Sam Darnold was inactive with a hip. Kyler Murray went into the concussion protocol eleven snaps into Week 1. Caleb Williams was carted off in Chicago with a right hamstring. Jayden Daniels dislocated his left elbow – the same one that ended his 2025 season – on the final play of the first half in Arlington. Jaxson Dart went down on the Giants’ seventh snap Monday night with a knee injury John Harbaugh described as “in the neighborhood of” a sprained ligament. And Atlanta started Cooper Rush for a second straight week, then benched him for an undrafted rookie who threw a pick-six on his first pass.

What separated the teams was how much of the operation depended on the man who left. Seattle won by 24 with Drew Lock, who has four touchdowns, no turnovers and the fourth-best QBR in football. Minnesota became the first team in NFL history to win four straight games with four different starting quarterbacks – Brosmer, McCarthy, Murray, Wentz – and did it with a defense and special teams unit that both rank sixth in EPA. Chicago scored three points. The Giants gained 182 yards. Washington, tied in everything but the scoreboard when Daniels went down, lost by 17.

Three other patterns ran underneath it. Home favorites kept losing — Baltimore, Tampa Bay and the Chargers all did, the Chargers for a second straight week and both times as a touchdown-plus favorite. Games kept turning on possession, with underdogs playing keep-away and mostly staying close. And penalties decided drives everywhere: Green Bay lost 133 yards on 14 flags and still won, the Chargers have 13 offensive penalties in two games, and Chicago committed nine against the one defense in football that punishes a third-and-long more than any other.

All lines from DraftKings. All percentages from ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor.

Our picks going forward are straight winners. We’ll show the line and the total, but we’re only formally picking the game.

Week 2 In Review

Thursday: Bills 41, Lions 31. Buffalo opened its new stadium by scoring on its first four possessions. Josh Allen threw three touchdowns and ran for two more, and has nine total through two weeks; James Cook ran for 134. Detroit blitzed Allen on 55.3% of his dropbacks, the highest rate under Kelvin Sheppard, and per Next Gen Stats he went 12 of 17 for 137 and two scores against it. Jared Goff was excellent in defeat – 26 of 38, 327 yards, four touchdowns — behind a line playing three backups that allowed four sacks. Detroit was without both starting safeties.

Panthers 34, Falcons 3. A week after allowing 59 points and franchise records in points and rushing touchdowns, Carolina held Atlanta to 286 yards. Bryce Young threw for 287 and three scores, two to Darren Waller. Devin Lloyd had nine tackles without a miss, a sack and two interceptions, one returned for a touchdown. Cooper Rush lost a fumble on the first play and threw an interception on the second possession; Jack Strand threw a pick-six on his first pass.

Bengals 20, Texans 6. Joe Burrow threw both touchdowns to Ja’Marr Chase, the first a 32-yard toe-drag over Derek Stingley – their 19th 20-plus-air-yard touchdown connection since 2021, most of any duo. But the game was the defense. Cincinnati kept Houston out of the end zone, only the third time under Zac Taylor they have held a team without a touchdown, with four sacks and a Dexter Lawrence fourth-and-1 stop on David Montgomery at the Cincinnati 18. Houston outgained Cincinnati 374 to 267 and lost by 14. Without Nico Collins, C.J. Stroud threw 55 times for 353 yards; the Texans botched a snap on a 34-yard field-goal try, and DeMeco Ryans chose a 58-yard attempt over fourth-and-1 in the third quarter, which came up short.

Vikings 9, Bears 3. Chicago scored 59 in Week 1 and three in the rain against Brian Flores. Isaiah Rodgers recovered a goal-line fumble and blocked a field goal; Dallas Turner had two sacks including the game-ender. Flores has blitzed on 73.6% of dropbacks, the highest early-season rate since 2009, and per ESPN’s Bill Barnwell the Bears faced third-and-7 or longer eight times and converted two. Caleb Williams was 15 of 26 for 138 before the hamstring. Aaron Jones carried Minnesota with 105 yards.

Saints 24, Ravens 17. Our full review of the Ravens’ loss ran separately. Tyler Shough rallied New Orleans from 17-9 down for a second straight week, finishing with a 16-play drive and a fourth-and-goal sneak. His splits are extraordinary: 14.3 Total QBR through three quarters, 29th of 30 qualifiers, and 97.7 in the fourth and overtime, second in the league. He leads the NFL with 662 passing yards, and 350 of them have come in the fourth quarter or overtime.

Eagles 24, Titans 20. Philadelphia opened with three straight drives of 11-plus plays, then spent a 98-degree afternoon letting Tennessee back in. Amani Hooker’s end-zone interception, returned 92 yards, set up the Titans’ first touchdown; a second Hurts pick set up the go-ahead field goal with 1:56 left. Hurts then accounted for all 65 yards on the winning drive, hitting Darius Cooper with nine seconds to go. He had nine third-down conversions, a career high, and converted three third-and-12-or-longers, also a career high, while averaging 7.9 yards to go. Saquon Barkley took a stinger on the first play and finished with 9 yards on four carries; Dallas Goedert’s knee has put him on injured reserve.

Patriots 20, Steelers 3. New England lost six players in the first half and won by 17. TreVeyon Henderson scored on a 39-yard run in his season debut and out-snapped Rhamondre Stevenson 32 to 15 after Stevenson’s early fumble. Christian Barmore’s strip-sack of Aaron Rodgers was returned 19 yards for a touchdown by Elijah Ponder. Rodgers was sacked four times, fumbled twice, and is 8 of 24 under pressure this season. Christian Gonzalez shadowed DK Metcalf at times and held him to four catches for 27.

Packers 20, Jets 17 (OT). Green Bay snapped a six-game skid on Trey Smack’s 26-yarder after trailing 17-7 in the fourth, with 199 total net yards and 133 yards lost to 14 penalties. Jayden Reed (neck) and right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele (knee) were carted off on consecutive plays of the opening drive; by the end the Packers had lost both of their top two left guards and were playing a rookie making his NFL debut. Jordan Love has taken 18 quarterback hits in two weeks. Lukas Van Ness had nine pressures and 1.5 sacks and stuffed the Jets on third and fourth down late in regulation. Aaron Glenn’s clock management — no timeout before the Packers’ punt, ball first in overtime — will be the story in New York all week.

Browns 23, Buccaneers 19. Deshaun Watson went 24 of 30 for 238 and two touchdowns, his first win since September 2024, with the lowest average depth of target of his career at 3.7 yards. Cleveland ran for 44 yards and won on the road. A two-hour, twelve-minute lightning delay suspended the game at the two-minute warning with Tampa at the Cleveland 28; when it resumed, a Tristan Wirfs holding penalty set the Bucs back and Baker Mayfield’s fourth-down throw sailed wide. Tampa lost at home as an 8.5-point favorite and is 2-9 in its last 11.

Broncos 20, Jaguars 13. Denver trailed 13-3 with its offense 3 of 18 on third down across six quarters. Then Jaylen Waddle went for 138 yards on eight catches and rookie Jonah Coleman scored the go-ahead touchdown after J.K. Dobbins left with a hamstring. Bo Nix was not sacked and averaged 9.3 yards an attempt. Denver held Jacksonville to 95 rushing yards and Trevor Lawrence to 189, pressured him on 45.2% of his dropbacks, and got a third-quarter goal-line stand that turned the game.

Raiders 26, Chargers 14. Two home losses as touchdown-plus favorites, and Jim Harbaugh has never started a season 0-2 anywhere. Justin Herbert threw two interceptions — both to Hezekiah Masses — and the Chargers fumbled six times. Joe Alt had two false starts, the guard spot rotated, both tight ends got hurt, and they conceded a fourth-down conversion with twelve men on the field coming out of a timeout. Cody White caught two touchdowns; Tre Tucker had five for 119 with Brock Bowers out.

Seahawks 31, Cardinals 7. In his first start since 2024, Drew Lock threw for 235 and three touchdowns, all to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who had 155 yards — more than Arizona’s entire offense. Seattle is the only team yet to allow a play of 25 yards, and Arizona did not score on its final seven possessions.

Cowboys 37, Commanders 20. Dak Prescott went 26 of 32 for 279 and four touchdowns, breaking Tony Romo’s franchise record of 248. CeeDee Lamb had 153 yards and two scores. Dallas scored on seven of eight possessions. Daniels was 11 of 17 for 96 with seven carries for 69 when Chris Paul stepped on his foot on the last play of the half.

49ers 35, Dolphins 13. San Francisco scored touchdowns on its first five possessions. Miami held the ball long enough that the 49ers ran two first-half drives — the first team to do that since November 2024 — and scored on both. Brock Purdy went 20 of 22 for 287 and leads the league in QBR at 94.9. Twenty-one of Miami’s first 26 snaps came in San Francisco territory and produced three points.

Chiefs 33, Colts 30 (OT). Patrick Mahomes threw 47 times for 382 yards and three touchdowns and Kansas City gained 523. Indianapolis reached the red zone in overtime on a 48-yard Daniel Jones strike to Laquon Treadwell, ran twice for minus-3, settled for a tying field goal, and watched Mahomes drive for Harrison Butker’s winner. The Colts have lost nine straight.

Monday: Rams 28, Giants 6. Matthew Stafford threw for 327 and four touchdowns, Davante Adams caught eight for 195 and two scores, and the Rams outgained New York 481 to 182 without Puka Nacua or Myles Garrett. Aaron Donald played 32 snaps in his first game in 32 months, with a 0.75-second get-off that Next Gen Stats ranked tied for third-fastest by any defensive tackle this season. Stafford’s 426th career touchdown pass moved him past Philip Rivers into sixth all-time. Dart left on the seventh snap; Jameis Winston went 11 of 27 for 111 with an end-zone interception.

Power Rankings

Pre = our preseason ranking. DVOA = FTN total DVOA through Week 2. ESPN = Week 3 power rankings. NFL.com = Week 3 power rankings. Prisco = Pete Prisco’s Week 3 rankings at CBS Sports.

San Francisco. DVOA has the 49ers first outright at 78.0%, second on offense and fifth on defense, and they are one of only three teams inside the top ten on both sides of the ball. We have them third anyway, on the opposition. Their two wins came against a Rams team that had flown 16 hours to Melbourne and back, and a Miami team that is last in DVOA and has not held a lead for a single second this season. Barnwell made the same point — the 49ers may not have played a difficult slate yet. We spent this piece discounting Chicago’s 59 points because Carolina allowed them and Buffalo’s four sacks because Detroit played three backup linemen. The same discipline applies here. Buffalo has beaten Houston and Detroit; Seattle has won twelve straight and has not allowed a play of 25 yards. Nobody outside has San Francisco first either.

Baltimore. Week 2 DVOA has the Ravens third overall at 38.3% and third on offense — after a loss. FTN’s Aaron Schatz calls it a reverse post-game win expectancy game: on the underlying stats he would expect Baltimore to win 70% of the time, citing a better running game, a better defensive performance and a 5.6-to-4.7 edge in yards per play. DAVE has them sixth. NFL.com has them fifth. ESPN dropped them 3 to 7. Prisco dropped them 6 to 11.

The Jets are the widest disagreement on the board. Eighth in DVOA with the third-best defense, and 25th to 27th everywhere else. Schatz gives them a 78% post-game win expectancy in a game they lost, which supports our read that 5-12 was too low. We have moved them eight spots and still have them below the model by a dozen.

Pittsburgh is the hardest entry to write, and NFL.com put it best: a defensive front among the most complete in football attached to an offense that cannot function. First in defensive DVOA, 31st on offense, dead last in pass-rush win rate. We have moved them down two and could defend anything from 14th to 24th.

The five biggest movers from August. San Francisco up eleven, Las Vegas up ten, Minnesota up nine, the Jets up eight, Kansas City up seven — and the Chargers down nineteen.

Projected Win Totals and Division Finishes

Thirty-two wins are banked league-wide, leaving 240 to project across fifteen remaining games per team. The set below sums to 272. Preseason numbers are from our August preview.

AFC East

The Jets move most. Eighth in DVOA, third-best defense, no Geno Smith turnover in 74 dropbacks, and two games they could have won. Miami is last in DVOA at -69.5% and is the only team that has not held a lead for a single second this season.

AFC North

Holding Baltimore at 11-6 after a home loss is the call we would most expect to be challenged, and DVOA is the reason we are comfortable. Cincinnati is 2-0 and leads the division today; the two head-to-head meetings decide it. Pittsburgh gets a win back on the strength of the best defense in football.

AFC South

Houston at 10-7 from 0-2 requires 10-5 the rest of the way, which is the most aggressive projection on this page. The case: DAVE has them eighth, their two losses came to Buffalo and Cincinnati, and the defense has largely held up. The case against: 32nd in red-zone touchdown rate since the start of last season, and Nico Collins is hurt.

AFC West

The four-win swing on the Chargers is the largest revision in the set, and it is still charitable. ESPN’s Benjamin Solak reads their next seven – at Buffalo, at Seattle, Denver, at Kansas City, at the Rams, Houston, at Baltimore — as a stretch where three wins would be a miracle. Las Vegas gains three and we are still below DVOA, which has them tenth.

NFC East

Both quarterback injuries land here. Dallas rises on an offense that scored on seven of eight possessions and grades fourth in DVOA – the reverse of the preseason thesis, which was built on the defense becoming average.

NFC North

Minnesota is the biggest riser in the set. Ninth in DVOA with the fourth-best defense, 2-0 with two division wins, and Kyler Murray back this week. Chicago holds: Williams is week-to-week rather than out, and a rain game against Flores is not a season.

NFC South

We took the over on New Orleans in August and Schatz had them 31st. Two fourth quarters later, they are the division favorite. No NFC team in 30 years has started 0-3 and made the playoffs, which is what Tampa Bay is playing for Sunday.

NFC West

The division flips. We had the Rams at 13-4 and first; Seattle is 2-0, has not allowed a play of 25 yards, and won by 24 with a backup quarterback. The Rams are 12-5 and second on the tiebreaker we cannot yet project. San Francisco leads DVOA outright at 78.0% and is still third here, which tells you what we think of the division.

Projected Seeding

AFC: 1. Bills 12-5 · 2. Chiefs 12-5 · 3. Ravens 11-6 · 4. Texans 10-7 · 5. Bengals 10-7 · 6. Broncos 10-7 · 7. Patriots 10-7. First out: Pittsburgh, Las Vegas and Jacksonville, all 9-8.

NFC: 1. Seahawks 12-5 · 2. Eagles 11-6 · 3. Vikings 11-6 · 4. Saints 9-8 · 5. Rams 12-5 · 6. 49ers 11-6 · 7. Lions 10-7. First out: Dallas 10-7.

Two changes from August worth naming. We had Kansas City as the first AFC team out at 10-7; they are now the projected second seed. And we had the Chargers winning the West at 10-7; they are now 6-11 and out of the picture entirely. Those two calls were the ones we flagged in the preview as most likely to be wrong. Both were, in opposite directions.

Week 3 Preview

Thursday, Sept. 24th

Atlanta at Green Bay, 8:15 — Packers -7, total 43.5. ESPN gives Green Bay a 74.1% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Michael Penix Jr. is expected to make his first start since tearing an ACL last November, for a team that has not run a red-zone play this season – the first in 18 years to manage that through two games. Green Bay, on three days’ rest, lost 133 yards to 14 penalties on Sunday, gained 199 net yards, and will field one of the league’s least experienced lines without Reed and with Josh Jacobs on the commissioner exempt list. Green Bay is last in the league in pass-block win rate at 18%; Za’Darius Smith leads all edge rushers in pass-rush win rate.

Our Pick: Packers. Green Bay is 22nd in DVOA and does not look right. Atlanta is 31st with the fifth-worst two-week pass offense since 1977.

Sunday, Sept. 27th — 1:00

Carolina at Cleveland — Panthers -3, total 42.5. ESPN gives Carolina a 63.5% chance to win.

Match-Up to Watch: Bryce Young is averaging 8.0 yards per dropback, fifth in the league, after 5.6 over the past two seasons. Cleveland won in Tampa with 44 rushing yards and Watson’s career-low depth of target.

Our Pick: Panthers.

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh — Bengals -3.5, total 42.5. ESPN gives Cincinnati a 61.1% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Pittsburgh has the best defense in football by DVOA and the 31st-ranked offense. Cincinnati’s rebuilt front is tied for the league lead with eight sacks and is allowing 16.5 points a game; Houston sacked Burrow five times. Whichever line holds up decides it – and Cincinnati’s defensive front is the weakest inclusion on our published top-8, with the Week 4 republish coming.

Our Pick: Bengals. It’s a division road game against the league’s best defense so far by DVOA. This could go the other way.

Houston at Indianapolis — Texans -3, total 43.5. ESPN gives Houston a 52.5% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Two 0-2 teams, market on the road team, model near a coin flip. Houston is 32nd in red-zone touchdown rate since the start of last season; Indianapolis has the worst defense in DVOA and just allowed 523 yards. Collins’s hamstring and Alec Pierce’s heel are both in doubt.

Our Pick: Texans.

Kansas City at Miami — Chiefs -11.5, total 45.5. ESPN gives Kansas City an 85.8% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Miami is last in DVOA and has not led for a single second this season. Kansas City held the ball for all but 2:22 of the third quarter Sunday night.

Our Pick: Chiefs.

L.A. Chargers at Buffalo — Bills -7, total 50.5. ESPN gives Buffalo a 78.9% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Buffalo has the best offense in DVOA at 56.8%, and Allen is averaging a career-best 9.7 yards per attempt on his deepest average target depth since his rookie year. The Chargers arrive with 13 offensive penalties, seven fumbles and a quarterback Solak calls the most visibly rattled he has been.

Our Pick: Bills.

New England at Jacksonville — Jaguars -3, total 45.5. ESPN gives Jacksonville a 57.5% chance to win.

Key to the Game: The interior. Denver pressured Lawrence on 45.2% of his dropbacks and he completed 33.3% under pressure against 76.5% clean; New England has Barmore, first among all defensive tackles in pass-rush win rate, and Milton Williams. Jacksonville’s own front is thin – 30th in team pass-rush win rate, with its tackles producing five pressures on 106 snaps and Josh Hines-Allen shut out on 24 rushes in Denver. Against that, New England is missing A.J. Brown (high ankle), Mike Onwenu (broken right ankle) and three more defenders from Sunday, in Florida heat with no depth.

Our Pick: Jaguars. Low confidence, and Solak argues the other way convincingly. New England’s defense is sixth in DVOA, but the attrition and the setting are hard to ignore.

N.Y. Jets at Detroit — Lions -6.5, total 48.5. ESPN gives Detroit a 75.5% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Does Sheppard blitz like that again? Detroit is 28th in defensive DVOA after ten days off. The Jets are eighth overall with the third-best defense.

Our Pick: Lions. The numbers say this is closer than the line.

