NFL Week 3 Takeaways: Cowboys Caught Off-Guard by Cardinals

Our contribution to the national pastime of reacting — and overreacting — to everything that happened on Sunday afternoons in the NFL. Be sure to check out Mike Tanier’s Walkthrough first thing Monday morning. But, for now, an unhinged look at all things Sunday… 

The Things That Warmed Our Hearts

Every Time the Dolphins-Broncos Score and Stats Come Across the Bottom Line… : It looks like a series of typos. 70 points! (The most for any team since 1966, by the way.) 726 yards of offense! 350 rushing yards! I don’t really have anything to say about De’Von Achane, who ran for 203. Mike White came on and threw two passes and had a higher passer rating than Tua Tagovailoa in this game. (Quarterback controversy? We’ll have to wait and see.)

Anyone Could Have Had Raheem Mostert!: Some will argue this fits the “devaluation of the running back” narrative, but I’d argue that a the Dolphins recognized the value in a back with a unique combination of speed and power, and was willing to trust that a high-end athlete would recover from an injury. And now the Dolphins are being rewarded for that move.

Brandon Staley Was Right to Go for It, the Problem Was the Play Call: Quick recap in case you missed it: Protecting a four-point lead with less than two minutes left, and facing a fourth-and-inches on their own 24 against a Vikings team with no time outs, the Chargers went for it and came up short. You’ll find the usual suspects arguing the opposite, but it’s not that difficult: You have a better chance of moving the ball one foot and ending the game than punting and stopping an opponent in four-down mode — even an opponent with no timeouts — from going 70 yards for a touchdown in the final 100 seconds. The problem for the Chargers was putting their primary running back, Joshua Kelley, in the fullback spot and believing they’d fool a defense that was zeroed in on him and ready to sell out on the run at the snap. The Chargers — just like every other team in the NFL — are far better off just doing the butt-pushing thing that the Eagles do. But even if they’d had a better play call and it didn’t work, Staley still would have been right to go for it there.

This Time, the Chargers Defenses Closes Things Out: Staley is right in that this team is capable of closing out games, and his defense essentially did it twice on Sunday. First, there was the goal-line stand late in the fourth quarter that gave the offense a chance to run out the clock. Then, after the offense gave it back to the Vikings on the 24, the Chargers got the game-ending interception. It might have been over sooner than that had they not been flagged for a third-down penalty away from the ball on the drive’s first set of downs. Lots of folks who like to yell incorrect things about fourth-down decisions will take over the news cycle to start this week, but make no mistake: Sunday was a very good day for Brandon Staley’s Chargers. (Well, a very good day except for Mike Williams getting carted off.)

Justin Herbert Has Been Overdue to Catch a Break: He was great on Sunday (as he’s been pretty much every week since he entered the league), but this might have been the worst throw of his career.

Jonathan Gannon Is on the Board!: The Cardinals have competed for three games, and on Sunday it finally paid off in the form of a win. (Just realize how much father along they’d be if they’d remembered to trade for Joshua Dobbs before it was late-August!) It was a decisive victory from a coaching standpoint too, on both sides of the ball for Arizona.

C.J. Stroud to Tank Dell: Dell is the kind of explosive downfield playmaker the Panthers should have targeted to help out their young quarterback. Stroud continued the promising start to his career on Sunday, including a Kyra Sedgwick-in-The-Closer-style bomb to seal it in Jacksonville.

Ben Johnson and Jared Goff Making Beautiful Music: A couple of beautifully designed downfield shots against a Falcons team that should maybe copy and paste a few of those designs. Johnson and Goff are the new Hall and Oates.

Patriots Beat Jets in Most Predictable Game Ever: I said 19–14, but the inclement weather dragged it down to 15–10. (More specifically, both defenses were as advertised, and each offense had a relatively promising moment or two.)

Jordan Love Persists: He didn’t play well on Sunday, and he got little help from a young receiving corps that left a few catchable throws on the field. But Green Bay grinded it out anyway, with Love mixing in his valuable legs (that’s a good thing!) when things got really dicey. It wasn’t beautiful, and the Packers aren’t Super Bowl contenders, but Sunday was another step in the right direction for their young quarterback.

Matt Nagy Revenge Game!: The Chiefs’ offensive coordinator helped K.C. put up 41 on the team that once saddled him with Mitchell Trubisky.

Matt Gay Does a Spot-On Justin Tucker Impression: The Colts kicker had a record four makes from beyond 50, including the game-winner in overtime. Meanwhile Tucker, who was short on a potentially game-winning 61-yarder, could only watch helplessly from the sideline. It was a jarring reminder that some younger version of ourselves will eventually replace us all.

Gardner Minshew Is Competitive: He’s putting his own twist on the Tua-style anticipatory touch throws to space, and he consistently gave Michael Pittman and Alec Pierce (and, eventually, the Colts as a whole) a chance to win in Baltimore. (He also remains quirky: For instance, did you know Gardner Minshew has a checking account and a savings account at his local bank? Quirky!)

The Best Touchdown Celebration of the Season So Far: And they saved it for their fifth touchdown of the day — that’s a confident team!

The Things We Regret

Cowboys Hit the Snooze Button: Mike McCarthy has gotten some back-pats for his emphasis on complementary football, but Sunday was, in part, an argument for why you attack an outmanned opponent and make the game as long as possible. (An average depth of target of 5.1 for Dak? [eye roll emoji]) It was also, in part, a case of Dak Prescott leaving a lot of throws on the field, an offensive line that looked unprepared to handle an NFL opponent, and a defensive unit that played like it had never seen a condensed formation before. Though more than anything, it’s likely a case of, Weird things happen in the desert.

