacksonville extending its lead to 21-3 instead of settling for a missed opportunity.
That sequence tells you more than simply noting Trevor Lawrence threw three touchdown passes. The Jaguars absorbed a setback within a possession and still finished it. Against a New England team whose defense had carried it through two weeks, they kept creating separation.
Denver’s head-to-head win holds Jacksonville here for now. The overall scoring margin suggests there could be more to this team than ninth place. A trip to Cincinnati comes next, with an opportunity to show that its best football travels.
10. Detroit Lions (2-1)
Week 3: Beat the New York Jets 31-24
Jahmyr Gibbs scored three touchdowns, produced 164 yards from scrimmage and still had to wait for the defense to settle things.
That has been the experience of following Detroit so far. The Lions have scored exactly 31 points in each game. They have won two of them, and neither was particularly restful.
Geno Smith completed 31 of 37 passes for 321 yards and three touchdowns on Sunday. Detroit finally ended the threat when Chuck Clark’s blitz produced a strip-sack and Jack Campbell recovered the ball. An excellent deciding play, certainly. Also a reminder of how long the Jets had been allowed to keep threatening.
Detroit gets my final spot because its offense has supplied the most dependable strength among the teams on the edge of this list. Jared Goff has eight touchdown passes without an interception through three games, and its only defeat came at Buffalo.
Cincinnati has a fair complaint after losing by three in Pittsburgh. But its wins over Tampa Bay and Houston are against teams now sitting at 0-3, which leaves less substance behind the record.
Detroit heads to Carolina next Sunday night. Goff and Gibbs have done enough to expect another productive evening. It would be useful if they could spend the final possession watching from the bench.
Week 2 Ranking:
Sports Fountain’s NFL top 10: 49ers edge Seahawks after two convincing wins
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