Seattle at Washington — Seahawks -6.5, total 39.5. ESPN gives Seattle a 67.2% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Marcus Mariota’s first start against the only defense yet to allow a 25-yard play, in the lowest total on the board. Washington is 28th in DVOA and has lost Daniels, Laremy Tunsil for most of the year, and Sam Cosmi.

Our Pick: Seahawks.

Tennessee at N.Y. Giants — Giants -3, total 40.5. ESPN gives Tennessee a 54.6% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Dart’s knee. Winston went 11 of 27 for 111 in relief and the Giants gained 182 yards. Cam Ward ran for two touchdowns against Philadelphia, the fifth Titans or Oilers quarterback in fifty seasons to do that in a game, and Tennessee nearly stole one in Nashville.

Our Pick: Titans. A true tossup, taken on the injury alone. If Dart plays, it flips back. The line and the model now disagree — the number moved from Giants -6 to -3 while ESPN flipped to Tennessee.

4:05

Arizona at San Francisco — 49ers -8.5, total 47.5. ESPN gives San Francisco a 90.3% chance to win.

Key to the Game: San Francisco leads DVOA at 78.0%, second on offense and fifth on defense, with a receiver room down Demarcus Robinson, Mike Evans, De’Zhaun Stribling and Ricky Pearsall. Purdy leads the league in QBR. Arizona gained 151 yards Sunday.

Our Pick: 49ers.

Minnesota at Tampa Bay — Vikings -1.5, total 42.5. ESPN gives Minnesota a 52.2% chance to win.

Key to the Game: The league’s most aggressive blitz against a line that has allowed seven sacks and a quarterback with four turnovers, ranked 29th of 32 in EPA per dropback. Two complications: Kyler Murray returns from the protocol, upgrading a 26th-ranked offense, and a dome team blitzing three of every four dropbacks in Tampa heat in the late window needs fresh legs late. No NFC team in 30 years has started 0-3 and made the playoffs, so Tampa is playing its season.

Our Pick: Vikings. CBS Sports is taking Tampa. Do wonder how the Vikings will do in the Tampa heat.

4:25

Baltimore at Dallas — Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro — Ravens -3, total 52.5. ESPN gives Baltimore a 53.9% chance to win.

Our full preview is here. Third and seventh in DVOA. Dallas has given up the third-most rushing yards in the league and grades 32nd in team run-block win rate; Baltimore is first in run blocking and averaging 155 rushing yards a game. The counterweight is that Jackson’s two lowest pass-block win rates as a starter have come in the first two weeks. Field conditions seem like a question.

Our Pick: Ravens.

Las Vegas at New Orleans — Saints -3, total 43.5. ESPN gives New Orleans a 64.3% chance to win.

Match-Up to Watch: Shough leads the league in passing yards and has taken the second-most sacks; Las Vegas is tied for the league lead with eight. New Orleans lost Kelvin Banks Jr. to a sprained ankle and is 28th in pass-block win rate. Las Vegas is last in the league at 2.8 yards a carry, so the Jeanty plan may not be available.

Our Pick: Saints. Not an overly confident pick. The Raiders are 10th in DVOA to New Orleans’ 24th.

8:20 — Sunday Night

L.A. Rams at Denver — Rams -2.5, total 45.5. ESPN gives the Rams a 65.1% chance to win.

Key to the Game: The Rams looked like themselves Monday — 481 yards to 182, four Stafford touchdowns, 195 for Adams, Donald back after 32 months. DVOA has them eighth on offense and ninth on defense, one of only three teams top-ten in both, and third in DAVE; they are 14th overall only because they are dead last in special teams again. Denver is giving up 157.5 rushing yards a game, fourth-most in the league, after finishing second-best last season, and may be down to a rookie back.

Our Pick: Rams. Denver is at home, and had another day to prepare; but still taking the Rams.

Monday, Sept. 28th

Philadelphia at Chicago, 8:15 — Eagles -3.5, total 44.5. ESPN gives Philadelphia a 57.1% chance to win.

Key to the Game: Ben Johnson has called Williams week-to-week and says Tyson Bagent can run the offense without changing the scheme. Philadelphia is the lowest-ranked 2-0 team at 16th in DVOA, ranks fifth-lowest in yards before contact per rush, and has now lost Goedert to injured reserve. Chicago’s run game took Vic Fangio’s defense apart last season.

Our Pick: Eagles. Solak picks Chicago. We will take Hurts, who was the best player on the field in Nashville.

The post 2026 NFL: Previewing Week 3 appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Baltimore had a 14-6 lead at halftime, and a 17-9 lead entering the 4th Quarter, but were not able to make it hold up.

A Week 2 loss doesn’t change the expected trajectory of the season, but it’s disappointing all the same.

The Fourth Quarter

Baltimore was outscored 15-0 in the fourth.

The Ravens led 14-6 at halftime and 17-9 with just under four minutes left in the third. From there: a punt, a punt, and an interception on the final snap. New Orleans scored a touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie it, then went 16 plays and 68 yards over 6:38 to win it.

The closing drive is the game. Sixteen plays, and Baltimore had four chances to end it. New Orleans converted two third downs and two fourth downs – Shough sneaking for a yard at the Baltimore 44 with 5:41 left, and then going for it on fourth-and-goal from inside the one rather than taking the chip shot that would have given them the lead. Tyler Shough scored on a keeper. The play was reviewed and the ruling on the field stood; the CBS broadcast crew said on air they believed he was short.

Third Downs

New Orleans converted 8 of 15.

The distances are what make that number bad. Baltimore stopped almost nothing in the 8-to-13 range. Shough converted a third-and-7 to Devaughn Vele in the first quarter, a third-and-13 by stepping up through interior pressure for 29 more to Vele, a third-and-8 to Chris Olave for 11 with Kyle Hamilton showing at the line and Roquan Smith actually rushing, a third-and-13 to Juwan Johnson for 25 in the third quarter, and a third-and-16 to Johnson for 10 that still left New Orleans short.

In our season preview we wrote that this scheme gives a quarterback a clean look, rushes four, concedes the underneath throw and dares an offense to be patient. New Orleans was patient for sixty minutes. Shough finished 27-of-34 for 252 yards. That is a 79 percent completion rate against a defense that was not, by design, trying to stop those throws.

Hamilton was the exception everywhere. He is in on tackles from one end of the play-by-play to the other, and on the 16-play drive that decided the game he is credited on seven of them — Etienne twice, Olave, Vele, Kamara, and both Shough runs inside the 5, including the third-and-goal stop that forced New Orleans into going for it on fourth down.

The Interior Rush

Baltimore had three sacks – Hendrickson, Tavius Robinson and Mike Green. All three came off the edge.

Nothing came from inside. Jonas Shaffer put it plainly afterward: the Ravens need Nnamdi Madubuike back, and there was not much from their interior rush today. That is two straight games without him. Travis Jones generated push early – he beat his man on a second-and-15 that held New Orleans to two yards — and the pocket was clean enough the rest of the afternoon that Shough completed 27 passes.

Hendrickson and Green are both on the board, which is what we asked for last week. Michael Fast predicted Hendrickson’s first sack as a Raven would come Sunday, and it did. His other call — Malaki Starks’ first home interception – did not, though Starks did make the tackle that kept Juwan Johnson out of the end zone on the final drive and forced New Orleans into fourth-and-goal.

Hendrickson did it with a cast on his hand; Ian Rapoport reported Sunday morning that he broke a finger into several pieces this week and was expected to play. Rod Woodson’s explanation for the Week 1 zero — that Indianapolis slid protection to him, brought tight ends over and bumped him off the line — held up as far as it went, and the finger was a second reason we did not know about when we published.

The pass rush question we posed last week was whether pressure was enough or Baltimore needed sacks. The answer was sacks. Baltimore generated pressure on Shough repeatedly and he stepped through it for conversions, and the drives that actually ended were the ones where the rush finished — Robinson on New Orleans’ first possession, and Hendrickson and Green on the same third-quarter series.

New Orleans punted three times. Baltimore’s three sacks came on two of those drives.

Bateman And Andrews

Both of them answered.

Rashod Bateman caught 7 of 9 targets for 88 yards and a 22-yard touchdown at the end of the first half. He had zero catches in Week 1. He converted on the first drive of the second quarter, caught the touchdown in a two-minute drill, and dug Baltimore out of a first-and-21 with an 18-yard deep out that required timing and protection at the same moment.

Mark Andrews caught 6 of 7 for 49 yards. The incompletion was a third-and-6 on Baltimore’s opening three-and-out. After that he converted third-and-5, third-and-4 and third-and-3, opened the third-quarter field goal drive with an 8-yard catch, and picked up 14 on third-and-3 on the final possession. He was the third-down offense.

In the season preview we said Andrews and Bateman both needed to get back toward their 2024 production. They did it in the same game, on the afternoon Zay Flowers was inactive.

Matt Jergensen wrote last week that with Flowers out, Bateman should be in line for a much bigger role and that the time for him to step up was now. He got nine targets and delivered. Jergensen also said Andrews needed more than the four catches for 49 yards he had in Indianapolis; Andrews got six for 49, which is more work at the same yardage, in higher-leverage spots.

The one question Jergensen asked that has an uncomfortable answer is whether Chris Moore was really a player who could and should get an expanded role. Baltimore started him. He caught the deep ball that wasn’t there on third-and-1, held on a play that erased a first down, and nearly lost a kick return. None of that is an indictment of Moore. It is what happens when a team asks its fifth receiver to be its second.

Devontez Walker, who has 7 career catches, caught one for 47 on his second target. Ja’Kobi Lane is on injured reserve with a fractured wrist and is out at least four games — our Week 2 piece treated him as week-to-week, and that was wrong. LaJohntay Wester caught a 15-yard screen. Chris Moore started opposite Bateman nine days after being elevated off the practice squad.

The Offensive Line

Baltimore gained 312 yards a week after gaining 506.

Ronnie Stanley left the game and Carson Vinson replaced him at left tackle. Jeff Zrebiec reported before kickoff that Stanley was dealing with a toe injury, and that Emery Jones Jr. was active over Andrew Vorhees in part because Jones can play tackle. When Stanley went out, it was Vinson. There has been no further word.

Chase Young got him for 11 on a second-and-10 at the New Orleans 28, a play on which Andrews was chipping and the CBS broadcast called a scheme error. Young and Nathan Shepherd split another for 12 on third-and-10 at the New Orleans 19, which turned a red zone trip into a 49-yard field goal. He went down again after Vinson came in.

Roger Rosengarten was flagged for being illegally downfield on a shovel pass to Andrews that had gained 11.

Derrick Henry

Sixteen carries, 68 yards, one touchdown. Five of those carries came in the second half.

New Orleans did not stop him. He averaged 4.3 a carry, moved the chains on third-and-2 and third-and-1 on the touchdown drive, and ripped off an 8-yard run to the 1 to set up the score. The touchdown itself was the best play of the day schematically – second-and-goal from the 1, Carson Vinson reported eligible, direct snap to Henry, in the same red zone where Week 1 produced a holding penalty that erased a touchdown and a failed fourth-and-goal from the three.

The issue was volume. After Loop’s 49-yarder made it 17-9 with 3:23 left in the third, Baltimore ran six offensive plays before its final possession. Two three-and-outs, both of which ended with Jackson on the ground. You cannot hand it to Henry when you are not on the field.

That matters more with him than with most backs. Henry’s afternoons are built on accumulation. Carry after carry, defenders getting tired of putting a shoulder into him, arm tackles starting to appear in the second half, and the runs getting longer as the game goes on. Sixteen carries does not get a defense to that point. Neither does five in a half.

Jonas Shaffer noted that Jahmyr Gibbs had a run of explosive carries against this same New Orleans defense last week behind a banged-up Detroit line. Detroit also ran it 33 times and held the ball for nearly 37 minutes. That is the difference, and it isn’t about the back.

The premise was everywhere this week, including here. Michael Fast wrote that the best thing Baltimore could do was look at what Gibbs and the Lions did to the New Orleans run defense, and predicted 150-plus yards and two touchdowns for Henry. We wrote that New Orleans would not be able to slow Henry and Jackson. Neither of us was wrong about the matchup. We were both assuming the Ravens would have the ball.

Third And One

Tied at 17, 8:14 left, third-and-1 at the Baltimore 37. The Ravens threw deep to Chris Moore. Incomplete, and they punted.

Punting on fourth-and-1 from your own 37 in a tie game is defensible. You are backed up, and you want your defense to come up with a stop and improve your field position. I can also understand those that would have preferred to see the Ravens aggressively go for it there. I’m not focused on the 4th down decision.

The third-down call is the one that annoys me.

One yard, with the game tied, in the fourth quarter. Make New Orleans stop Henry. Put a front that had been on the field for most of the afternoon in a position where it has to hold up against Henry with a yard to gain. If they do, fine — you punt from the same spot you were always going to punt from, and you have learned something about this offense. If they don’t, the drive continues and the clock keeps moving.

Instead the down came off the board on a low-percentage throw, and the punt team came on anyway.

There is a second coaching decision to log. Minter challenged a three-yard completion in the second half and lost, costing a timeout. Zrebiec flagged it while the Saints were driving. Baltimore spent its remaining two timeouts on the goal-line sequence and took over with 1:21 and none, which forced a spike at the New Orleans 37 and left them two plays from the 37 with 20 seconds instead of three.

Tyler Shough

What we published about him held up: the league’s worst pressure-to-sack ratio last season, 56 attempts in Week 1 that led the NFL by 14, 410 yards against Detroit. What we never mentioned was that he runs. Shough carried nine times for 23 yards today — more carries than Travis Etienne — scrambled 11 yards on third-and-14 in the second quarter to set up a field goal, and scored the winning touchdown on a keeper from inside the one. Both fourth-down conversions on the final drive were his legs.

He also took hits and kept throwing, which Bill Barnwell and others noted after the Detroit game. Baltimore got pressure on him all afternoon and he completed 79 percent of his throws.

Two of his receivers beat Baltimore’s best coverage players. Olave caught 8 of 10 for 86 and the touchdown, converting three times on the drive that tied it, including a catch behind the line of scrimmage on third-and-2 with Marlon Humphrey in coverage that he turned into a first down. We called Nate Wiggins against Olave the best individual matchup on the field. Olave won it. Vele added 5 for 64, Johnson 4 for 66 on four targets.

Alvin Kamara was not on a pitch count. He touched it ten times in the first half and finished with nine carries for 15 yards. We wrote that if he played, he was probably on a snap limit; instead New Orleans made him the lead back and got 1.7 yards a touch, while Etienne — the one who was actually productive in Detroit — carried eight times. New Orleans kicked field goals on three straight possessions in the middle of the game rather than finishing them, and the run game is a reasonable place to look for why. Etienne scored the two-point conversion that tied the game.

Special Teams

This was the strength a week ago and it was a problem today.

Carl Granderson blocked a 49-yard Tyler Loop attempt in the second quarter, on a drive that had reached the New Orleans 28 before Young’s sack. Loop later hit from 49. The kickoff after Bateman’s touchdown was returned to the Baltimore 44 with 15 seconds left in the half, and New Orleans turned it into a 47-yard field goal. Moore fumbled a kick return in the third quarter; replay ruled him down by contact.

Moore started at receiver, returned kicks, drew the drive-killing holding penalty and was the target on the third-and-1 deep ball. That is a lot to ask of a man who was on the practice squad nine days ago, and it is a depth problem rather than a Moore problem.

The Penalties

Seven for 34 yards. New Orleans had five for 35.

The count is not the story. Four of the seven arrived on plays that changed the game: Moore’s hold erasing a Jackson first down, Rosengarten illegally downfield wiping out 11 yards, a defensive holding call on Jaylinn Hawkins that gave New Orleans a second attempt at the tying two-point conversion after Trenton Simpson had brought Shough down on the first, and the roughing call on Hendrickson during the final drive.

Pete Gilbert had it in real time — penalties and third downs. He is right about both, and the penalty version needs the qualifier that the volume actually improved.

Thoughts Two Weeks In

Total yardage was 312 to 298. This was not a game where Baltimore got run off the field. It was a game where New Orleans held the ball for 32:45 and converted third downs at long distances – 8 of 15, at an average distance around eight yards.

New Orleans had eight possessions: punt, punt, field goal, field goal, field goal, punt, touchdown, touchdown. Baltimore’s three sacks account for two of the three punts – Robinson ending New Orleans’ first possession, Hendrickson and Green on the same third-quarter series.

Over the course of this season, the Ravens are going to need consistent production from Bateman and Andrews. Their performance today was encouraging; the next step is getting that with regularity.

It was also good to see Walker stretch the field with his 47 yard grab.

Not having Flowers and Lane available today changes the offense.

What really impacted the offense was the defense allowing several long possessions, and not giving Jackson more attempts. Further aided by the Ravens offense not converting that 4th Quarter 3rd and 1.

Hard for Henry to rack up carries, when the Ravens offense doesn’t have the ball.

Madubuike has now missed the first two games. The obvious hope is that he gives the Ravens an interior pass rush when he becomes active.

We noted last week that the first seven opponents all missed the playoffs last season, and that everyone expected a quick start. Baltimore is 1-1 with a home loss to one of them.

Look at the rest of the conference while that sits there.

Buffalo is 2-0 and has looked strong.

Cincinnati is 2-0 and now owns a head-to-head win over Houston, another expected AFC threat, in Houston.

Kansas City looked a bit better in Week 1 than many people anticipated.

The Ravens have post-season aspirations. You have to reach the post-season first, and dropping games you should win is how you end up not winning divisions or having your seeding impacted.

The Ravens were extremely difficult to beat at home for years, but weren’t able to defend M&T last year and have now started the ’26 campaign with another loss at the Bank.

The Ravens’ struggles with leads in the 4th Quarter over the last 5 years is well documented. For there to be a Coaching change, and to see that same storyline continue with Minter in his Ravens home-debut, is a bit deflating.

Our Call, Scored

We said Ravens 31, Saints 20. Baltimore wins and covers. Take the over on 46.5.

Wrong three times. Baltimore lost outright as a home favorite — the line had moved from -7.5 at publication to -8.5 by kickoff. The game finished at 41 combined points, under the total. Not a near miss on any leg.

The reasoning was that New Orleans would not be able to slow Henry and Jackson, and that if the Saints loaded the box it would create one-on-one chances outside. Baltimore did win that part — Bateman got his one-on-ones and won them. What we did not account for was Baltimore’s inability to get off the field on third down, or that Henry would finish with 68 yards.

Box score

Week 3: Ravens at Cowboys, in Rio de Janeiro

Sunday, September 27th, 4:25 p.m. ET on CBS, Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro. Ravens -3, total 52.5.
ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor gives Baltimore a 60.2% chance to win.