Everything Sean Payton Does, He Does for a Reason (I'm Told): Publicly calling out the former coaching staff then revealing in the season’s first month that you didn’t actually follow what went on last season? Falling to 0–3? Giving up 70 points in a professional football game? All part of the plan.

Broncos Linebackers’ Disinterest in Tackling: Nay, make that disdain for tackling, for a second straight week. It’s September 24 and this team already looks like it’s ready to pack it in, maybe figure out who’s gonna host this year’s March Madness watch party.

Dolphins Owner Stephen Ross: It’s not often you get a first-hand peek at another timeline in the multiverse, but it must have been weird for Ross to watch the team he desperately wanted to assemble get utterly depantsed by the team he accidentally ended up with in Miami.

To Be Fair: I think this is the first time Tyreek Hill has ever been targeted on a deep crosser. How could they have known!

Too Soon to Panic in Jacksonville, But... : It’s a long season, etc. etc. But, rest assured, there are play-calling problems on both sides of the ball for the Jaguars right now. The Texans knocked off the Jaguars in Duval a year ago with a much worse team, so this wasn’t a stunner, but it's been an underwhelming start to the year for a Jaguars team that should be ready to take the next step.

Officials Butcher the Clock in Baltimore: It ended up not making a difference, but with the Ravens trying to get into field-goal range with one timeout left at the end of regulation, officials stopped the clock after Lamar Jackson’s knee slammed to the ground, after which he flipped the ball out of bounds. Officials originally ruled Jackson had gotten the ball away before the sack (he hadn’t, and it wasn’t close), then they changed the call, then they reviewed it, confirming that Jackson was sacked before the ball was away. But because they had already reversed the blatantly-incorrect call on the field before the review, it was a confirmation, and therefore there was no 10-second runoff. The result of a brutal series of missteps in game administration: Officials put four seconds back on the clock, the clock started on the whistle after what was a lengthy delay, making it essentially a crucial, free timeout for Baltimore.

Derek Carr Goes Down: The Saints spent so much time trying to get QB1 right that they’re still stuck with Jameis Winston at QB2. New Orleans is built to grind out defense-heavy wins — and would have on Sunday if their rookie kicker converted a makable kick late. But if Carr misses any time, and they’re therefore forced to rely on the utterly untrustworthy Winston, that’s a huge problem for a team with designs on winning the NFC South.

Is This the End of Derrick Henry?: Even before the game in Cleveland got out of hand, Henry was a non-factor and mostly watching Tyjae Spears from the sideline. There’s only so much Henry would be able to do considering how badly Ryan Tannehill is struggling (it was bad on Sunday), but it’s clear new offensive coordinator Tim Kelly has been charged with building a post-Henry offense in Tennessee.

Dolphins in Short Yardage: They turned it over on downs after putting fullback Alec Ingold under center for a sneak on third-and-inches, then giving it to Ingold on an inside handoff on fourth-and-inches. Short-yardage calls are, literally, the only thing Mike McDaniel has struggled with in his time as a head coach. Washington should offer them Jacoby Brissett for multiple 1’s right now.

Too Many Guys Are Wearing Number 0: The Players’ Association should have done a lottery and awarded Number 0 to two or three players per year. Everyone who picked Number 0 was likely hoping to stand out, but they’re all anonymous now, walking clichés.

The Moments We’ll Tell Our Grandkids About

Tua Was Right-Handed All Along: He spent 25 years setting up this play. We call that a “long con.”

Rashid Shaheed Is a National Treasure: 

A Man Who Normally Catches Touchdowns … Throws a Touchdown?!?!?!: What strange times we live in.

Andrew Beck Knows Where It’s At: You might say the Jaguars’ coverage unit was alone in the New Pollution on this one. Perhaps he had a Devil’s Haircut… in his mind… when he picked the ball up. Odelay. Those are songs from Odelay. What’s your favorite song from Odelay? (Mine’s “Sissyneck.”)

Headless Michael Pittman!: Wait, helmetless. Just helmetless.

The Things We’ll Be Talking About This Week

The Broncos Organization Makes Sunk-Cost Fallacy Into an Artform: This time a year ago, the front office couldn’t wait to throw the newly-hired head coach and his staff under the bus to distract from the problems with the aging quarterback they’d vastly overpaid for. Ownership stayed out of it and eventually ended up keeping the two men who were probably most to blame for last year’s debacle (the coach and GM). Then they went out and overpaid — again! — for Sean Payton, who 1) Came in mocking last year’s coaching staff but took two weeks to reveal he was unaware of the quarterback’s most basic, and most public, issues of a year ago, and 2) perhaps more notably on Sunday, was unable to convince either of his first two defensive coordinator choices (Ejiro Evero and Vic Fangio) to come with him. The Broncos hit surprising new lows a year ago, but it shouldn’t be particularly surprising that things have gotten worse in 2023.

Also, When Do the Broncos Bring Back Jerry Rosburg?: Payton’s staff is having all the same game management issues last year’s staff did. Might as well make the same public spectacle of Rosburg coming in to run game management again this year, right?

Apparently Tua Tagovailoa Might Have Work-Ethic Issues: I mean, he didn’t even bother to play in that fourth quarter against the Broncos!

Taylor Swift Was at the Chiefs Game: In a luxury box with the mother of Travis Kelce. And you know what that means: Taylor Swift is angling to be the next Jake From State Farm.