Some NFL teams need statement games more than others do. You win the Super Bowl, and that can stand as your statement for at least the following season and sometimes longer.
Which is not to say that the Buccaneers didn't want to beat the Rams on Sunday -- just that the Rams were the team in that matchup that was looking to make a statement, and did they ever.
The statement was, "We're for real, and we're coming for you." A season after the Bucs became the first team to win the Super Bowl in its home stadium, the Rams dealt for quarterback Matthew Stafford in an effort to become the second. Through three weeks, it's hard to argue that any team has looked better.
So let's go right to the big matchup of the day for the lead overreaction of Week 3.
The Rams are the new Super Bowl favorites
This was a Buccaneers team that returned every single starter and a good chunk of the backups and sparked more than one day of morning TV talk about whether it could go 17-0 in the NFL's newly expanded season. Fortunately, that question was definitively answered early enough, but the fact that the Rams answered it should not be overlooked.
The Buccaneers are not overrated. They are excellent, and far more stunning things have happened than them becoming the first team in 17 years to repeat as Super Bowl champs. This was as worthy a measuring-stick game as the Rams will have all year, and they more than measured up.
Stafford threw four touchdown passes, including two more to Cooper Kupp, whom Stafford clearly drafted in fantasy this year. The Rams pressured Tom Brady on 27% of his dropbacks, which is way over the 17.8% he has endured since joining the Bucs, and sacked him three times. They won by 10, but they controlled the game from the outset. If you watched only this one game, you'd have to conclude the Rams were the better team. Statement made.
The verdict: OVERREACTION. Yes, the Rams absolutely could win Super Bowl LVI. No, no other team has looked better this season -- not even the other 3-0 ones. The Cardinals barely beat the Vikings in Week 2. The Panthers haven't scored like the Rams have. The Raiders have needed overtime twice. The Broncos' opponents are a combined 0-9. This isn't to denigrate any of these other 3-0 starts, just to say that if you had to rank them, it makes sense to rank the Rams' 3-0 start highest.
It's still too early to anoint them favorites, if only because of what still lies between them and the No. 1 seed. They still have nondivision road games in Green Bay and Baltimore, as well as all eight of their division games in what shapes up to be (Seattle's second-half disappearing act Sunday notwithstanding) the toughest division in the league. There is only one bye per conference now, and the relative strength of the NFC West logically makes it less likely that the team that gets it would emerge from that gauntlet.
The other nit to pick about the Rams is that they don't appear to be the deepest roster in the league. A little top-heavy -- with superstars, of course, but a lot of times your success rests on the quality of the second- and third-stringers who eventually have to fill in for injured players. Running back Sony Michel did a decent job in relief of the injured Darrell Henderson on Sunday, but greater challenges surely await. And until we see the Rams either avoid or navigate those, we need to hold off on crowning them favorites -- no matter how good they looked against the defending champs.
Aaron Rodgers will win MVP again
Another week, another Sunday night classic. The 49ers fought back from a 17-0 deficit. Jimmy Garoppolo managed to overcome the knowledge that he was his own coach's third-favorite quarterback in the building and threw a go-ahead touchdown pass with 37 seconds left, which surely wasn't enough time for even Rodgers to get his team into field goal range to win the game, was it? It was.
Rodgers zipped a couple of long ones to Davante Adams, mixed in a couple of clock-stopping spikes and set up kicker Mason Crosby for the 51-yard game winner as time expired. He finished the night 23-for-33 passing for 261 yards and two touchdowns as the Packers improved to 2-1 and continued to put the memory of their Week 1 flop in their rearview mirror.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. This was the place where Rodgers wasn't supposed to be able to win, right? His personal house of horrors? Not only were there only 37 seconds left when he got the ball on his own 25-yard line, but he had no timeouts left. No matter. Rodgers makes magic. Couple that with the fact that he appears determined to cash in his "Last Dance" allegory, and it's not hard to imagine a scenario in which Rodgers goes scorched earth the rest of the way and either dominates or rescues enough games to propel the Packers to the top of the NFC.
MVP awards are about performance and narratives, and Rodgers could cobble together the perfect combination of the two.
The Bills are the best team in the AFC.
Buffalo's offense might not have looked like its dominant 2020 self in the first two games of the season, but it woke up in a massive way Sunday. Josh Allen threw four touchdown passes and ran for another score in a 43-21 victory over Washington. (Remember when Washington was supposed to have one of the league's best defenses? We were all so young.)