Dallas is the designated home team. Baltimore is the visitor. The Ravens are not giving up a home date, and this is a normal Sunday afternoon kickoff rather than the Friday or Saturday that international games sometimes get, 5:25 p.m. local time in Rio.

The Field

There is a real chance this game is not played in Brazil.

Mike Florio reported Saturday that the grass at the Maracanã is in poor condition, citing Mauricio Rodriguez of AtoZSports. The complaints are coming from the soccer players who play on it. Flamengo goalkeeper Agustín Rossi said both penalty areas are in bad shape and there are bumps everywhere, and noted that an NFL game was coming. Midfielder Giorgian De Arrascaeta said the field keeps getting worse and it is getting harder to control the ball. Fluminense’s Guga said on September 5 that he could not recall playing on a field as bad anywhere in Brazil.

Tony Lombardi at Russell Street Report laid out the stadium’s side. Maracanã’s management attributes the wear to heavy rainfall, high temperatures and a heavy run of matches. Stadium CEO Fred Nantes acknowledged the field is not at the quality the stadium wants while saying the venue has not been negligent. Crews are working overnight, and the administration contacted the people who run the São Paulo venue to learn what was done there after the NFL games in 2024 and 2025. Maracanã is studying a full replacement of the field after the NFL game.

The precedent is real. In 2018 the NFL moved a Chiefs-Rams game from Mexico City to the Los Angeles Coliseum over field conditions, six days before kickoff. If this one moves, it moves to Arlington, because Dallas is the home team. As of Saturday afternoon the NFL had not announced any change.

The precedent that matters more is what happened in São Paulo. Players slipped repeatedly during the 2024 game at Arena Corinthians, and afterward multiple players told theScore it was among the worst surfaces they had played on. The NFL spent a reported $1 million on that field to prepare it.

We are publishing this without knowing where the game will be played. Flamengo hosted Bragantino at the Maracanã on Sunday, and the league’s read on the field after that match is the thing to watch.

Dallas

Dallas beat Washington 37-20 at home on Sunday and is 1-1.

Dak Prescott went 26 of 31 for 279 yards and four touchdowns, and passed Tony Romo for the franchise record in touchdown passes. Romo’s mark was 248; Prescott tied it on his second scoring throw to Jake Ferguson and broke it with a fourth-quarter strike to CeeDee Lamb. Lamb finished with 8 catches for 153 and two scores, 19.1 a catch. Ferguson had 4 for 43 and two touchdowns. George Pickens caught 6 for 40. Javonte Williams ran 12 times for 30.

Jayden Daniels dislocated his left elbow on the final play of the first half and was carted off. Everything after that was Dallas playing Marcus Mariota. Washington actually outgained Dallas 389 to 332 and ran for 182 yards. Mariota wasn’t bad, but the game changed when Daniels went out.

Dallas lost 28-20 at the Giants in Week 1. Dak Prescott went 22-of-34 for 175 yards with two touchdowns – to CeeDee Lamb and Javonte Williams – and an interception just before halftime. Williams ran for a score. George Pickens had drops. Brandon Aubrey missed an extra point after a taunting penalty moved it back. Safety Malik Hooker left with a forearm injury and linebacker DeMarvion Overshown left in the fourth with a hamstring.

The Matchup

In Week 1 the Cowboys allowed 9 of 11 third-down conversions, missed seven tackles per Next Gen Stats, gave up 165 combined rushing yards and let the Giants hold the ball for nearly 37 minutes. Jaxson Dart finished 23-of-29 with three touchdowns and ran for 54 himself. In a Blogging The Boys roundtable, four Dallas linebackers – Winters, Overshown, Houston and Lawrence – were noted as grading between 34 and 42 at PFF.

Christian Parker was calling his first NFL game as defensive coordinator. Dallas allowed the most points in the NFL last season at 30.1 a game, and Quinnen Williams pointed at the third downs afterward, saying they had a lot of them and didn’t get off the field.

Two weeks in, the pattern holds. Washington went 6 of 8 on third down in the first half before Daniels got hurt. Add the 9 of 11 the Giants managed and Dallas has allowed 15 of 19 third-down conversions against starting quarterbacks – 79 percent.

The quarterback runs are the specific problem. Jaxson Dart ran for 54 on 11 carries in Week 1. Daniels had 69 on seven before the injury. That is 123 yards on 18 attempts over six quarters, 6.8 a carry, which is Joe Hoyt’s number and the most relevant statistic in this preview. Marcus Mosher’s read is that Dallas is playing light boxes against heavy personnel and getting run on, which makes it a stated choice rather than a personnel failure. Nick Harris described the third-quarter forced fumble as the Dallas defense’s first big play of the season, in Week 2.

Now the counterweight, and it is the pivot of this game rather than a footnote.

Dak Prescott is a better quarterback than any Baltimore has faced, and on Sunday he did to Washington what Shough did to the Ravens – efficient, unhurried, converting. Twenty-six of 31. Baltimore has gone two weeks without an interior pass rush.

The Giants ran for 165 on the Cowboys while holding the ball nearly 37 minutes. Baltimore had the ball 27:15 on Sunday and handed Henry sixteen carries. A defense that cannot tackle is only a matchup if you are on the field long enough to make it one.

Availability

Madubuike has missed two games with the neck. He was described as “really, really close” before Week 2 and did not dress.

Teddye Buchanan has also missed two with the knee.

Zay Flowers sat Sunday with the hamstring to try to avoid this becoming a lingering or more serious issue.  If this game moves to Dallas, it’s fun to picture his speed on the turf.

Ronnie Stanley left with what Zrebiec reported as a toe injury. No update yet.

Ja’Kobi Lane is on IR with a fractured wrist obviously, and will miss a few more weeks.

Hendrickson is playing with a cast on a broken finger.

For Dallas: Safety Malik Hooker and LB DeMarvion Overshown both left the Giants game early and were confirmed inactive against Washington, along with linebacker James Houston, cornerback Caelen Carson, running back Tyler Goodson, guard Ajani Cornelius and receiver Camden Brown. Overshown and Houston are two of the four linebackers whose Week 1 grades drew attention, and Overshown is the player you would want spying Jackson. Whether any of them are back for Rio is a question for Dallas’ Wednesday report.

The linebacker room is reshuffled rather than empty. Rookie Jaishawn Barham – Michigan, and Maryland before that – forced the fumble that Dee Winters recovered at the Washington 13 to set up a Ferguson touchdown. Winters is himself one of the four who graded poorly in Week 1.

Olave had a strong game today vs. the Ravens. Have to imagine Lamb, and Pickens are excited about their chances to do the same.

Things To Watch

Does Madubuike play, and does it change the interior rush? Three sacks against New Orleans, all from the edge, and a quarterback completing 79 percent.

Can Baltimore get off the field on third down? Eight of 15 allowed, at an average distance around eight yards.

Does Baltimore run it? Sixteen carries for Henry, five after halftime, against a defense that gave up 165 on the ground in Week 1. Dallas has been showing a lot of light boxes. You have to make them pay for that.

Is Stanley available? .If he’s available, how effective is he?

Does Jackson run? Daniels ran for 69 yards in the 1st half today.

Does Bateman build off his outing vs. NO? Seven catches for 88 and a touchdown, with a week for Dallas to plan for it. If Flowers is back, the room looks entirely different.

Where is the game being played?

Our Call

The Ravens have a better roster than New Orleans (even with those inactive today), but the Saints left Baltimore with the win.
Baltimore is supposed to have a better roster than the Cowboys, but Dallas has darkhorse Super Bowl aspirations.

The defense has given up long, patient drives in both games. Dak Prescott is a different problem than Daniel Jones or Tyler Shough.

Dallas allowed the most points in the NFL last season, its defensive coordinator is calling his third NFL game, it has given up 15 of 19 third downs to starting quarterbacks, and it is playing light boxes against heavy personnel.

The case against against Baltimore is that Prescott is not Shough. Four penalties at the worst moments, a special teams unit that gave away points, a line that could not keep Jackson upright in the fourth quarter, and no interior pass rush to bother the best quarterback on the schedule so far.

If the game is played in Rio: Ravens 24, Cowboys 21. Neither team has a home crowd (maybe more Dallas fans with their name recognition?), and a questionable surface tends to shorten games and punish precision more than power, which favors Henry and a defense that can win rushing four. The problem is everything around the game. This is a nine-hour trip to an unfamiliar facility, in the middle of a week of league events, on a field nobody has practiced on. Dallas makes the same trip, but the Cowboys have been building their week around this since April as the home team. Baltimore is a guest at someone else’s event.

If the game is moved to Arlington: Ravens 24, Cowboys 23. A relocation hands Dallas a genuine home game it was not supposed to have, on a fast indoor surface that suits Prescott, Lamb and Pickens, against a defense that has not gotten off the field on third down in two weeks. The counterweight is that for Baltimore, Arlington is a normal road game. Short flight, familiar building, ordinary routine, home that night. Whatever the Ravens lose to the crowd they get back in not having to do anything unusual.

Which is why the two numbers end up in the same place. The version of this game I would least want as a Baltimore fan is the one where they fly to Brazil on a short turnaround after a loss, play on a field the professionals who use it say is unsafe, and try to fix a third-down defense in a hotel ballroom.

Either way I have Baltimore at 2-1.

The post Saints Leave Baltimore With A Win; Ravens Face Dallas Next appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

We start with what we got wrong.

Where Our Virginia Tech Preview Missed

We called Maryland’s interior rush against the Hokie line “the single best matchup the Terps have on the field.” It was the worst. Maryland had ten sacks in its first two games and one against Virginia Tech. It had four tackles for loss. The Hokies converted eight of nine third downs in the first half, scored touchdowns on five of their first six possessions, and won time of possession by more than thirteen minutes. Daniel Wingate’s own explanation was bad angles and missed tackles.

We also built the preview around Maryland’s offensive line against Virginia Tech’s edge rushers. That matchup did not decide the game. Malik Washington threw for 359 yards. Protection mostly held.

We got two things right. We wrote that Luke Reynolds against Maryland’s second level was the likeliest way Virginia Tech would score efficiently, and that Maryland had not faced a tight end like him. Reynolds caught 12 passes on 12 targets for 107 yards and a touchdown. His fourth-and-1 catch, which stood after review with Maryland out of timeouts, ended the game. We also said the missing piece was the run game against a real defense. It was missing.

The pick was Virginia Tech by three. The margin was nine, and it was never that close.

What Happened

The first half decided it. Virginia Tech led 27-14 at the break with 302 yards and went up 35-14 early in the third quarter. Ethan Grunkemeyer finished 31 of 39 for 314 yards and three touchdowns. He added an 18-yard touchdown run on third-and-goal, two plays after Nahsir Taylor sacked him in the red zone. Maryland made the play and then could not finish the series.

Maryland’s offense was fine when it had the ball. The Terps averaged 6.6 yards per play to Virginia Tech’s 5.9 and scored touchdowns on all four red zone trips. It did not have the ball much. Three Hokie touchdown drives ate 6:45, 5:49 and 6:12 of clock, and Maryland’s first two possessions of the second half ended in a three-and-out and a turnover on downs.

The run game was the other half of it. Without DeJuan Williams, Maryland ran 21 times for 64 yards. Running backs accounted for 48 of those at 2.8 a carry. Three first-quarter runs lost yardage. Mike Locksley said afterward that Maryland did neither of the two things it had emphasized since January: run the ball and stop the run.

Penalties came back. Maryland had five in the first half for 39 yards. The yardage was small and the timing was bad. Amari Jackson was flagged for pass interference on third-and-eight to extend the drive that made it 27-14. Eyan Thomas jumped offsides inside the five on that same drive, and Virginia Tech scored on the next snap.

Then the two-point tries. Maryland went for two after its first fourth-quarter touchdown and again after its second. Both failed. Kick both extra points and the score is 35-28 with the same clock. Locksley said Maryland was playing to win and declined to hide behind analytics. There is some math backing the decisions; I hated the call on first try. Get the deficit to 14, and not put yourself in a position where you would need to convert a 2 point attempt. The second attempt, their chasing the previous miss, and when you fail to convert you need multiple scores without enough clock left.  The 21 points Maryland allowed before halftime mattered more, but this was still annoying.

Some of the night was good. Washington completed 30 of 43 passes for 359 yards and three touchdowns with no turnovers. Through three games he is 83 of 115 for 892 yards, six touchdowns and no interceptions. Chris Durr Jr. caught 12 passes for 109 yards and two touchdowns, his second straight game with double-digit catches. Kaleb Webb caught five for 98. Dorian Fleming caught six passes, more than he had in the first two games combined, including his first touchdown of the season from two yards out. Maryland outscored Virginia Tech 12-0 in the fourth quarter, the reverse of last season’s pattern, though the Hokies were protecting a three-score lead.

One more detail. Jeffrey Overton Jr. had a 49-yard receiving touchdown and a rushing score. He is a Northern Virginia product Maryland recruited.

Locksley Watch

In our season preview we wrote that 4-8, 5-7, or 6-6 with a bowl should not be enough for Locksley to keep his job, and that 7-5 would at least make an argument. After the Virginia Tech loss, 6-6 is Maryland’s single most likely finish.

Who UCLA Is

UCLA went 3-9 in 2025. Chesney came from James Madison, which made the College Football Playoff last season, and brought eleven former Dukes with him. UCLA used 37 new players in the opener. Chesney has won 13 straight regular-season games dating back to Harrisonburg. He is the third UCLA coach in fifty years to start 3-0, after Terry Donahue in 1976 and Jim Mora in 2012.

The results are 45-24 at Cal, 28-10 over San Diego State and 52-38 over Purdue. The comparison everyone is reaching for is Curt Cignetti at Indiana. Purdue’s Barry Odom made it first, saying Chesney’s team has a style and identity that shows up in all three phases.

Two notes keep this in proportion. UCLA needed 21-point fourth quarters to put away both Cal and San Diego State, and it was shut out in the first half against the Aztecs. And Purdue has now lost 19 straight Big Ten games.

These teams met last October. UCLA won 20-17. Maryland pressured Nico Iamaleava throughout. He went 21 of 35 for 221 yards with a touchdown, threw two interceptions including one returned for a score, and fumbled away a sack. Almost everything around Iamaleava is different now.

The Matchup Is The Run Game

UCLA ran for 369 yards against Purdue and finished with 645, its most in a conference game since 2019. Chesney’s summary was that Purdue knew the run was coming and could not stop it. Wayne Knight, the James Madison transfer, ran for 177 yards and two touchdowns. He had 168 yards and six touchdowns through the first two games, which puts him at about 345 and eight. Anthony Woods is the complement. He ran for 118 yards and two scores at Cal.

Maryland’s run defense numbers still look good on paper. Opponents have run 98 times for 208 yards, 2.1 a carry. Virginia Tech ran 36 times for 131, a manageable number. The Hokie damage came on third down, after the catch, and on missed tackles. Against UCLA those problems will look like run defense. Through two games, before Purdue, Knight was averaging 8.0 yards a carry and Woods 9.3. If Knight gets four yards on first down, the Bruins are always in third-and-short, and Maryland could not get off the field on third-and-long against Virginia Tech.

The other side is just as plain. Maryland’s run game went from 9.1 yards a carry against Hampton to 3.5 at UConn to 3.0 against Virginia Tech. DeJuan Williams misses UCLA, Nebraska and Ohio State, likely Rutgers too, with a realistic return against Illinois on Oct. 31st. Iverson Howard and Harry Dalton have to carry it. Howard has 37 carries for 143 yards and Dalton 30 for 113, both under four a carry, and that includes Hampton. If they can’t do more, this becomes Washington throwing 40 times against a team that wants to shorten the game.

UCLA linebacker Sammy Omosigho has forced four fumbles in three games, two against Purdue. Knight turned both into touchdowns. Maryland has not lost a fumble this season.

Where Maryland Can Attack

Through Cal and San Diego State, UCLA’s defense allowed opponents to complete 32 of 65 passes for 336 yards combined, and held them to 3.4 yards a carry. Then Purdue put up 488 yards and 38 points. Ryan Browne threw for 378 yards and three touchdowns. Xavier Townsend had 162 receiving yards, 152 of them after the catch, including a 75-yard touchdown on the first play of the game.

Browne is the best quarterback UCLA has faced, and Washington is at least his equal on paper: 83 of 115 for 892 yards, six touchdowns, no interceptions. Maryland has three receivers who can win. Durr has 28 catches for 256 yards and three scores. Na’eem Abdul-Rahim Gladding has 17 for 239 and two. Webb has 11 for 167. If the run game gives Maryland anything at all, play-action is the most direct path to points.

Iamaleava is worth watching this week. He left the Purdue game twice, once after cutting a finger on his throwing hand and once after a third-quarter hit, and returned both times. He went 19 of 31 for 276 yards and three touchdowns, his first touchdown passes of the season, two of them to Semaj Morgan.

Keys To The Game

• Win first down. UCLA ran for 369 yards against Purdue. Through the first two games, Knight averaged 8.0 yards a carry and Woods 9.3. Maryland allows 2.1 a carry on paper, but missed tackles on third down cost it against Virginia Tech. Wingate, Carlton Smith and the front have to stop Knight and Woods on first down and force third-and-long. If UCLA stays in third-and-short, it controls the clock the way Virginia Tech did.
• Make UCLA tackle in space. Ryan Browne threw for 378 yards against this defense, and Xavier Townsend gained 152 of his 162 receiving yards after the catch. Durr, Gladding and Webb have to do the same. Cal and San Diego State found almost nothing against this secondary, so Maryland’s receivers decide which version shows up. Early points are also the fastest way to pull UCLA off its running script.
• Omosigho against Maryland’s clean record. He has forced four fumbles in three games. Two came against Purdue, and Knight scored after both. Maryland has not lost a fumble this season. A strip that hands Iamaleava a short field swings the game to UCLA.
• The fourth quarter. UCLA put away both Cal and San Diego State with 21-point fourth quarters. Maryland won the fourth 12-0 against Virginia Tech. Whichever team holds its identity over the last 15 minutes wins a game the market sees as close.
• Also watch the tight ends. Fleming caught six passes against Virginia Tech and his first touchdown of the season. The room now has 14 of Maryland’s 90 receptions, about 15.6 percent. Last season the tight ends drew roughly 18 percent of targets.

The Rosters

These teams were built in opposite ways. UCLA rebuilt nearly the whole roster in one winter. Maryland kept its own.

Chesney signed 40 transfers during the January portal window.  On3 ranked the class No. 11 nationally and No. 2 in the Big Ten. ESPN’s Bill Connelly called it the seventh-best portal haul of the offseason. Many of the additions followed Chesney from James Madison, including Wayne Knight and defensive lineman Sahir West. Omosigho arrived as a four-star transfer. UCLA also signed 18 high school freshmen.

The portal class went heaviest at the lines: nine defensive linemen and eight offensive linemen. An offensive line assembled in January just ran for 369 yards against Purdue.

