Three weeks into an NFL season is right about the time when millions of fans, analysts and people screaming into microphones begin realizing that approximately half of everything they confidently predicted in August was complete nonsense. Teams we buried are alive. Teams we crowned are suddenly looking mortal. Quarterbacks we called future superstars are being questioned, and guys we thought were halfway to retirement are walking off the bench and looking like they never left.
Week 3 certainly didn’t disappoint. The Eagles walked into Chicago undefeated and left after getting embarrassed by a 38-year-old quarterback who hadn’t thrown a regular-season pass since 2023. The Patriots, who were in the Super Bowl last season, got absolutely humiliated by Jacksonville. Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City are undefeated again because apparently the NFL is contractually obligated to make us watch the Chiefs deep into January every year. Meanwhile, backup quarterbacks reminded everyone that maybe the second-most important quarterback on your roster is the one nobody talks about until everything goes wrong.
So after another completely normal, totally predictable weekend in the NFL, what did we learn?
Maybe Caleb Williams Isn’t as Good as We Thought — Or Maybe Case Keenum Is a Stud
Before Bears fans start hunting down my email address, calm down. I’m not saying Caleb Williams can’t play quarterback. I’m also not suggesting Chicago should immediately trade him for three first-round picks and build a statue of Case Keenum outside Soldier Field. But after watching what happened Monday night, somebody has to at least ask the question nobody in Chicago wants to ask.
Caleb Williams injured his hamstring against Minnesota, leaving Chicago to turn to 38-year-old Case Keenum against an undefeated Philadelphia Eagles team. Keenum hadn’t thrown a regular-season NFL pass since 2023. He’s been in the league so long that when he entered the NFL, Tom Brady was only 35. Yet Keenum walked onto the field against Philadelphia and looked less like an emergency backup quarterback and more like a guy Ben Johnson had been secretly preparing for this exact moment.
Keenum completed 24 of 34 passes for 247 yards, threw two touchdowns without an interception and even ran for another touchdown as Chicago destroyed Philadelphia 27-7. The Bears didn’t simplify the offense into something resembling a middle-school playbook and pray Keenum wouldn’t screw it up. They actually ran their offense, controlled the football and made the previously undefeated Eagles look like they had spent the week preparing for the wrong team and that’s where things get interesting.
Maybe Keenum is simply one hell of a backup quarterback. Maybe Ben Johnson is an offensive genius. Maybe Chicago has surrounded its quarterbacks with enough talent that a veteran who understands where the football is supposed to go can step into the system and immediately succeed. Or maybe — and Bears fans aren’t going to enjoy this possibility — Caleb Williams hasn’t been elevating this offense nearly as much as everyone thought.
Nobody should be starting a quarterback controversy after one game. Williams is Chicago’s franchise quarterback, and when he’s healthy, the job is obviously his. But if Keenum continues moving this offense efficiently while Williams recovers, we’re going to learn something extremely interesting about Chicago. Sometimes the easiest way to figure out exactly how valuable your quarterback is isn’t watching him play. It’s watching somebody else run the exact same offense without him.
Did Somebody Forget to Tell the Patriots the Season Started?
Last season, New England went 14-3 and reached the Super Bowl. Three weeks into this season, the Patriots are 1-2 after Jacksonville treated them like a team that accidentally wandered onto the field looking for the preseason.
The Jaguars didn’t beat New England. They embarrassed them 35-6. Drake Maye finished with 199 passing yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions, while the Patriots turned the football over three times and never reached the end zone. Jacksonville didn’t even need some historic offensive explosion to do it. The Jaguars finished with only 315 total yards, which means New England basically spent Sunday repeatedly handing Jacksonville a shovel and helping dig its own grave.
Obviously, one terrible game doesn’t suddenly mean Maye can’t play quarterback, and three games don’t erase everything New England accomplished last season. But championship teams aren’t supposed to lose games 35-6, and quarterbacks considered among the league’s emerging stars aren’t supposed to look completely helpless when things start going sideways.