It was the second game in Allen's career in which he had more than 300 passing yards, four passing touchdowns and a rushing touchdown. The only other quarterbacks who ever had more than one such game are Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning, so that's pretty solid. This looked like the Bills offense we remember from November and December of 2020, when it was pretty much setting fire to the league on a weekly basis.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. The Bills were the AFC runner-up last season, so it was never going to be a stretch to think they might take one more step and become the conference's best team. The Chiefs, who have won the conference two years in a row, fell to 1-2 with a division loss to the Chargers, and the Browns' Week 1 collapse is really the only reason Kansas City isn't 0-3.
Now, the Bills did lose to the Steelers in Week 1, which puts them in a group of AFC teams that are 2-1 so far. And the Broncos and Raiders are each 3-0. But meaning no disrespect to what those teams have done so far, it's fair if you want to use Buffalo's 2020 season and our preseason opinion of the Bills as a means of elevating their expectations over those of Vegas and Denver.
Still, there are 14 more regular-season games and the playoffs left to decide all of this, so it really doesn't matter what we think (or even what the reality is) through Week 3. But if you had the Bills representing the AFC in the Super Bowl this season, you're feeling a lot better about that pick after they outscored their opponents 88-21 over Weeks 2 and 3.
The Steelers are the worst team in the AFC North.
This sounds silly after just pointing out that they already beat the Bills, who might be the best team in the whole conference. But life comes at you fast, and the Steelers have scored a grand total of 27 points in losses to the Raiders and Bengals the past two weeks. They have four offensive touchdowns in their first three games, and with top edge rushers T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith sitting out with injuries, the defense hasn't been able to rescue them the way it did in Week 1. Against Cincinnati on Sunday, they snapped a 75-game streak of recording at least one sack.
Baltimore is 2-1. Cleveland is 2-1. Cincinnati is 2-1 and has now beaten the Steelers twice in a row, counting last December's Monday Night Football beatdown that helped fuel Pittsburgh's late-season swoon. That means the Steelers are alone in last place in the division, which obviously bolsters the case for this assertion.
The verdict: OVERREACTION. Don't get me wrong: The Steelers' offense looks like a major problem. Ben Roethlisberger is not making the salary-cap gymnastics the team had to do to bring him back for this year look wise. The new-look offensive line, to put it generously, is still finding its way. Top receiver Diontae Johnson missed Sunday's game with an injury. It looks ugly. But it doesn't sound as if Watt or Highsmith is dealing with a long-term injury, and I still expect the Steelers to have a dominant defense once they're whole again on that side of the ball.
The Ravens have pulled two straight victories out of a hat but are still dealing with longer-term injury problems than the Steelers are. The Bengals look fine, but they're still young and need to prove it over a longer period of time before we can really buy into them as a contender. The Steelers could finish last in this division, but I don't think we've heard the last of them just yet. Remember, Mike Tomlin has never finished a season with a losing record as a head coach.
None of the rookie first-round quarterbacks was really ready to start right away.
I don't want to say San Francisco's Kyle Shanahan is the only coach handling his first-round rookie QB the right way, because Chicago's Matt Nagy was trying to keep Justin Fields on the bench amid all of the outside caterwauling before Andy Dalton got hurt and he had no choice. But the performances of Fields, Trevor Lawrence (Jaguars), Zach Wilson (Jets) and Mac Jones (Patriots) aren't exactly cementing the notion that rookie QBs need to start right away.
On Sunday, those four were a combined 77-for-140 passing (55%) for 717 yards, two touchdowns and seven interceptions. (They did combine for 69 rushing yards on 16 carries, but whatever.) They also were 0-4, and their teams combined for 38 total points. The NFL ain't easy, and so far these young men are, by and large, learning that the hard way.
The verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. We have to be fair here. Wilson is playing without his left tackle and is operating an offense that is still clearly trying to figure out what it is. Fields was playing behind an offensive line that couldn't protect your Wi-Fi password. The Patriots have no business asking Jones to throw 51 passes in any single game right now. And I don't know anyone who has any idea what Urban Meyer's doing down there in Jacksonville.
None of these guys is in an ideal situation, but neither is any of them blameless for the struggles. They are all learning, and will continue to learn at different paces. Some or all of them might eventually be great. But it's important to remember that we're watching making-of-the-sausage stuff here, and by definition that isn't always going to look pretty.