UCLA ranks No. 25 in the 247Sports Team Talent Composite. Maryland ranked 46th when we checked before the Virginia Tech game. That metric counts only how players graded as high school recruits and ignores what they did after, so it undersells rosters built on transfers who outplayed their ratings.

UCLA has more talent across the two-deep. Maryland has more players who have played together. Through three games, UCLA’s roster has looked more comfortable in its own system than Maryland’s has against a real opponent.

What’s At Stake

ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor gives Maryland a 57.4 percent chance against UCLA. DraftKings has UCLA favored by 2.5 on the road, with a total of 56.5. The model and the market disagree on who the favorite is. A 2.5-point spread works out to roughly a 43 percent chance for Maryland. We side with ESPN. UCLA’s 645 yards came against a Purdue team that has lost 19 straight Big Ten games, and the Bruins are crossing the country to play.

The table below uses ESPN’s game-by-game numbers. At the market’s price instead of ESPN’s, Maryland’s bowl odds fall from 60.0 percent to about 55.

Maryland projects to 5.82 wins. The most likely finish is 6-6 at 30.8 percent. Preseason, the projection was 5.30 wins and a 44.0 percent chance at a bowl. Before the Virginia Tech game it was 6.33 wins and 73.5 percent.

ESPN’s Football Power Index, updated today, ranks UCLA 40th nationally, 7.4 points better than an average team on a neutral field. Maryland is 48th at 5.5. That gap is under two points, which is why home field makes Maryland the model’s favorite. FPI’s own season simulations project Maryland at 5.8-6.2 with a 58.1 percent chance of six wins, close to our numbers. They project UCLA at 7.6-4.4 with a 90.5 percent chance.

The index also shows how the rest of the schedule splits. Ohio State is No. 1, Penn State 11th, USC 18th and Nebraska 21st. Illinois (44th), Wisconsin (53rd), Purdue (75th) and Rutgers (90th) all rank below Maryland.

Most of the schedule moved against Maryland after last night’s loss. Rutgers fell from 84.6 to 81.6, Wisconsin from 66.4 to 59.9, and Illinois from 63.9 to 59.6. Purdue rose from 60.9 to 64.1 after its 0-3 start. Maryland is still favored in five of its nine remaining games. The most winnable are Rutgers at home, Purdue on the road, and Wisconsin at home.

A win over UCLA does not change the most likely finish. At 3-1, 6-6 is still the likeliest result, at 33.2 percent. A loss does change it. At 2-2, the most likely finish becomes 5-7, also at 33.2 percent.

The order of the schedule makes this game matter more. After UCLA, Maryland goes to Nebraska (19.2 percent) and Ohio State (4.4 percent). Lose to UCLA and there is a 77 percent chance Maryland is 2-4 when Rutgers comes to College Park on Oct. 17th. From 2-4, the Terps would need four of their last six, and ESPN’s numbers give that about a one-in-three chance.

Beat UCLA and Maryland is 3-1 with a 74 percent bowl probability. Lose and the season becomes about whether the Terps can win nearly every game they are supposed to win.

Prediction

Last night, I found myself wishing Zahir Mathis was healthy, and giving MD another pass rusher.
I also found myself missing Dontay Joyner in the Secondary.
Also lamented not having DeJuan Williams available at RB.

But you play with who you have available. That’s part of the game.

Maryland couldn’t run effectively last night, nor could they make the plays to get off the field defensively.

If that story continues vs. UCLA, Maryland will lose another swing game.

UCLA’s run game against looks like the biggest threat.

I expect UCLA to look like a team crossing the country, and hoping MD will respond to their loss last night.

Washington and his receivers should find some of the same room Purdue did, especially off play-action. Maryland pressured Iamaleava into three turnovers last October, and his health is a question this week. If the Terps win first down on defense and hold onto the ball, they win.

We picked Virginia Tech by a field goal last week and were short by six. The market has UCLA by 2.5.

Last night was a swing game for MD’s season, and they loss.

Saturday vs. UCLA is another opportunity, and we will see if they can take advantage.

Picking MD here feels homer ish, and more hopeful vs. logical.   Admitting that, I’ll go with Washington to find a way.

Maryland 31, UCLA 27.

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The public version of the dispute is simple: owners want a salary cap to fix competitive balance, players refuse to have their earnings artificially limited. That version is true as far as it goes, and it is not what either side is actually fighting about.

The tell

Two facts reveal the real shape of the negotiation.

The first is that MLB has conditioned essentially every concession it has made on the union accepting a cap. The June 25 package was substantial by any measure: a minimum salary increase to $1 million, free agency after five years for players 30 and older, elimination of the qualifying offer, elimination of deferred compensation, and a “Cornerstone Player” provision modeled on the NBA’s Bird Rights. The August 27 roster proposals added more. Every item was contingent on a payroll cap and floor.

That is not how a side negotiates over money. It is how a side negotiates for a structural change. A league trying to buy competitive balance trades pieces. A league trying to install a new economic system bundles everything behind one gate and waits.

The second fact comes from ESPN’s reporting that stagnating franchise values motivate a meaningful bloc of owners as much as competitive balance does. Fixed labor costs make a business easier to sell and raise the multiple it sells at. The Padres recently fetched $3.9 billion, a record for a baseball franchise, which complicates the narrative but has not changed the calculation. This is, in substantial part, a valuation play wearing a parity jersey.

The union’s position has a symmetrical hidden core. Interim executive director Bruce Meyer has argued that player share in 2026 is already well above 50 percent using MLB’s own definitions of revenue, and that had the league’s proposal been in force this season, players would have lost more than half a billion dollars. Meyer has called a cap “a form of institutionalized collusion.”

But the sharpest objection is to the escrow mechanism buried in MLB’s proposal. Escrow, used in the NBA and NHL, withholds a percentage of salaries and returns it to the league if revenues fall short. NBA players forfeited close to $500 million that way last year. Escrow converts guaranteed contracts into conditional ones, and guaranteed money is the one structural advantage MLB players hold over every other unionized athlete in North America. When a player says “we’re not playing if there’s a cap,” that is what the sentence is protecting.

Where the two sides actually are

The gap is enormous. It is also narrower in places than the rhetoric suggests.

Both sides have proposed centralizing and sharing more local television revenue. MLB wants full centralization with equal distribution among all 30 clubs. The union proposed a $50 million per-team contribution with two-thirds of the remainder pooled and split. This is the single largest structural fix available to the sport, and it is already common ground in principle.

Both sides have proposed forcing low-revenue teams to spend. MLB’s floor is $171.2 million. The union’s “competitive integrity tax” would penalize teams spending less than half the base luxury-tax threshold, which at their proposed $300 million base implies roughly $150 million. That is a $20 million gap on a concept neither side disputes.

Both sides agree young players are underpaid. MLB offered a $1 million minimum; the union asked for $1.5 million. MLB has already accepted the union’s proposals on earlier free agency for players 30 and older and on eliminating the qualifying offer.

What remains irreconcilable: the hard ceiling, the escrow system, the definition of “baseball revenue,” maximum contract lengths, and the amateur entry overhaul. On that last item, MLB has proposed barring anyone under 20 from the domestic draft, cutting it from 20 rounds to 12 with a hard-slotted $200 million bonus pool, and instituting an international draft on the same terms. The union countered in July with the mirror image: preserve high school and junior college eligibility, keep 20 rounds, raise the pools, keep bonuses negotiable.

The arguments in circulation

A handful of fan arguments have hardened into conventional wisdom. They deserve to be taken seriously, and most of them are half right.

Some would suggest the cap threat is a bluff, because owners of low-revenue clubs will never actually accept a floor that eats their profit margins. This is the most interesting argument in circulation, and it underrates how the package is constructed. The floor is funded by the local-TV centralization. If Miami’s and Pittsburgh’s revenue base rises because local media money is pooled and split equally, a $171 million floor becomes affordable rather than ruinous. MLB paired the two proposals for exactly that reason.

The genuine internal ownership tension runs the other direction. The large markets are the ones surrendering something real by centralizing local TV, and reporting suggests Manfred secured their agreement contingent on getting a cap. Which produces an uncomfortable implication for the union: if the cap dies, the centralization offer probably dies with it, and the sport loses its best available parity fix as collateral damage.

Some would suggest a cap only helps the handful of wealthy teams that aren’t the Dodgers, and won’t put stars in Milwaukee or Kansas City. True of a bare cap. Less true of this package. A ceiling combined with a floor and equalized local media does move money downward in a way a ceiling alone would not. The more durable version of the objection is that it changes talent distribution less than advertised, because the relationship between payroll and regular-season winning is weak, and the Rays, Brewers and Guardians keep demonstrating that the binding constraint is competence rather than cash.

Some would suggest a cap is fundamentally un-American, an artificial limit on what a person can earn. The counterpoint writes itself: the draft, hard bonus slotting, six years of team control, the reserve system’s residue, and baseball’s antitrust exemption are all restraints that already exist and that fans largely enjoy. The question was never restraint versus freedom. It is which restraints, and who captures the surplus they create. Fans who admit they prefer a more constrained sport while acknowledging the hypocrisy are being more honest than either negotiating party.

Some would suggest agents, particularly Scott Boras, are the real obstacle to labor peace. Plausible in prior cycles, overstated in this one. Boras’s influence has visibly receded since the sluggish 2023-24 free agent market, and the union’s posture is being set by Meyer and general-counsel-turned-deputy Matt Nussbaum, not by any agency. The obstacle here is structural.

Some would suggest the wave of new television partnerships gives owners too much to lose, and they will therefore concede. This may be exactly backward. The media rights reset after the 2028 season cuts toward owner patience rather than urgency. A cost-certain, capped league is an easier product to sell to rights buyers. An owner can construct a defensible argument that absorbing damage in 2027 to enter the 2028 negotiations with a cap already in hand is a positive trade. That arithmetic is the most alarming thing about this dispute.

Some would suggest fans should refuse to take sides, since this is billionaires arguing with millionaires. Understandable, and it obscures a useful distinction. Neither proposal lowers a ticket price, a parking fee, or a streaming subscription. On the consumer side, fans lose regardless. The only way fans gain anything is through structural changes that make following the sport better, and those changes are available in this negotiation.

Leverage, and the calendar that actually matters

The time asymmetry matters more than the war chests. A December 1 lockout costs owners almost nothing, because no games are scheduled, and costs players nothing directly, because no paychecks are due. December through February is theater. The first real financial pressure arrives when spring training reporting dates pass in mid-February. The operative deadline is mid-to-late March. In 2022, the sides settled on March 10 after a 99-day lockout and played a full 162 with doubleheaders.

Owners hold: fan polling that favors a cap, a reported $2 billion fund to absorb a stoppage, the 2028 media reset and potential expansion fees as future sweeteners, and an ownership group Manfred has publicly described as the most unified he has seen.

Players hold: a licensing-funded lockout fund, an institutional memory of winning in 1995, and an executive board that has closed ranks behind Meyer despite his interim title.

The union’s vulnerability is not leadership. Meyer led the 2020 agreement, the 2022 agreement, and the 2023 minor league deal, and players surveyed anonymously by ESPN described the new leadership group in consistently positive terms. The vulnerability is arithmetic. That same survey broke roughly 16 players in firm opposition to a cap against five who were open to further discussion. Solid, not unanimous. MLB’s June 25 package was built precisely for that seam: real gains for young players and for 30-year-old free agents, with the cost falling on the top of the market. If unity fractures, it fractures in March, and it fractures among pre-arbitration players who have never missed a paycheck.

The owners’ vulnerability is the nuclear option. Declaring impasse and unilaterally implementing new terms is what converted 1994 into a canceled World Series and an NLRB injunction. The 1998 Curt Flood Act preserved player antitrust claims against MLB on labor matters, meaning a decertification threat carries weight it did not carry three decades ago. Any move toward implementation turns a lockout into a two-year war.

What a sensible deal looks like

There is an agreement available that delivers most of what fans say they want without a hard cap.

Centralize and equally share local media revenue, decoupled from the cap fight. Both sides have already proposed versions of it. It is the real parity fix and it should not be held hostage.

Install a hard, enforceable floor in the $165 to $175 million range, funded by the above, with penalties that actually bite: forfeited revenue-sharing receipts, lost draft picks, lost international bonus pool money. The union’s competitive integrity tax is directionally correct and far too weak.

Replace the ceiling with a punitive top tax tier. A base near $290 to $300 million with escalating rates that become close to confiscatory above roughly $350 million functions as a soft cap without touching guaranteed contracts. This is the only face-saving landing zone visible from here.

Leave guarantees alone. No escrow, no maximum contract lengths. These are where the union will genuinely choose a lost season over a concession.

Front-load gains where most players live. A minimum above $1.2 million, arbitration eligibility at two years, a pre-arbitration bonus pool well north of $100 million, plus the free agency and qualifying offer changes already agreed. Roughly seventy percent of major leaguers never sign a nine-figure contract. This is where solidarity is purchased.

Take the international draft, drop the high school ban. The international signing system has real and long-documented corruption problems, and a draft is overdue. Barring domestic players under 20 is a transparent mechanism for delaying debuts, suppressing the age at which stars reach free agency, and shifting development costs onto college programs. The union will read it that way because that is what it is.

Put expansion on the table. Two franchises at $2 billion or more apiece, two additional floor-level payrolls, and the realignment fans have wanted for years. Nobody has formally raised it. Whoever does is signaling they want to close.

Expected outcomes

Reasonable probabilities as of mid-September 2026:

The single most likely path: a lockout running from December through somewhere between mid-March and mid-April 2027, resolved without a hard cap but with centralized local television, a genuine spending floor, a steeper top tax tier, and meaningful gains for young players. A compressed spring training, a delayed opener, a schedule of 150 to 158 games padded with doubleheaders. Something close to 2022 with more scar tissue and a worse aftertaste.

Losing the whole season remains unlikely but is no longer unthinkable. The 2004-05 NHL precedent exists, the owners have the fund to sustain it, and the 2028 media reset gives them a reason to be patient that the players do not have.

Seven things to watch

1. Does MLB ever de-link a concession from the cap? One unconditional offer means the cap is a bargaining chip. Zero by February means it is not.
2. Does the local-TV centralization offer survive if the cap falls away? This reveals whether large-market owners were ever genuinely bought in.
3. Does the union counter with any ceiling mechanism at all? Even a punitive super-tax tier would mark the landing zone.
4. Player unity in late February, when checks stop. Watch for a public break from a mid-tier veteran rather than a star.
5. Any movement toward declaring impasse and implementing terms. That is the 1994 trigger, and it invalidates every projection above.
6. Decertification talk from the union. Post-Flood Act it is a live weapon, and the threat alone moves owners.
7. Expansion entering the conversation. That is what the endgame looks like.

The honest summary for anyone who simply wants baseball in April: neither proposal lowers what you pay. Neither side is negotiating on your behalf. The version of this fight where you get more competitive balance without losing a season runs through centralized local television and a hard spending floor, and both sides have already endorsed both ideas.

Whether they are willing to detach those from the thing they cannot agree on is the entire ballgame.

The post Baseball’s Coming Winter: What the MLB Labor Fight Is Actually About appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Quick Hits

Our Week 3 picks went 4-4 straight up, 1-6 against the number and 4-2 on totals. Louisville was the only clean sweep. Alabama won by 14 on a 17.5-point line, and Texas Tech won by two laying ten.Three weeks in, we are 10-10 straight up and 6-12-1 against the number.

Chambliss wins the rematch. Kiffin plucked Trinidad Chambliss out of Division II Ferris State and made him a star. On Saturday Chambliss beat him. Ole Miss led 24-7 at the half, LSU scored 17 straight to tie it with 11:21 left, and Chambliss answered with a 75-yard drive capped by a 14-yard keeper against the grain. LSU then went 69 yards in 13 plays and had fourth-and-goal at the 6. Leavitt’s throw was tipped at the line and intercepted in the end zone. Ole Miss is now 24-1 at home since 2023, the best mark in FBS. Chambliss is playing this season because he won his eligibility case in court.

We were wrong about LSU, and it was not the injury. Leavitt was listed doubtful on Wednesday, came off the report Friday night and played. He threw for 153, ran for 63 and accounted for two touchdowns. We took LSU on the strength of a defense that had held Clemson to ten. Ole Miss had 24 by halftime.

Kentucky 31, Texas A&M 21, at Kyle Field. The Aggies were 17-point favorites. Kentucky scored 28 unanswered and outgained A&M 196 yards to 20 in the third quarter. Mark Stoops won one road game against a top-10 team in twelve seasons. Will Stein, who was calling Oregon’s offense a year ago, did it in his first try. His defensive coordinator, Jay Bateman, ran A&M’s defense the two previous seasons, and Marcel Reed finished 26 of 49 with two interceptions. Mike Elko told Stein in the handshake line that Kentucky had beaten his team up. A&M has lost three of its last five games dating to last season.

NC State found a way. Up 31-28 with six seconds left and fourth down at its own 5, NC State sent CJ Bailey out to run around in the end zone and take a safety. He got hit, the ball came out, and Vanderbilt fell on it for a 35-31 win. NC State had not trailed all day. Bailey is a three-year starter. Dave Doeren, in his 14th season, said afterward the ball simply had to be protected. After a lopsided opening loss to Virginia, the Wolfpack are 1-2, and Doeren’s name is starting to show up in hot-seat conversations. Vanderbilt is 3-0 behind freshman Jared Curtis.

Keelon Russell is making the throws now, not just the runs. Tuscaloosa booed the playcalling in the first half as Florida State went up 21-6. Then Alabama scored touchdowns on five straight possessions. Russell threw for 320 yards and three scores without an interception and broke a 57-yard touchdown run. He lifts this offense more than any quarterback DeBoer has had here. The defense is the worry. Florida State converted 8 of 15 third downs against a unit that had allowed 1 of 23, and Duce Robinson caught six for 135. Alabama has now won 88 straight home games against unranked teams.

Florida can score. Jon Sumrall’s Gators have averaged 54 points through three games, the most by any Florida team in program history over that stretch. Last season Florida never scored more than 29 in an SEC game. Jadan Baugh has run for at least 136 yards every week, and Aaron Philo has thrown for 200-plus every week. The 44 points at Auburn were the most by a Jordan-Hare visitor in seven years. Now it gets real: five of Florida’s next six opponents are ranked, starting with Ole Miss on Saturday.

West Virginia is 3-0. Michael Hawkins Jr. transferred in from Oklahoma in January. On Saturday he went 10 of 17 for 190 and two scores and ran 18 times for 123 and three more as a double-digit underdog beat Virginia 38-27 in Charlotte. About two-thirds of the 39,377 in the building were West Virginia fans, and Rich Rodriguez said it felt like a home game. Hawkins isn’t a polished passer yet, but he’s fast and he’s fearless. Oklahoma State visits Morgantown on Saturday.