Maybe this is nothing more than an early Super Bowl hangover. Maybe opponents spent the offseason figuring out what New England does well and adjusting accordingly. Or maybe last season created expectations this Patriots roster isn’t quite ready to carry. Whatever the answer is, New England needs to find it quickly because 1-2 isn’t a disaster, but getting beaten by 29 points tends to make people start asking questions that weren’t being asked three weeks ago.
Apparently Patrick Mahomes Didn’t Get the Memo That the Chiefs Were Supposed to Be Finished
Every offseason, America participates in one of its favorite traditions: trying to convince itself that the Kansas City Chiefs are finally finished. Someone leaves in free agency, another AFC quarterback has a great season, Kansas City’s offense doesn’t look quite as explosive, and suddenly everyone starts writing the obituary. Then football starts.
Kansas City improved to 3-0 with a 24-10 win over Miami, and Patrick Mahomes completed 20 of 24 passes for 246 yards and two touchdowns. He wasn’t running around throwing 70-yard passes behind his back while blindfolded. He didn’t need to. He simply controlled the game, made the necessary plays and walked away with another victory because that’s basically what Kansas City does now.
That’s what should scare the rest of the AFC. The Chiefs don’t have to look spectacular anymore. They’ve become that annoying guy at the poker table who never seems excited, never panics and somehow keeps collecting everybody else’s chips. You keep thinking you’ve finally got him, and then three hours later you’re standing at the ATM wondering what happened.
Buffalo is also 3-0 after beating the Chargers, so perhaps we’re headed toward another season of Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes hovering over the AFC while everybody else tries to crash their party. There will undoubtedly be another hot team in October that everyone declares the new favorite, and somebody will inevitably announce that Kansas City’s championship window has finally closed. Until somebody actually removes Mahomes from the playoffs, though, maybe we should stop writing the Chiefs’ obituary every September.
Backup Quarterbacks Might Be the Most Underrated Players in Football
Case Keenum wasn’t the only backup quarterback who decided to ruin somebody else’s weekend. Washington entered Sunday’s game against defending Super Bowl champion Seattle without its starting quarterback and somehow walked away with a 33-31 victory behind Marcus Mariota.
Mariota threw three touchdown passes without an interception, but the truly ridiculous part is what Washington survived. Seattle produced 437 yards of offense. Sam Darnold threw for 379 yards and four touchdowns. Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught 10 passes for 128 yards and two touchdowns. If you looked only at those numbers, you’d assume Seattle won by two touchdowns.
Instead, the Seahawks turned the football over three times while Washington didn’t turn it over once. Mariota didn’t need to transform into 1994 Steve Young. He simply needed to protect the football, make the right throws and give Washington a chance to win. That’s exactly what a veteran backup quarterback is supposed to do, and it’s exactly what Keenum did for Chicago one night later.
Maybe NFL teams need to start treating the backup quarterback position like something more important than the place where they store an old guy with a clipboard. Quarterbacks get hurt. It’s not an unusual occurrence anymore; it’s practically part of the schedule. When your starter misses three or four games, the difference between having Case Keenum or Marcus Mariota and having somebody who looks terrified every time the center snaps the football can determine whether you’re still playing meaningful football in December.
Chicago just learned that lesson. Washington just learned it too. Somewhere in an NFL front office right now, a general manager is probably looking at his backup quarterback and quietly wondering whether he should update his résumé.
Three Weeks Down, and Apparently We Know Nothing
That’s the great thing about the NFL. We spend the entire offseason studying rosters, evaluating draft picks, watching training camp clips and confidently explaining exactly what’s going to happen. Then the games begin and football reminds us that it has absolutely no respect for our predictions.
Three weeks into the season, the Patriots are 1-2 after Jacksonville beat them 35-6. The defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks just lost a game in which their quarterback threw for 379 yards and four touchdowns. An undefeated Eagles team traveled to Chicago and got dismantled by Case freaking Keenum. Meanwhile, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs are quietly sitting at 3-0 while the rest of us once again try to figure out which AFC team is finally going to knock them off.
Maybe that’s the biggest thing we learned from Week 3: we haven’t learned nearly as much as we think we have. September creates contenders, pretenders, MVP candidates and panic attacks every Sunday, but the NFL has a wonderful habit of making all of us look stupid by November.
And that’s exactly why we’ll be back next week pretending we finally have everything figured out.