Mensah is the Heisman leader. He completed his first 24 passes at Wake Forest, an ACC single-game record, and his 35 straight across two games were two shy of the FBS record. Through three games he has 873 yards, 11 touchdowns, no interceptions and an 89.9 percent completion rate. He may not even be the best player on his offense. Malachi Toney has 28 catches for 444 yards and five scores. Toney limped off Friday, Mark Fletcher Jr. was banged up, and running back CharMar Brown was carted off with a knee injury.

Hot seats. Rutgers is 0-3 for the first time since 2008. Two weeks after managing 346 yards against UMass, the Scarlet Knights put up 460 on USC, and still lost. Florida State looked like a bowl team in Tuscaloosa, but Ashton Daniels threw three interceptions, the Seminoles are 1-2, and the school fired its athletic director this month. Arkansas trustees called for a review of the program’s competitiveness the day before a 45-17 home loss to Georgia, the Razorbacks’ twelfth straight SEC defeat.

Power Rankings

Ole Miss moves up four. The Rebels own two wins over ranked teams, Louisville in Nashville and LSU at home, and nobody else can say that. Chambliss is calm when the pocket isn’t. He led the winning drive after Kewan Lacy left with a shoulder injury, and Lacy’s X-rays were negative. The preview noted Ole Miss led in the second half of every game it played last season, and it held a second-half lead again on Saturday. The schedule does not ease: at Florida Saturday, at Vanderbilt after the bye, at Texas on October 24th, Georgia on November 7th.

Miami slips one. Ole Miss passes the Hurricanes, and Friday was the first time Miami looked mortal. After Mensah’s 24-for-24 start, the offense went three-and-out four straight times and the defense had to win the game. Toney and Fletcher are both being evaluated. Central Michigan visits before the trip to Clemson on October 3rd.

LSU drops two. A 17-point comeback in the most hostile building on the schedule, lost at the goal line, is not a collapse. The injuries are the concern. Trey’Dez Green hurt his right knee on a catch in Ole Miss territory, and Dashawn Spears left with a lower leg injury. Leavitt has four turnovers in two games after missing spring practice, and no receiver has emerged as the clear top target. The math is now unforgiving. No three-loss team has made the 12-team field as an at-large in three seasons, and the loser of Saturday’s game in Baton Rouge will be 2-2.

Florida enters at 17. A road SEC win in a loud building, with a balanced offense and a running back who looks like a problem for anyone. Baugh carried 26 times Saturday and got stronger as the game went on. The preview flagged Florida as the biggest climber in the CBS 138. The next six weeks will tell us how far.

Texas A&M drops eleven. The preview asked whether eleven wins was the new baseline or the outlier. A home loss as a 17-point favorite to a Kentucky team that lost by 28 the week before is a real answer. The Aggies replaced ten draftees and a rebuilt line, and it shows. After the trip to LSU, five of their last eight opponents are currently ranked.

Oklahoma leaves the ranking. The Sooners needed a fourth-down stop in the red zone to beat New Mexico 14-6, a week after losing 17-10 at Michigan. That is 24 points in two games for a team with the fourth-hardest schedule in the country, and the hardest part starts in Athens.

Alabama holds at eighth. Texas Tech, BYU, USC, Michigan, Oregon, Penn State, Tennessee, Iowa and Utah each move up one as a consequence of the moves above.

The outside check

CBS’s projection of the post-Week 3 AP poll keeps Texas first, moves Ole Miss to fourth, drops Texas A&M out and brings Florida in at 19th. ESPN’s FPI, updated September 20th, has Ohio State and Texas tied at the top with identical ratings, Texas A&M 12th and Ole Miss 13th. We sit between the projected poll and the model on both, with Ole Miss sixth and A&M 20th. Oregon lands in the same place: 21st in the projected poll, ninth in FPI, 14th here.

Texas stays first on its defense, which held UTSA to 143 yards. Arch Manning was 16 of 32, and Colin Simmons left in a walking boot that Steve Sarkisian called precautionary. You could make the argument for Ole Miss at No. 1 on résumé, and CBS’s overreactions column did exactly that. ESPN’s committee projection has the Rebels second. It also leaves Texas Tech out of the bracket for a second straight week, with BYU as the projected Big 12 champion, and ESPN’s buy-sell column is selling the Red Raiders outright.

The Playoff Field

Ole Miss gains fourteen points on the week and Texas A&M loses twenty-four. Oregon comes down six more before its trip to the Coliseum, and a November trip to Columbus is still ahead. USC drops eight after allowing 460 yards to a winless Rutgers team, with Penn State and Indiana still to come on the road. Texas moves to 78 on the best win in the sport, and FPI gives the Longhorns the highest playoff probability in the country. Penn State, Tennessee and Utah rise on three comfortable wins apiece. Texas Tech gives back six. It has no ranked opponent left on its schedule, which means no chance to impress anyone before the Big 12 title game. Alabama gains four. The field grows to 1.34, with Louisville, Mississippi State, Pitt and Oklahoma all sitting just outside the twenty.

Notre Dame and Miami are three points apart in our table, and FPI orders them the same way, 80.8 percent to 77.6. ESPN’s committee projection has Miami ahead, fifth to sixth. The Irish have Purdue, North Carolina and Stanford next. They meet Miami in South Bend on November 7th.

Conference Projections

ACC. Miami 55 (up 4), Louisville 16 (up 4), SMU 8 (down 5), Pitt 6 (up 3), Virginia Tech 6 (up 1), Virginia 4 (down 3), Clemson 3 (down 3), field 2 (down 1). Louisville now owns the head-to-head with SMU, has no ranked team left on its schedule, and does not play Miami in the regular season. SMU drops five after running for 257 yards and still losing the turnover battle 3-0. Virginia does not play a league game until October 3rd at Florida State.

SEC. Texas 24 (up 3), Georgia 24, Alabama 14 (up 1), Ole Miss 14 (up 6), LSU 9 (down 5), Texas A&M 4 (down 8), Florida 4 (new), Oklahoma 3 (down 1), field 4. Texas draws level with Georgia, and FPI has the Longhorns slightly ahead. Ole Miss holds the tiebreaker over LSU and still has to go to Austin. LSU loses five on the tiebreaker and on Green’s knee. A&M loses eight, with Baton Rouge and Tuscaloosa still ahead and Texas at the end.

Big Ten. Ohio State 33 (up 1), Indiana 27, Oregon 13 (down 2), USC 10 (down 2), Penn State 7 (up 3), Michigan 6 (down 1), field 4 (up 1). Twenty-three points of this table meet at the Coliseum on Saturday night.

Big 12. Texas Tech 32 (down 4), BYU 27 (up 1), Utah 17 (up 4), Kansas State 6 (up 1), Houston 5 (down 3), West Virginia 4 (new), Arizona 3 (down 1), Oklahoma State 3, TCU 2 (down 1), field 1 (down 1). Tech won, but for the second straight week it allowed more yards than in any game last season. Tech misses both BYU and Utah in the regular season, which was always the argument for this number and still is. BYU is 11-2 on the road since 2024. Utah is 14-2 since Devon Dampier arrived and has outscored three opponents 142-24. Houston falls to five; the Cougars’ close-game luck finally ran the other way.

Pac-12. Boise State 46 (up 2), Fresno State 14 (up 3), San Diego State 11 (down 3), Texas State 10 (down 2), Oregon State 7 (up 3), Washington State 6 (down 2), Colorado State 3 (up 1), Utah State 3 (down 2). Boise needed the fourth quarter to beat an FCS team, and the Broncos still gain, because San Diego State lost at home to James Madison.

Conference Overviews

The order holds for a third week: the SEC, the Big Ten, the Big 12, the ACC and the Pac-12.

1. The SEC. FPI has eleven SEC teams among its top 24, and the middle of the league got stronger on Saturday. Kentucky won at Kyle Field. Florida won at Auburn. Mississippi State trailed South Carolina 13-0 after one quarter, then went on a 41-10 run to win 41-34. Kamario Taylor threw four touchdowns, and the Bulldogs are 3-0 with Missouri and Alabama coming to Starkville next. Vanderbilt and Missouri are unbeaten too. Saturday is the fullest SEC day of the season so far: Texas at Tennessee, Ole Miss at Florida, Oklahoma at Georgia, Texas A&M at LSU and Missouri at Mississippi State.

2. The Big Ten stays second on its top two. FPI still rates Ohio State first in the country at 2-1, and Jeremiah Smith, three games into his junior year, is already the program’s career receiving leader. Indiana has two straight shutouts and has not played anyone. USC is 4-0 and fumbled a snap in the victory formation at Rutgers. Michigan trailed a UTEP team that had lost 51-0 to Oklahoma before waking up. Northwestern beat Colorado 41-7. League play starts in earnest this weekend.

3. The Big 12 keeps third on the head-to-head, and that is now the whole argument. West Virginia beat a ranked Virginia team in Charlotte. Houston came within a two-point try in Lubbock. BYU and Utah look like the class of the league. Below that it was a rough weekend. Colorado, which beat Georgia Tech in the opener, lost 41-7 at Northwestern. Kansas lost to Arizona State in London. Cincinnati needed a 28-point second half to beat Miami of Ohio. FPI has three Big 12 teams and three ACC teams in its top 25, and the best ACC team sits nine spots above the best Big 12 team.

4. The ACC has the best team of the two. Miami showed on Friday that its defense can win a game when the offense stalls. Louisville is clearly second. Keyjuan Brown is explosive, the offense has not turned it over, and the defense, which ranks in the triple digits nationally after allowing 41 to Ole Miss and 31 to SMU, is the one thing between the Cardinals and a date with Miami in the ACC title game. Behind them it thins fast. Virginia lost, NC State lost in the worst possible way, Clemson needed a comeback against North Carolina, and Florida State is 1-2.

5. The Pac-12 had the weekend the Group of Six has been having all year. San Diego State lost at home to James Madison. Colorado State lost to BYU, its 28th straight loss to a ranked team. Utah State was shut out by Utah. Boise State was tied 24-24 with an FCS team with ten minutes left before Dylan Riley broke an 83-yard touchdown run to finish a 198-yard night. The Broncos are still the league’s best team by a distance, and ESPN’s committee projection still gives them the Group of Six bid. They go to Western Michigan on Saturday.

The Week 4 Board

Spreads and totals are from DraftKings, percentages from ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor. Rankings are CBS’s projection of the post-Week 3 AP poll. Networks for Wake Forest at Louisville and the two 3:30 SEC games had not been announced at press time. Two games have the model and the market naming different favorites: Oregon at USC and Oklahoma State at West Virginia.

Predictions

Texas 24, Tennessee 20. The Texas defense held UTSA to 143 yards and has not let anyone find a rhythm since halftime against Ohio State. The offense is the question it was in August. Texas backs scored six rushing touchdowns all of last season, and on Saturday Manning ran nine times, none of them designed runs. Tennessee hired Jim Knowles to fix its defense, and this is the first ranked opponent it has seen. Simmons’s boot is worth watching all week. Texas wins, Tennessee covers. Under.

Louisville 31, Wake Forest 21. Louisville’s backs are the most explosive in the ACC. Isaac Brown led the nation at 8.75 yards per carry last season, and Keyjuan Brown just went for 163 on ten carries. Louisville has not turned it over all year. The Cardinals’ defense has allowed 72 points in two real games, though, and Wake Forest has won 11 of its last 16 under Jake Dickert. Gio Lopez threw for 312 against Miami. Seven of Louisville’s eight losses over the previous two seasons came by one score, and this program does not do comfortable. Louisville wins, Wake Forest covers. Under.

Florida 31, Ole Miss 28. Ole Miss comes off the most emotional game on its schedule and goes on the road to the Swamp. Lacy’s X-rays were negative, but he did not finish the LSU game. Florida has scored 54 a game and Baugh is the best back Ole Miss will see before Texas. Chambliss was second in FBS in passing grade under pressure last season and will get his points. The Rebels’ defense gave up 17 straight to LSU before finding its footing, and that is the part that worries us. Florida covers. Over.

Georgia 27, Oklahoma 10. This was Oklahoma’s circle game in August. It no longer looks like a coin flip. Oklahoma has 24 points in its last two games. Georgia ran on 36 of its first 42 plays at Arkansas, and Gunner Stockton is throwing about 15 times a game. That is the old Georgia problem, 126th nationally last season in share of passing yards thrown ten or more yards downfield. It will be enough here. Oklahoma led the nation with 63 tackles for loss last year and will keep it from getting silly. Georgia covers. Under.

Michigan 20, Iowa 16. The lowest total we have printed all season, and it has earned it. Iowa lost four games last season by fifteen points combined and still has the best offensive line on the field. Michigan has the better front seven and held Oklahoma to ten in this building two weeks ago. It also trailed UTEP in the second quarter. Bryce Underwood isn’t a finished product, but he’s the most dangerous player on the field. Iowa does not lose by a lot. Michigan wins, Iowa covers. Under.

West Virginia 31, Oklahoma State 27. ESPN makes West Virginia a 59.7 percent favorite, and the market makes them a home underdog. We side with the model. This was our most contrarian preseason call: Drew Mestemaker led FBS with 4,379 passing yards at North Texas, and Caleb Hawkins had the best rushing grade in the country. Oklahoma State has since lost to Tulsa and beaten Oregon, and nobody knows which one is real. Michael Hawkins is the best player in this game, and Morgantown at night is a hard place to find out. The upset. Over.

LSU 27, Texas A&M 20. The loser is 2-2 and out of margin. A&M has averaged 7.5 regular-season wins since joining the SEC, and last season’s eleven look more like the exception every week. LSU may be without Green, and Leavitt has to stop giving the ball away. Tiger Stadium at night is enough for LSU to win it. Not by nine. ESPN has LSU at 63.2 percent, well short of what an 8.5-point line implies, and we agree with the discount. LSU wins, A&M covers. Under.

Oregon 34, USC 31. Last year USC allowed the fewest air yards per attempt in FBS. This year it has allowed 30 or more in three of four games and gave up 168 rushing yards to Rutgers. Oregon brings the defensive line we ranked first in the country in August. Lanning is 5-7 against top-15 teams, and four of those five wins came by a touchdown or less. This is the game the preview said would put Oregon’s path to a top seed in its own hands. Dante Moore turned down the NFL to play games like this one. Oregon wins outright. Over.

The post 2026 College Football: Reviewing Week 3, Previewing Week 4 appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

All lines from DraftKings. All percentages from ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor.

Our picks going forward are straight winners. We’ll show the line and the total, but we’re only formally picking the game.

Week 1 Quick Hits

Seahawks 13 Patriots 10 – Seattle raised the banner and needed three fourth-quarter interceptions to beat the team it beat in February. Sam Darnold hurt his hip on the fifth play of the game on a Dre’Mont Jones sack; Mike Macdonald said initial tests ruled out a break. Drew Lock, who threw three passes all of last season and had not taken a first-team rep in practice that week, went 5 of 7 for 89 yards and a touchdown in the fourth quarter. He hit reigning Offensive Player of the Year Jaxon Smith-Njigba for 45 on fourth-and-1 to tie it after a Nehemiah Pritchett interception, and Jason Myers won it from 26 after Julian Love picked Maye on the next drive. Josh Jobe’s toe-tap in the end zone ended it. Drake Maye was 17 of 22 through three quarters, then threw three picks in the fourth, the first a deep ball to a double-covered Romeo Doubs with a checkdown open in the flat. Maye called it unacceptable. Christian Gonzalez blanked Smith-Njigba across ten coverage matchups. New England ran 31 times for 109 yards, with Rhamondre Stevenson and Corey Kiner combining for 62 yards of which 59 came after contact, and Maye was pressured on 38.1% of his dropbacks while taking only three sacks. A.J. Brown left in the third quarter with a high ankle sprain.

49ers 27 Rams 7 – The preseason favorite opened 10,000 miles from home in front of 100,021 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and got run off it. San Francisco scored the final 24 points. Brock Purdy threw for 205 and three touchdowns — Demarcus Robinson on a 39-yard post, Mike Evans over new Rams corner Jaylen Watson, and Deebo Samuel to cap a 99-yard drive. Raheem Morris, coordinating against the team he coached for, held the NFL’s best 2025 offense to 290 yards, allowed the third-lowest EPA per play of the week, and stopped Matthew Stafford on a fourth-down sneak from the San Francisco 1. Stafford went 15 of 25 for 155 and said they had two good drives and that it started with him. Fred Warner and Nick Bosa both returned from long absences and were immediately themselves; Bosa hit Stafford on the first snap of the game. The Rams did not sack Purdy once. Myles Garrett recorded no tackles and three total pressures across 39 defensive snaps; he acknowledged afterward that his knee has him at less than full health, and has since had arthroscopic surgery and gone on injured reserve for at least four games. The Rams’ next four opponents are the Giants, Broncos, Eagles and Bills. San Francisco arrived in Australia a week early. The Rams landed roughly a day before a 10:35 a.m. kickoff, part of a years-in-the-making plan to keep the players on California time — the team flew 32 hours inside three days — and Sean McVay said he doesn’t believe the travel plan is the reason they lost.

Bills 36 Texans 31 – The best game on the early slate delivered. Josh Allen went 20 of 29 for 334 with two touchdowns and ran for two more, including the 34-yard winner to Joshua Palmer on third-and-11 inside the final two minutes — one snap after Kamari Lassiter dropped an interception in the end zone that would have ended it. Allen had a 28.2 Total QBR against Houston over the past two seasons and a league-best 72.8 against everyone else. Matt Burke’s defense played zone on 24 of Allen’s 32 dropbacks after playing man nearly 39 percent of the time in Houston’s two previous wins over Buffalo, and Allen posted a passer rating over 129 against both. Danielle Hunter and Will Anderson Jr. did not sack him once. The Joe Brady wrinkle was Dalton Kincaid, who ran routes on 71% of Allen’s dropbacks after averaging 58% from 2023 to 2025 and caught five passes for a career-high 130 yards with catches of 35, 38 and 40. DJ Moore went for 100 and a score in his Buffalo debut and drew a 46-yard pass interference. Buffalo ran 13 personnel on 36.8% of snaps; the Rams led the NFL last season at 30.4%. Buffalo averaged 7.9 yards a play, the most Houston has allowed since DeMeco Ryans was hired in 2023, and it was the first time a Ryans defense gave up 400 yards since late in the 2024 season. Houston ran 73 plays to Buffalo’s 52 and held the ball for 36:17 and lost anyway. David Montgomery scored three times on 79 scrimmage yards. C.J. Stroud threw for 274 and two scores with no interceptions but lost two fumbles, both on Greg Rousseau strip-sacks, the second against a three-man rush at the Buffalo 28 in the closing seconds. Houston’s defense led the league in yards allowed last season and gave up its most points since December 2023.

Ravens 41 Colts 23 – Baltimore outgained Indianapolis 506 to 251 and led 31-13 at the half, the fifth time in franchise history they have scored 31 before the break. Derrick Henry ran 24 times for 144 and three touchdowns at 32, moving to 125 career rushing scores — third all-time behind Emmitt Smith and LaDainian Tomlinson — and past Marvin Harrison into ninth in total touchdowns. Lamar Jackson went 17 of 25 for 324 with a touchdown through the air and another on the ground, and escaped a sack near midfield to scramble for a first down on third-and-16 in the first quarter. Roquan Smith intercepted Daniel Jones on the Colts’ second drive and Marlon Humphrey stripped Jonathan Taylor on the next one; Baltimore converted both and led 28-6. Zay Flowers had five catches for 150 and a 54-yard touchdown before pulling up with a hamstring in the second quarter. It was the first time in the franchise’s 31-year history that Baltimore had a 300-yard passer, a 150-yard receiver and a 100-yard rusher in the same game. Jonathan Taylor ran 19 times for 98 and two scores at 5.2 a carry. Declan Doyle, one of seventeen play callers either new to a team or doing the job for the first time this season, got touchdown drives on four of Baltimore’s first five possessions, and would have had five but for a holding call on center Jovaughn Gwyn that erased a touchdown pass to Ja’Kobi Lane. The Ravens took ten dropbacks from under center, the most Jackson has ever had in a game, and he went 6 of 8 for 114 yards from those looks — 14.3 an attempt with a 116.7 rating — including the 49-yarder to Zay Flowers off a boot. Henry gained 130 of his yards on nineteen under-center carries at 6.8 a pop. It was the first time in three years Indianapolis has given up 500 yards. Daniel Jones, nine months off a torn Achilles, was 19 of 31 for 166 and carried the ball once for four yards. Calais Campbell, 40, made his 260th career start, joining Jim Marshall and Bruce Smith as the only defensive linemen to reach that number.

Bengals 33 Buccaneers 27 – Cincinnati’s rebuilt defense forced four turnovers and had four sacks, and 24 of the 33 points came off Tampa Bay mistakes. Boye Mafe and Bryan Cook, both free-agent additions, each forced and recovered a fumble, and Mafe added a sack. Demetrius Knight Jr. scooped a Baker Mayfield fumble and returned it for a touchdown, Cincinnati’s first scoop-and-score since Sam Hubbard’s 99-yarder in the January 2023 wild card. Three of Tampa’s first four possessions ended in fumbles, all converted into touchdowns. Mayfield, who signed a three-year, $165 million extension this week, put three of them on the ground — two while being sacked, one stretching for extra yardage at the Cincinnati 4 with the Buccaneers about to score — and still finished 23 of 28 for 216 with a rushing touchdown. Joe Burrow was 25 of 35 for 254 and scored on six of seven drives after an opening three-and-out, the exception being a pick-six to rookie Josiah Trotter, who became the first player with a sack and a pick-six in his debut since sacks became an official statistic in 1982. Evan McPherson hit four field goals including a 55 and a 58, the first Bengal with two from 55-plus in a game. Ja’Marr Chase, questionable all week with a knee, drew four targets; Mike Gesicki led the team with seven. Cincinnati led 27-10 early in the third quarter and then stopped, averaging minus-0.19 EPA per play in the second half, second-worst of the week behind New England. The Bengals ran nine plays from under center and did not succeed on any of them.

Jaguars 34 Browns 10 – Trevor Lawrence went 18 of 23 for 245 and four touchdowns with a career-best 150.6 rating, and Jacksonville scored on six of its first seven possessions. The touchdowns went to Parker Washington, Brenton Strange, Jakobi Meyers and rookie Josh Cameron, three of them wide open. Washington, a pending free agent in the middle of contract negotiations, caught the first one diving and flashed a pay-me sign. Deshaun Watson threw an interception on the opening drive of his first start in nearly two years, nearly threw another on the second possession, recovered his own fumble, and was sacked five times. Cleveland went 1 for 8 on third down, took 11 penalties, and failed to score a touchdown on both trips inside the 20. Their only points before a 46-yard Watson-to-Denzel Boston score with 1:52 left came after a 74-yard Raheim Sanders kick return. Watson had been 7-0 in his career against Jacksonville. Lawrence went 10 of 12 for 179 and three scores on throws travelling ten or more yards, and had two tight-window completions all afternoon. New Cleveland coordinator Mike Rutenberg, replacing Jim Schwartz, played zone on 20 of Lawrence’s 25 dropbacks, blitzed three times and generated no quick pressures. Jared Verse did not record a hurry in his Browns debut.

Steelers 20 Falcons 13 – Atlanta’s quarterback question got answered in the worst way available. Michael Penix Jr. and Tua Tagovailoa were both declared out, so Cooper Rush started — a free agent until training camp, with almost no first-team work, reportedly dealing with back spasms the day before. Kevin Stefanski wasn’t going to expose Jack Strand in Week 1, so Atlanta ran an extremely conservative plan and still gave up both Pittsburgh touchdowns off Rush turnovers. T.J. Watt had two sacks and a 35-yard pick-six on a telegraphed dump-off. Pittsburgh also rested him: Watt, Alex Highsmith and Nick Herbig each played around 40 snaps with Jack Sawyer taking 23, and 37-year-old Cam Heyward played 33 of 61 after leading all NFL defensive linemen in snaps last season. Heyward batted down three passes. Aaron Rodgers was 24 of 40 for 221 and a touchdown to Pat Freiermuth, with DK Metcalf dropping several. Per Next Gen Stats, Rodgers averaged 9.2 air yards per target, his highest as a Steeler, with a 2.95-second time to throw, his third-highest — and Patrick Graham played exclusively zone on Atlanta’s dropbacks after Pittsburgh was man-heavy a year ago. Rush threw two interceptions, and Atlanta managed only two drives all afternoon that gained more than 30 yards. The Falcons were also without both of their intended starting edge rushers — Jalon Walker tore an ACL and is out for the season, and James Pearce Jr. is suspended for the first eight games — which is why Za’Darius Smith, signed less than a month ago at 34 after retiring midway through last season, was the one getting home. He sacked Rodgers twice. Bijan Robinson accounted for 173 of Atlanta’s 238 yards. Kyle Pitts was shut out. Nick Folk, one of the most reliable kickers in the league the past three seasons, missed two. Atlanta took nine penalties for 96 yards.

Lions 31 Saints 30 (OT) – Detroit led 21-0 and needed a stop on a two-point conversion in overtime to survive. Jahmyr Gibbs carried a career-high 29 times for 156 and two scores with five catches. Jared Goff was 26 of 39 for 206 with two touchdowns and no turnovers, both scores going to Amon-Ra St. Brown, who finished with 67 receiving yards, and got the break of the afternoon when Chase Young knocked the ball loose on a sack and New Orleans returned it for a touchdown, only for review to rule Goff’s arm had started forward. Dan Campbell said outright he thought they’d lost that one. Tyler Shough threw two interceptions and lost a fumble and then went 35 of 56 for 410 and three touchdowns, converting a fourth-and-12 from his own 23 and hitting Chris Olave for 43 to set up the tying score with 1:07 left. Detroit went three-and-out and Ryan Wright missed from 62 as time expired. In overtime Kellen Moore took the two-point try rather than extend the game, saying he didn’t want to give Detroit the ball back with 1:34. New Orleans outgained Detroit 469 to 369 and lost on the turnover margin. Christian Mahogany was carted off with a right knee injury.

Jets 23 Titans 10 – New York never trailed, out-gained Tennessee 367-195, held the ball nearly 39 minutes and put together a 19-play drive that consumed almost twelve minutes of the first half. Breece Hall ran for 102 and a score. Geno Smith went 19 of 24 for 215 with no interceptions in his return to the team that drafted him, coming off a league-high 17 picks a year ago. The defense that finished 32nd in passing EPA in 2025 without recording a single interception got three sacks with Aaron Glenn calling it himself, one from No. 2 overall pick David Bailey and one from Kingsley Enagbare. Cam Ward was 19 of 32 for 140 with a late touchdown to Elic Ayomanor and said the Titans are better than what they showed. Robert Saleh, calling the defense himself against the team that fired him five games into 2024, said the Jets got after them. Tennessee pushed the opening kickoff out of bounds, burned a timeout to avoid twelve men on the field, and lost a Chimere Dike fumble on a kickoff after he’d already been checked for a concussion on his first punt return. Glenn deactivated Blake Grupe, claimed off waivers from Indianapolis on Aug. 31, and elevated Jason Sanders from the practice squad, who hit from 33, 51 and 52.

Eagles 24 Commanders 22 – Washington was a yard from overtime. Jayden Daniels found Antonio Williams on third-and-goal from the 1 with 1:01 left, and Moro Ojomo blew up a shovel pass to backup tight end John Bates on the two-point attempt. Nick Sirianni is 6-0 in openers. Jalen Hurts was 14 of 25 for 203 with three touchdowns — two of them to Dallas Goedert on third down, both down the middle of the field — and added 46 rushing yards including a 22-yard scramble on third-and-18 that saved the game. Dontayvion Wicks, acquired from Green Bay in April, had a career-long 64-yard catch and a touchdown. Zack Baun had 12 tackles, a sack and a tipped pass inside the final two minutes. DeVonta Smith, the new No. 1, finished with three catches. Philadelphia’s line was the problem: three sacks allowed, constant pressure, four of the team’s five penalties on linemen, two holding calls on Cam Jurgens, and a third quarter that produced 59 yards and one first down. Daniels went 18 of 34 for 164 and two scores behind a line missing Laremy Tunsil, and Washington ran for 132. Dan Quinn said the miscues were the margin — a high snap cost an extra point, Drew Stevens missed from 54, and Stefon Diggs took a 15-yard unsportsmanlike for hugging the goalpost after his touchdown, which is why Washington kicked the extra point there rather than going for two.

Vikings 39 Packers 22 – The one game where the book and the model took opposite sides, and the book won it. Kyler Murray played eleven snaps, threw an interception, and left with a concussion on a slide that drew an unnecessary roughness flag on Javon Bullard. Carson Wentz, brought back this year essentially as a mentor, went 12 of 19 for 133 with three touchdowns and a 123.5 rating, and Minnesota scored the game’s final 29 points. Two of the three went to Justin Jefferson, who finished with eight catches for 92 and matched his entire 2025 touchdown total, and Jefferson caught the two-point conversion that gave Minnesota its first lead. Minnesota hit Jordan Love fifteen times, sacked him four, and held Green Bay to 3.1 yards a carry. Three of Minnesota’s four second-half touchdown drives started in Green Bay territory, following a long kickoff return and two turnovers. Green Bay reportedly became the first team in NFL history to lead by 12-plus with twenty minutes remaining and lose by 17-plus. The turn was a Matt LaFleur decision: up five, he waved off a made 40-yard Trey Smack field goal to take an offside penalty and go for fourth-and-1, and Jordan Love was stuffed by rookie Domonique Orange. Minnesota then drove the other way while Green Bay committed four defensive penalties on the same possession, including an illegal contact that erased a third-down sack and a holding call that erased an end-zone interception. Love finished 21 of 42 for 387 and two touchdowns to Christian Watson, including an 81-yard career-long, behind a line that gave up four sacks and two fumbles with Aaron Banks inactive and Donovan Jennings making his first career start. Dallas Turner was credited with nine pressures, Andrew Van Ginkel with two sacks and the strip that set up the clinching score.

Bears 59 Panthers 37 – The highest-scoring opener in NFL history, eight points past the previous mark of 88 set in Tampa Bay’s 48-40 win over New Orleans in 2018. Chicago’s 59 tied the 2019 Ravens for the most points ever scored on offense in a season opener and broke a franchise record for an opener that had stood since 1948. Caleb Williams threw for 269 and two scores and ran for 65 and two more on ten carries, all rushing career highs, and hit 70 percent completions for the first time under Ben Johnson. The efficiency is the part to take seriously: Williams’ off-target rate was a league-worst 20.2% last season and came in at 13.8% here, and his completion percentage over expectation went from minus-6.7 — worst among regular starters in 2025 — to plus-11.4, third-best of Week 1. Chicago ran for 291 as a team at 7.5 a carry, its most since 1984, and produced four runs of 25-plus yards, matching its entire 2025 total. D’Andre Swift, extended for $33.75 million this week, went for 124 and three touchdowns; Kyle Monangai added 100 including a 61-yard score. Seven touchdowns on twelve drives after an opening-possession fumble, 10 of 14 on third down, four for four in the red zone, 552 total yards. Kalif Raymond, 32 and signed this offseason, led the team in targets, catches and yards. Colston Loveland did not catch a pass. Carolina’s 16.1% pressure rate was the lowest of any defense in Week 1. Johnson spent his postgame on the defense, which allowed 478 yards and 24 first downs and never got Williams on the ground. Bryce Young threw for 361 and three scores in the best opener of his career, with Jalen Coker going for 138 and two. Carolina lost it on three turnovers — a muffed punt by Jimmy Horn Jr., a Tetairoa McMillan fumble on a scoring drive, and a Young interception — and on penalties, including two by Derrick Brown in the red zone that extended Chicago drives and a Trevis Gipson offsides on third-and-2 that would have given Carolina the ball back.

Cardinals 26 Chargers 14 – The week’s biggest underdog won on the road. Los Angeles ran 51 plays to Arizona’s 72 and held the ball 22 minutes to 37. Justin Herbert was 17 of 27 for 209 with a touchdown and an interception and was sacked three times, including on fourth-and-goal from the 3 before halftime when Trey Pipkins, in at left guard, was beaten inside immediately. The Chargers’ fourth quarter was a blocked punt recovered at their own 3, an interception on a double-covered deep ball, a turnover on downs, and a sequence of incompletion, false start, false start and holding that produced second-and-30. Los Angeles gained 117 yards in the second half, and Arizona held the ball for 19 of the first 30 minutes while averaging 4.5 yards a carry against an interior of Dalvin Tomlinson, Jamaree Caldwell and Teair Tart. Omarion Hampton averaged under half a yard before contact on twelve carries. Jim Harbaugh had been 6-0 in NFL season openers. Mike LaFleur became the first Arizona head coach to win his debut since Don Coryell in 1973, in the stadium where he called plays for the Rams last season. Jacoby Brissett threw for 277 and opened the game with a 27-yard completion to Trey McBride. Jeremiyah Love, questionable with an ankle and the entire Arizona backfield after James Conner and Trey Benson went on IR, scored on a 5-yard run. Chad Ryland hit four field goals. Ladd McConkey had 60 yards on the opening drive and 22 the rest of the way before leaving with a hip injury.

Raiders 27 Dolphins 13 – Las Vegas opened with a 16-play, 93-yard drive that took 8:58; they had one touchdown drive of 90-plus yards all of last season, when they finished last in the NFL in both yardage and scoring. Kirk Cousins completed his first ten throws and finished 21 of 30 for 160 with three touchdowns and two interceptions, becoming the 15th quarterback to reach 300 career touchdown passes and moving one ahead of John Elway. Ashton Jeanty, whose ankle the staff said they were counting on him to play through, ran for 102 and caught six for 45 with two of Cousins’ scores. The Raiders did it without Brock Bowers, who did not play following knee surgery; Michael Mayer caught six in his place. Maxx Crosby had 1.5 of the five sacks on Malik Willis and became the third Raider with 70 for his career. Willis threw for 220 and said the sacks were on him. Klint Kubiak got a game ball and then pointed at a fourth quarter in which three of four drives ended in punts and the other in an interception.

Giants 28 Cowboys 20 – John Harbaugh’s first game outside purple. New York held the ball 36:40 to 23:20, punted once all night, and gave Dallas two second-half possessions. Jaxson Dart was 23 of 29 for 230 with three touchdowns and a 134.2 rating, attempted two throws past 20 yards and completed neither, and added 54 rushing yards while conspicuously sliding away from contact. Isaiah Likely caught all eight of his targets for 78 and two scores in his New York debut, and Patrick Ricard was on the field for 27 of the Giants’ 35 rushing plays. Cam Skattebo ran for 81 on 18 carries in his first game back from a broken fibula and dislocated ankle. Malik Nabers, playing 350 days after tearing an ACL, had six catches for 69. Dak Prescott was 22 of 34 for 175 with two touchdown passes and a costly interception — a third-down throwaway before halftime that Jevon Holland ran down, after which New York went 55 yards in 29 seconds. The Giants never sacked Prescott but pressured him nine times, and he went 0 for 8 throwing under pressure against 22 of 26 when clean. It was Dallas’s worst defensive performance by EPA per drive since 2017, and Christian Parker largely declined to blitz despite generating pressure on five of seven blitzes through three quarters. Dallas took eight penalties for 85 yards, including a taunting flag on Javonte Williams that pushed Brandon Aubrey’s extra point back far enough to miss it.

Chiefs 31 Broncos 10 – Kansas City ran 31 times for 220 yards against the defense that took their division away, and the Denver questions now outnumber everyone else’s. Kenneth Walker III, the Super Bowl MVP who signed a three-year, $43.05 million deal in free agency, carried 23 times for 173 — the most by a Chief since Jamaal Charles went for 226 in 2012, the year before Andy Reid arrived — including a 60-yard touchdown on fourth-and-1 to open the third quarter. Patrick Mahomes, in a brace nine months to the day after tearing his ACL, scored on a 15-yard run on the opening drive and threw for 184 and two scores. Reid also pulled out a play his staff found in black-and-white footage from the 1930s, lining Mahomes up in a three-point stance next to Justin Fields and shovelling to Walker for a two-yard score. Denver finished with 176 yards of offense in Davis Webb’s first game calling plays. Bo Nix threw for 131 with an interception and a lost fumble. Jaylen Waddle, acquired from Miami for a package of picks, caught one pass for two yards, and he and Courtland Sutton combined for three catches and 13 yards. Evan Engram had Denver’s only touchdown. Per Next Gen Stats, the Broncos missed 28 tackles, the most by any defense in a game since at least 2018, and Walker alone forced 14 of them — the most by a Chiefs player in a game over that same span.

Updated Power Rankings

We said in the preseason piece that we’d lean on the summer work and move for injuries and for evidence that actually changes a roster, not for one Sunday. That’s what this is. Seven teams moved more than two spots and five of those moves are injury-driven.

Week 1 DVOA, which Aaron Schatz is publishing with opponent adjustments for the first time this early in a season, lands close to this order at the top and far from it in the middle. It has San Francisco first, Jacksonville second and Baltimore third, with Chicago the top offense and Pittsburgh the top defense. It also produced something that has never happened in the fifty years of the metric: every 1-0 team graded positive and every 0-1 team graded negative. That is a warning as much as a finding. One week of results with no counter-evidence anywhere in the league is exactly the condition under which a rating system and a power ranking will agree with each other for no good reason.

The blended DAVE ratings, which are still 83% preseason forecast on offense and 98% on defense, tell a different story: Seattle first, Buffalo second, the Rams third despite ranking 29th in the week’s raw numbers, and Baltimore ninth.

1. Bills (3) — Beat a legitimate contender on the road, and FTN now has them as Super Bowl favorites.
2. Eagles (4) — Won. The offensive line is a real concern we did not flag in August.
3. Ravens (5) — A three-possession road win. Held here rather than higher because Indianapolis is a middling team and the receiver room is in trouble.
4. Rams (1) — Myles Garrett is on IR for at least four games and they lost by 20. DAVE still has them third, which is the case for not dropping them further.
5. Seahawks (2) — The defense won them the game, and DAVE has them first. Darnold’s hip determines where they sit next week.
6. Chiefs (11) — The largest rise on the board. Mahomes’ knee held, the defense graded second in Week 1 DVOA, and they ran for 220 with an undrafted rookie at left tackle.
7. 49ers (14) — Purdy, Warner and Bosa healthy in the same game, plus a line that led the league in rushing success rate.
8. Texans (7) — Lost at home and scored 31 on the team that led the NFL in yards allowed last year. Fourth in DAVE.
9. Lions (9) — Survived. The interior line is now a crisis.
10. Broncos (6) — 176 yards of offense and 28 missed tackles, the most by any defense in a game since at least 2018. Held at 10 rather than dropped further because one road loss in a division opener is one road loss.
11. Bengals (12) — Four takeaways is not a plan, but the personnel showed up.
12. Patriots (10) — A.J. Brown out several weeks from a thin room.
13. Chargers (8) — Lost at home as a nine-and-a-half-point favorite.
14. Bears (16) — The league’s top offense by DVOA and its 25th defense.
15. Jaguars (17) — Beat a team with no quarterback. Denver will tell us more.
16. Steelers (20) — The No. 1 defense in Week 1 DVOA, against a third-string quarterback. Moved up because we are picking them outright on the road this week and the two positions have to agree.
17. Packers (13) — Still without Parsons and Jacobs, and the line is now the bigger problem.
18. Vikings (19) — Won with their third quarterback.
19. Buccaneers (18) — Mayfield completed 82 percent and lost by himself.
20. Cowboys (15) — The defense was the whole thesis and it produced the worst EPA-per-drive performance the franchise has had since 2017.
21. Saints (21) — Came back from 21-0 on the road and lost by a point.
22. Giants (24) — Controlled a division game wire to wire.
23. Commanders (25) — Lost by two in Philadelphia without Tunsil.
24. Colts (22) — Outgained by 255 yards at home, and Kansas City is next.
25. Panthers (23) — Gave up 59 and 291 on the ground, and graded 32nd on defense.
26. Cardinals (30) — One road win doesn’t fix the quarterback room or the hardest schedule in the league.
27. Raiders (29) — Won without Bowers.
28. Falcons (26) — Held, because Cooper Rush is not the team.
29. Jets (28) — Won a road game by 13 and did it the boring way.
30. Titans (27) — Last in Week 1 DVOA at -88.3%.
31. Browns (31) — Held.
32. Dolphins (32) — Held.

Three Storylines to Watch

1. Mobile quarterbacks are moving under center, and Week 1 says it works.

Baltimore took ten dropbacks from under center against Indianapolis, the most Lamar Jackson has ever had in a game, and he went 6 of 8 for 114 yards from those looks with a 116.7 rating. Derrick Henry gained 130 of his 144 yards on nineteen under-center carries. That isn’t a Baltimore quirk. Washington and Arizona hired coordinators this offseason with the same intention for Jayden Daniels and Kyler Murray, and the logic is identical everywhere: shotgun makes play-action legible to a defense, and it flattens the angles on outside zone. Put the quarterback under center and the run game gets harder to diagnose and the boot concepts come free.

The reason this matters beyond scheme trivia is that it was supposed to be the thing these quarterbacks couldn’t do. Jackson has taken about five percent of his career snaps under center, the second-fewest of any quarterback with fifty starts since 2018 — and he has the highest NFL QBR from under center over that stretch at 81.2. Eight seasons and three coordinators went by before anyone built a plan around it. Cincinnati, meanwhile, went the other way: Joe Burrow’s evolution was supposed to include more under-center work, and the Bengals ran nine such plays with a zero percent success rate.

If Week 1 is any indication, the Bears will be the RedZone must-watch team of the season — Schatz’s preseason DVOA projections had Chicago’s offense second in the league and its defense thirty-second, the widest split of any team, and the opener produced exactly that.

2. Three defenses changed their coverage identity, and two of them got torched.

Houston played zone on 24 of Josh Allen’s 32 dropbacks. In the two previous Texans wins over Buffalo, they played man nearly 39 percent of the time and Allen went 6 of 22 for 94 yards with an interception against it. Allen posted a rating over 129 against both coverages Sunday. Cleveland, under new coordinator Mike Rutenberg, replaced the aggressive man scheme Jim Schwartz ran with passive zone, blitzed three times, generated no quick pressures, and watched Trevor Lawrence go 10 of 12 for 179 and three touchdowns on throws past ten yards. Pittsburgh played nothing but zone against Atlanta and graded out as the No. 1 defense in Week 1 DVOA, though Cooper Rush is not the test that number implies.

All three now face a different problem in Week 2. Houston gets Burrow. Cleveland gets Baker Mayfield coming off an 82 percent completion day. Pittsburgh gets Drake Maye, whose three fourth-quarter interceptions all came from abandoning the underneath throws a zone defense is happy to concede. Patrick Graham also gets Joey Porter Jr. back from a back injury, and Porter is a press-man specialist, which is a strange fit for what the Steelers just showed.

3. Four teams spent heavily on defense this offseason. One week in, the returns look nothing alike.

Cincinnati sent a first-round pick to the Giants for Dexter Lawrence and signed Jonathan Allen, Boye Mafe, Bryan Cook and Kyle Dugger. Dallas added Rashan Gary, Von Miller, Jalen Thompson, Cobie Durant and two first-round picks, and hired Christian Parker from Philadelphia. Buffalo fired Sean McDermott and handed the defense to Jim Leonhard. Houston returned the unit that finished first in yards allowed and second in scoring.

Cincinnati got four takeaways and four sacks, though against a quarterback who put the ball on the ground three times by himself. Dallas produced its worst performance by EPA per drive since 2017 and declined to blitz despite generating pressure on five of seven attempts. Buffalo blitzed 31 percent, got very little home, and left holes behind it. Houston gave up 7.9 yards a play, the most under DeMeco Ryans, and got no sacks from Danielle Hunter or Will Anderson Jr.

The cleanest read available is that none of these units has been tested the way it will be. Cincinnati goes to Houston. Dallas hosts a Washington front that just made Philadelphia uncomfortable. Buffalo hosts Detroit on a short week. The spending was the easy part.

Week 2 Games

All lines from DraftKings. All percentages from ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor.

Three games this week have the market and the model on opposite sides, after only one in Week 1 — and one of them is not close. DraftKings has Denver favored by 2.5 at home against Jacksonville; ESPN’s predictor gives the Broncos a 36.9% chance of winning. Detroit at Buffalo carries the highest total of the week at 53.5. San Francisco is laying the most points at 13.5.

Thursday September 17th

Detroit at Buffalo – Buffalo’s first game in its new stadium, and Detroit walks in on four days’ rest after an overtime game. The Lions are the more banged-up team by a distance: Christian Mahogany was carted off with a knee injury on top of Cade Mays being out 8-10 weeks and Seth McLaughlin in concussion protocol, which leaves the interior line thin behind the thin, and both starting safeties remain ineligible until Week 5. Jahmyr Gibbs took 29 carries in Week 1 and now plays again in five days. On the other side, Buffalo’s offense looked like the version that wins games nobody expects them to — Kincaid’s route share jumped to 71%, DJ Moore cleared a hundred in his debut, and the 13-personnel wrinkle at 36.8% of snaps was not on anyone’s tape. The question is whether Jim Leonhard’s defense can hold up, and Jared Goff is a poor opponent to find out against. Goff doesn’t create pressure problems for himself and he punishes coverage busts, which Buffalo had several of in Houston. Buffalo is a 4.5 point favorite with a total of 53.5, and given a 66.9% chance of winning. That total is the highest on the board and says the market expects neither defense to settle this.

Match-Up to Watch: Dalton Kincaid and the Buffalo tight end grouping against a Detroit defense missing Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch. Kincaid put up 130 yards against the league’s No. 1 EPA defense. Detroit is starting its third and fourth safeties.

Our Pick: Buffalo.

Sunday September 20th

Carolina at Atlanta – The first division game of the year for both, and both arrive damaged in opposite ways. Carolina scored 37 and gave up 59, with Bryce Young throwing for 361 in the best opener of his career behind a line still missing both starting tackles into late October. Atlanta scored 13 with Cooper Rush and got 173 of its 238 yards from Bijan Robinson. Whether Michael Penix Jr. is available is the entire game. If he is, Atlanta’s passing offense goes from an active liability to something Carolina’s defense — which just allowed 291 rushing yards and could not get a quarterback on the ground — has to account for. If it’s Rush again, Atlanta needs a defensive performance like the one it just gave, holding Pittsburgh to 264 yards, and a cleaner day than nine penalties for 96 yards. Carolina is a 1.5 point road favorite with a total of 43.5, but Atlanta is given a 55.4% chance of winning. That is the tightest line on the board and one of three games this week where the number and the model disagree.

Key to the Game: Atlanta’s quarterback. Everything else in this matchup is legible; this isn’t.

Our Pick: Carolina, on the assumption Atlanta doesn’t get Penix back. If he plays, we’d flip it.

New Orleans at Baltimore – Baltimore is a 7.5 point favorite with a total of 46.5, and given a 76.2% chance of winning. Our pick here.

Match-Up to Watch: Nate Wiggins against Chris Olave.

Minnesota at Chicago – Chicago scored 59 and allowed 478 yards; Minnesota came back from 12 down in the fourth with its third quarterback. Kyler Murray’s status is the swing — O’Connell said he seemed fine after the game but gave no timetable, and O’Connell had named Carson Wentz the backup ahead of J.J. McCarthy only last week, so an absence means Wentz rather than the 2024 first-round pick. Brian Flores against Caleb Williams is the real interest. Williams completed 58.1 percent last season with the worst completion percentage over expectation among regular starters, and in Week 1 he posted the third-best CPOE of the weekend against a Carolina defense that generated the lowest pressure rate in football. Flores will not be that accommodating. Chicago’s defense is the counterweight: Kyler Gordon can’t play until Week 5, Coby Bryant isn’t expected until January, and Jaylon Johnson is working through an arm injury. Chicago scored 59 without a single catch from Colston Loveland, who we named a preseason breakout and who remains the piece Johnson built his Detroit offenses around. Chicago is a 5.5 point favorite with a total of 49.5, and given a 59.9% chance of winning.

Match-Up to Watch: Caleb Williams against Brian Flores’ pressure looks. Flores blitzes more than anyone, and the entire question about Williams is whether the accuracy holds when the pocket isn’t clean.

Our Pick: Chicago.

Cincinnati at Houston – The cleanest test of the week. Our published line on Cincinnati was that the defense doesn’t have to be good, it has to be average, and Week 1 produced four takeaways from a Tampa Bay team that handed them over. Houston does not give the ball away often, and just ran 73 plays and held it for 36 minutes against Buffalo. If the Bengals’ defensive investment is real rather than opportunistic, this is where it shows. Houston’s defense led the NFL in yards allowed last season and gave up 36 in the opener, surrendering 7.9 yards a play and 400-plus total yards for the first time under DeMeco Ryans since late 2024. Cincinnati’s own second half was the second-worst offensive half of the week by EPA, and the Bengals ran nine plays from under center without a single success. Houston is a 3 point favorite with a total of 46.5, and given a 55.5% chance of winning.

Match-Up to Watch: Mike Gesicki and Cincinnati’s tight ends against Houston’s safeties. Dalton Kincaid went for 130 on that group last week, and Gesicki drew seven targets in Week 1 with Ja’Marr Chase bracketed.

Our Pick: Houston.

Pittsburgh at New England – New England’s line let Drake Maye get pressured on 38.1% of dropbacks against Seattle, and now T.J. Watt arrives off a two-sack, pick-six afternoon with Alex Highsmith, Nick Herbig and Cam Heyward alongside him. A.J. Brown is out several weeks with a high ankle sprain, leaving Maye with Doubs, Douglas, Hollins, Kyle Williams and Efton Chism after Kayshon Boutte was traded to Houston in camp. Maye just threw three interceptions forcing throws into coverage. Pittsburgh played exclusively zone against Atlanta per Next Gen Stats, which is the coverage that invites a quarterback to be patient, the exact thing Maye said he stopped being. Joey Porter Jr. missed Week 1 with a back issue and is a press-man specialist, so his return would change what Patrick Graham can call. Rodgers pushed the ball further downfield than he has as a Steeler and completed 60 percent doing it. New England is a 5.5 point favorite with a total of 41.5, and given a 65.9% chance of winning.

Match-Up to Watch: T.J. Watt against New England’s tackles. Will Campbell graded well outside two penalties; Alijah Vera-Tucker had a rough debut and Jared Wilson hurt his hand.

Our Pick: Pittsburgh. Five and a half points is a lot to lay with a team that lost at home, lost its best receiver, and could not run the ball, against the best edge group in the league.

Green Bay at New York Jets – Green Bay’s line problem is now the headline. Jordan Love threw for 387 behind a front that gave up four sacks, two fumbles and fifteen quarterback hits with Aaron Banks inactive, and Micah Parsons and Josh Jacobs are both still unavailable. He draws Aaron Glenn, who called the defense himself in Week 1 and got three sacks with a rebuilt front seven. The Jets won their opener the boring way — 39 minutes of possession, a 19-play drive, Geno Smith throwing 24 times without a turnover. Green Bay has now lost five straight dating to last season, four of them after leading in the second half by multiple scores, and Matt LaFleur signed an extension in between. Green Bay is a 4.5 point favorite with a total of 44.5, and given a 61.7% chance of winning.

Match-Up to Watch: Green Bay’s interior line against the Jets’ rebuilt front. T’Vondre Sweat, Harrison Phillips and David Onyemata inside against Donovan Jennings making his second career start.

Our Pick: Green Bay.

Cleveland at Tampa Bay – Cleveland managed 272 yards, went 1 for 8 on third down and took 11 penalties in Jacksonville. Tampa Bay handed Cincinnati four turnovers and lost a game it otherwise played well, with Baker Mayfield completing 82 percent of his throws and fumbling three times. The Browns defense was supposed to be the floor under this season — first in passing EPA last year — and instead played passive zone, blitzed three times and never pressured Trevor Lawrence. Jared Verse did not record a hurry. Deshaun Watson threw an interception five plays into the year, and Todd Monken declined afterward to put a quarterback change on the table. Tampa Bay is an 8.5 point favorite with a total of 40.5, and given a 77.6% chance of winning. That is the second-largest number of the week and the joint-lowest total.

Match-Up to Watch: Cleveland’s front against Baker Mayfield’s ball security. Tampa put it on the ground four times in a game it led in most other categories.

Our Pick: Tampa Bay.

Philadelphia at Tennessee – Philadelphia won by two at home while its offensive line gave up three sacks, committed four penalties and produced a 59-yard third quarter. Tennessee was outgained 367-195 at home by the Jets. Cam Ward threw for 140 and was chased all afternoon. Jalen Hurts threw three touchdowns down the middle of the field in Sean Mannion’s debut, the throw Philadelphia had stopped making under Kevin Patullo. The Eagles’ defense is the reason to expect a comfortable afternoon: Fangio, Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean in the secondary, Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis up front. DeJean had the worst game of his career in Week 1 and gets a much softer test. Philadelphia is a 7 point favorite with a total of 40.5, and given a 70.1% chance of winning.

Match-Up to Watch: Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis against Tennessee’s interior. Ward has now been pressured into two of the worst full-game passing lines of his young career against defensive fronts a tier below this one.

Our Pick: Philadelphia.

Jacksonville at Denver – Jacksonville’s best offensive performance of 2025 was Week 16 in Denver, when it scored 34 and beat the AFC’s top seed on the road — the only team to beat the Broncos by double digits all year. They open this season having scored on six of their first seven drives against a Cleveland defense that played passive zone and never pressured Trevor Lawrence, which is the opposite of what Denver usually does. The Broncos led the NFL with 68 sacks last year, eleven clear of the field, though Jonathon Cooper remains on the Commissioner’s Exempt List. Lawrence was sacked once by Cleveland and that offensive line, a projected weakness, held up all afternoon. What Denver did Monday complicates the whole picture: 176 yards of offense in Davis Webb’s play-calling debut, and a defense that gave up 220 rushing yards and missed 28 tackles, the most in a game by any defense since at least 2018. Jacksonville’s three-man backfield of Bhayshul Tuten, Chris Rodriguez Jr. and Ameer Abdullah ran for 121 on 25 carries with a 52% success rate. Denver is a 2.5 point favorite with a total of 44.5, but ESPN gives the Broncos only a 36.9% chance of winning — the widest gap between a line and the model we have seen this season.

Match-Up to Watch: Jacksonville’s run game against Alex Singleton, DJ Jones and the middle of the Denver defense. The Broncos have now been run on by Buffalo, New England and Kansas City in consecutive meaningful games.

Our Pick: Jacksonville.

Las Vegas at Los Angeles Chargers – Las Vegas beat Miami without Brock Bowers, who is out following a knee procedure, and now starts the hard part of its schedule. The Chargers lost at home as a nine-and-a-half-point favorite and come out of it with Ladd McConkey nursing a hip and Elijah Molden a hamstring, which matters more than usual given what the offense looked like once McConkey left the field. Arizona sacked Herbert three times, held the ball for 19 of the first 30 minutes, and averaged 4.5 yards a carry in the first half against an interior of Dalvin Tomlinson, Jamaree Caldwell and Teair Tart. Omarion Hampton averaged under half a yard before contact. Maxx Crosby is a worse problem than Walter Nolen and Josh Sweat, and Kwity Paye — signed in free agency specifically to be the second rusher Las Vegas has never had — opened with two sacks, five pressures and five quarterback hits. On the other side, Cousins threw for 160 yards on 30 attempts and Las Vegas’ offense ran through Jeanty and a long opening drive. The Chargers are a 7 point favorite with a total of 43.5, and given a 68.7% chance of winning.

Match-Up to Watch: Maxx Crosby against the Chargers’ interior. Crosby has 70 career sacks and Los Angeles is elite at tackle and unproven inside.

Our Pick: Los Angeles.

Seattle at Arizona – The defending champions travel to face the team that just won at SoFi. Seattle’s offense produced a field goal through three quarters with Drew Lock in for an injured Darnold and a skill group missing Zach Charbonnet, Tory Horton and Robbie Ouzts, and the defense won the game with three fourth-quarter interceptions. Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the reigning Offensive Player of the Year, had 122 yards on eight catches with a backup throwing to him. Darnold’s hip is the story: Macdonald said tests ruled out a break, but if Lock starts, Seattle’s ranking is being carried entirely by Mike Macdonald. Arizona controlled the ball for 37 minutes against the Chargers and Jacoby Brissett threw for 277 without a turnover. Trey McBride and a healthy Jeremiyah Love give Mike LaFleur two pieces to build around, and Arizona’s front got home three times. Seattle is a 4.5 point favorite with a total of 41.5, but Arizona is given a 52.9% chance of winning — the third game this week where the number and the model disagree.

Match-Up to Watch: Trey McBride against Seattle’s linebackers and safeties. Nick Emmanwori was inactive in Week 1 with an ankle, and McBride is the one Arizona skill player who grades a 9.

Our Pick: Seattle.

Washington at Dallas – Washington’s second straight division game after losing by two in Philadelphia, and Dallas’ first home game after losing at the Giants. Both defenses are the story. Dallas rebuilt its entire defensive side and then turned in its worst performance by EPA per drive since 2017, with Christian Parker largely declining to blitz despite generating pressure on five of seven blitzes through three quarters. Washington got three sacks and five quarterback hits without Jer’Zhan Newton, with Sonny Styles and Odafe Oweh both showing up, and held Hurts to 203 yards. Jayden Daniels was 18 of 34 for 164 behind a line missing Laremy Tunsil, and Terry McLaurin finished without a catch. Dak Prescott went 22 of 26 when kept clean in Week 1 and 0 for 8 under pressure. Dallas also lost Malik Hooker to a fractured forearm, which may force them to move Caleb Downs — the 11th overall pick, who played 61 of 69 snaps between safety and the slot and produced seven tackles, a sack and a forced fumble — out of the slot role he was drafted to play. Dallas is a 3.5 point favorite with a total of 50.5, and given a 63% chance of winning. That total is the second-highest of the week.

Match-Up to Watch: Washington’s pass rush against a Dallas line that kept Prescott clean most of the night. The Giants pressured him nine times without a sack and it decided the game.

Our Pick: Washington. The model has Dallas at 63% off a defensive performance that was the worst this franchise has produced in nine years, and Washington’s front just made Philadelphia uncomfortable for four quarters.

Miami at San Francisco – San Francisco beat the preseason favorite by 20 and now gets the roster Clay graded 32nd on both sides of the ball. Malik Willis was sacked five times and threw for 220. Miami’s defense allowed a 16-play, 93-yard opening drive. The 49ers had four blown blocks as a unit, led the league in rushing success rate at 56.7%, and got Bosa and Warner back at full speed. The question is whether Kyle Shanahan has to spend anything here, and whether Brock Purdy stays upright, since the entire San Francisco projection rests on him playing seventeen games rather than nine. San Francisco is a 13.5 point favorite with a total of 45.5, and given a 90.8% chance of winning — the largest number of the week by a distance.

Key to the Game: Whether San Francisco can win this cheaply. They played Friday in Australia and now play a home game on a short turnaround against the league’s weakest roster.

Our Pick: San Francisco.

Indianapolis at Kansas City – Indianapolis was outgained by 255 yards at home, graded 30th in Week 1 DVOA, and now goes to Arrowhead before hosting Houston. Daniel Jones, nine months off an Achilles, went 19 of 31 for 166 with an interception and ran once for four yards, and Schatz’s preseason model had already built in a first-month penalty for exactly that. Jonathan Taylor ran for 98 and two scores against Baltimore and remains the reason to watch. Kansas City’s defense graded second in the league in Week 1, holding Denver to 176 yards and limiting Jaylen Waddle and Courtland Sutton to three catches for thirteen between them — and it did that after losing rookie corner Mansoor Delane, the sixth overall pick, to a shoulder injury on the third play of the game. The Chiefs’ vulnerability is at left tackle, where Josh Simmons is out and undrafted rookie Kahlil Benson is now on tape for the first time. Kansas City is a 6.5 point favorite with a total of 47.5, and given a 75.9% chance of winning.

Match-Up to Watch: Indianapolis’ edge rush against Kahlil Benson. Denver got very little out of that matchup and there’s now a full game of film on him.

Our Pick: Kansas City.

Monday September 21st

New York Giants at Los Angeles Rams – The Rams host their home opener at 0-1 without Myles Garrett, who had arthroscopic knee surgery and will miss at least four games. Aaron Donald unretired into a defense that was supposed to pair him with Garrett, and how much he can give at 35 having not played since 2023 is now a live question rather than a luxury. Stafford was held to 155 yards and stopped on a fourth-down sneak from the 1. The Giants just controlled a division game for sixty minutes with Jaxson Dart throwing nothing deep, Isaiah Likely catching all eight of his targets, and Patrick Ricard on the field for most of the run game. New York’s corners remain the problem — Dru Phillips drew three interference penalties and Paulson Adebo was beaten twice on three targets — and Puka Nacua is a harder assignment than the one that just exposed them. The Rams are a 7 point favorite with a total of 48.5, and given a 66.3% chance of winning.

Match-Up to Watch: Puka Nacua against the Giants’ secondary. Nacua was limited to one long reception by San Francisco, and New York does not currently have a corner it can leave alone.

Our Pick: Los Angeles.

The post 2026 NFL: Previewing Week 2 appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Last winter saw Pete Alonso signed for five years and $155 million. Ryan Helsley for two and $28 million. Shane Baz in a trade. Zach Eflin, Taylor Ward, Leody Taveras. Payroll to $163 million, the highest in franchise history. David Rubenstein opened the checkbook and Mike Elias spent it.

They’re 18.5 games behind Tampa Bay.

So the winter ahead matters more than the last one did. There’s a thread running on the BSL board right now where a dozen people have laid out their wish lists, and I want to start by saying something that isn’t a criticism of any of them: everybody already knows what the needs are. Top-of-rotation starter. Outfield defense. Two bullpen arms. A catcher who isn’t an automatic out. Decisions on Holliday and Mayo. Every list in that thread has most of those, in roughly the same order.

I’m assuming two things for the rest of this: Elias is back, and there will be baseball in 2027. Neither is guaranteed.

The Calendar Problem

The collective bargaining agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. on December 1st.

The owners want a salary cap, which has never existed in this sport and which the union has opposed under every executive director it has ever had. Bruce Meyer, who took over as interim head of the MLBPA in February, has said flatly that the union’s position isn’t changing. Most people who cover labor in this sport expect a lockout.

What that means practically: free agency may open, run for a few weeks, and then freeze. Transactions stop during a lockout. The 2022 version lasted 99 days and pushed Opening Day back a week.

I’m assuming it gets resolved. But it changes how you read everything below. Teams that want to do business may try to do it fast, in November, before the door closes. Teams that would rather wait now have a structural excuse to wait.

A front office that has been criticized for years for being too patient has just been handed the best alibi it will ever get.

The Money

Per FanGraphs’ RosterResource, the Orioles have $74.3 million in guaranteed money on the books for 2027. They spent $162.8 million in 2026.

Here’s what’s actually committed:

• Pete Alonso — $33.5M, and it stays there through 2030
• Tyler O’Neill — $16.5M
• Kyle Bradish — $10M, the first year of a five-year, $90 million extension
• Shane Baz — $7.8M, year two of five years and $68 million
• Yennier Cano — $2.75M
• Samuel Basallo — $1.625M
• Zach Eflin buyout — $2M

That’s the list.

Coming off the books: Chris Bassitt ($18.5M), Andrew Kittredge ($9M), Trevor Rogers ($6.2M), Zach Eflin ($8M), Keegan Akin ($3M).

Now add the things that aren’t in that $74.3 million. Ryan Helsley holds a $14 million player option and there is no chance on this earth he declines it after throwing 15 innings. Gunnar Henderson goes to his second arbitration year off an $8.5 million salary. Félix Bautista, Jordan Westburg, and Colton Cowser all enter arbitration.

Call it roughly $124 million of realistic commitment once you tender everyone and fill out the roster. At a flat $163 million payroll, that’s about $39 million of room.

The luxury tax isn’t a factor in any scenario. Their 2026 CBT number was around $215 million against a $244 million first threshold.

1. Land Casey Mize, and Re-sign Trevor Rogers

Trevor Rogers is a free agent — he’s second on the Orioles in fWAR this season at 3.3. He’s thrown 157 innings, posted a 3.64 FIP, and cost $6.2 million.

That leaves Baz, Bradish, Brandon Young, and two openings.

You can make the argument that the O’s should be pursuing Tarik Skubal. He is not qualifying-offer eligible, because he was traded in-season to the Dodgers. No draft pick. No international money. Just cash.
I’ve made the point plenty of times over the years that the O’s being built as they were gave them payroll flexibility.
You’d like to use that flexibility the one Winter where one of the best pitchers alive is available with no draft-pick tax attached.

Living in reality, let’s forget about the Skubal pipe dream, and set our sights on Casey Mize.
CBS Sports recently identified Baltimore as a potential landing spot for Mize, and he’s someone that does seem reasonably obtainable.

I’d also like to re-sign Rogers. He’s had success here, he’s talked about wanting to stay here. I don’t see the O’s obtaining two pitchers better than him.

A Bradish, Mize, Rogers, Baz, Young rotation looks capable.

2. Decide On Gunnar Henderson

Two years of control left. Arbitration in 2027, arbitration in 2028, free agent after that.

Personally, I don’t think there is a lot to decide here.

He’s the most talented overall player on the roster, and 2026 was overall a down year.

If his 2026 season looked like his 2024 season, I think there would be a strong argument for moving him this Winter – if the O’s know an extension isn’t happening.

But given the season he’s had, I’m not real interested in moving him this Winter.

Run it back for ’27.  If he and the team rebound, great.
If he rebounds, and the team doesn’t; then you can move him next Summer like you did with Rutschman at the Trade Deadline this year.

The only logical contrarian point of view would be if the Orioles don’t believe there is any circumstance where they contend next year.
If they don’t believe they can contend, then you could say you’re better off trading him with 2 full years of team control remaining vs. 1.5, even coming off a down year.

3. Fix The Outfield Corners — Not The Outfield

Several people want a whole new outfield with Cowser on the bench. That’s not going to happen.
He’s been strong defensively in CF, and it’s highly likely that’s where he is to begin ’27.

What do you want the O’s to do with LF and RF?

How do you evaluate Dylan Beavers?
He runs well, he throws well, but this year his defense has been poor (-7 Outs Above Average).
Last year he graded right around average.
This Spring Orioles Manager Craig Albernaz said Beavers had all of the tools necessary to be an above average defensive OF.

What do the O’s believe about Beavers now?
If they don’t believe Beavers can be average defensively, then maybe the O’s go after a corner OF like Daulton Varsho, or Seiya Suzuki.

Should also be noted that the O’s have the $20M team option on Luis Robert Jr, or a $2M buyout.

Heston Kjerstad has gotten back to the Majors after spending nearly all of ’26 at AAA.
Tyler O’Neill is on the IL with a shoulder injury. He’s owed $16.5M next year.  He was hitting LHP well before going to the IL, but the O’s would still have to eat most of his contract to move him.
Do they think Coby Mayo can handle RF?  He’s got the arm, and a short RF at-least at OPACY.  Is Mayo in RF even on their radar?

Enrique Bradfield has continued to slide down the Orioles Top 30 Prospect list.
Currently the 2023 1st round pick is the O’s 18th overall top prospect according to MLB.com.
Bradfield played in 108 games in 2024, 76 games in 2025, and 94 so far in 2026.
He’s got a .705 OPS in 302 ab’s at AAA this year.
Even if you wanted to pencil in Bradfield’s defense and speed in CF next year, and move Cowser to LF; Bradfield hasn’t shown an ability to stay available.
Also, if he’s a .600 OPS guy in the Majors, could the everyday lineup sustain that even with excellent CF defense?

4. Sign Ryan Jeffers

Jeffers is the tenth-best free agent in this class per CBS. He turned 29 in June, and has an .856 OPS for the year – hitting both LH and RH pitching.

I don’t think the O’s are real excited about giving Basallo 110+ starts behind the plate.
If that’s the case, than you need less of a backup and more of a guy that splits Catcher with Basallo.

Maybe the O’s believe Carlos Narvaez will rebound?
He’s got a sub .500 OPS this year over 237 ab’s, but he did have 42 xbh’s in 2025, and he is a quality defender.

I could see the O’s believing a Narvaez rebound is a better utilization of the money they have available vs. an investment in Jeffers.
That’s fine if that’s the calculation, but the O’s have to get that call right.

If Basallo is only going to catch 80-90 games, they can’t have a complete no-hit backup behind him.

How much would Jeffers cost? $15M a year for 2-3 years?

5. Can You Obtain At-Least One High-Leverage Bullpen Arm?

Andrew Kittredge is a free agent. Helsley opts in at $14 million after 17 appearances. Félix Bautista hasn’t thrown a major league inning all year – he and Helsley each worked an inning at Norfolk on Saturday, Helsley’s first appearance since June 27th.

Bautista is in his final arbitration year in 2027 and a free agent after it. The Orioles get one season to find out what The Mountain is after two shoulder surgeries and two lost years.

Yennier Cano is signed for two more years at $7.5 million total and has been the best reliever on the team. Beyond that it’s Rico Garcia, Grant Wolfram — whose 4.75 ERA hides a 2.74 FIP and a quality strand rate.
Can also talk about Anthony Nunez, Alex Hoppe, Cam Sanders, Josh Walker.  Maybe they bring Kittredge back.

If one of Helsley or Bautista is back next season and All-Star caliber, that goes a long way.
If their both effective, that would obviously be huge for the O’s.

I feel reasonably good right now that they could contribute to the O’s in ’27.
But if I’m the O’s, I go into the off-season not planning on relying on either.

I can buy Skubal as one of the games best starters being priced out of any realistic scenario for the O’s.

I’d like to think they could make a strong offer to one of the games better relievers like Adrian Morejon.
Clearly Morejon will be in-demand by many. Maybe you can’t convince him to come to Baltimore.
You can make him turn you down.

Another Free Agent option would be David Bednar.

Obtaining either in Free Agency would move the needle.

If you can’t obtain one of those two in Free Agency, then you have to consider moving one of your internal positional players via trade for a reliable high-leverage arm.

6. What Do The O’s Want To Do With The Infield?

Pete Alonso has 1st for years to come.

I’d probably keep Jackson Holliday.  He’s 23 in December, and he only has 1,100 career ab’s. Controlled through 2030. Walk % continues to go up. Has plus sprint speed.  and I know I’m in the minority. He’s never going to be great at 2nd, but I think he has improved. Still below average, but closer to average. His contact quality needs to improve, as does his baserunning. I believe there is more there vs. what we’ve seen, and I wouldn’t want to move him for what I’d expect they’d get for him. His trade value has never been lower and never will be lower. Selling the first overall pick at his floor, coming off a hamate injury, doesn’t seem ideal to me. I wouldn’t completely rule out a trade though, if he carries more value than I expect he does.

We talked about both Henderson and the backup catcher above.

So, what about 3rd?

I like Jordan Westburg a lot. The O’s believe he will be ready next Spring.
I’ll be excited to see him back in an O’s uniform.
But after being limited to 85 games in 2025, and missing all of ’26; he’s going to have show he can stay in the lineup.
Even if the O’s are optimistic about Westburg for ’27, you can’t go into the Winter putting his spot down in pen, right?

Blaze Alexander will be back, and he’s an option at 2nd and 3rd.  Ideally he’s your UTI guy, but if you got to Memorial Day and Holliday hasn’t taken a leap, maybe Alexander is taking his playing time?

What if Westburg is generally healthy next Spring, but after the elbow-surgery says 2nd is a better option for him than 3rd?
In that case, I’d still want to come to Spring Training with Holliday still on the roster, and make Westburg prove he was healthy.
If it’s next March, and it’s clear that Westburg can only play 2nd, than maybe you’re more likely to talk me into a Holliday trade.

We mentioned Alexander, and of course have to again mention Mayo.  If Mayo can’t get at-least sometime in RF, than he’s limited to 1st / DH / 3rd.
He’s always going to be below average at 3rd.
If Basallo is DHing for 60-80 games, that factors.
If O’Neill is on the roster, and DHing some, that factors.
Mayo’s production the last few months also has to factor. He’s got four arbitration years left, and he’s got a .754 OPS for the year – having absolutely crushed LHP.

Encarnacion-Strand has done enough over his 160 ab’s with the Orioles to want to see him back in some capacity next year. Particularly with him also crushing LHP.

7. The Offensive Approach

The Orioles are 12th overall in runs scored, 16th in on-base %, and 23rd in slugging.

They haven’t slugged as expected this year, and they’ve scored less than they should have.

For a nearly top 1/3 overall offense, there are too many nights where just can’t get anything going.

The hit the ball harder than most (team exit velocity, hard-hit rate, barrel rate), but they’ve struggled to manufacture runs, and haven’t hit enough homers for an offense that was built around their expected power.

Most of baseball has a three true outcome offensive approach (walk, k, homer).

I know nobody wants talk about batting average in 2026, but being 27th overall in batting average (.234) feels limiting.

8. The Housekeeping

Luis Robert Jr.’s $20 million club option – decline. He played three games and pulled a hamstring. A free lottery ticket in August is a $20 million mistake in November.

Ryan Mountcastle’s $7.5 million club option – decline. Fifteen plate appearances this year.

Leody Taveras in his third arbitration year – non-tender. An 81 wRC+ in 444 plate appearances and an unplayable right-handed side. His final numbers look bad, but will say he gave the O’s a reasonable option a lot of nights this year.

And the thing nobody can fix: Again, O’Neill is owed $16.5 million in 2027 off a 94 wRC+ and a shoulder injury.

9. The Payroll Has To Jump Again

A wish list that doesn’t balance isn’t a plan, so let’s do the math.

Roughly $124 million committed before you sign anyone. At a flat $163 million, that’s $39 million of room.

Plan to take the payroll to approximately $185-$190 million, and that’s $61 to $66M to play with to address the needs identified above.

Payroll again going up after another losing season would be good to see.

I do believe you could build a contender with payroll being flat, or even moving back.
But what a larger payroll should do, is give you further depth, and the ability to get more things wrong / better handle adversity.

Elias

I called for his job in August and took the headline back in September, and I meant both.

Rubenstein authorized a franchise-record payroll and got a losing season. Elias then sold at the deadline and got a genuinely strong return – five top-100 prospects in the system now, three of them acquired this summer. The farm is stocked. The books are the cleanest in baseball. Baz and Bradish are signed long-term. Basallo is under contract through 2033 at an average of $8.4 million.

2025 and 2026 have been highly disappointing years for Orioles fans.

I am someone that has largely been an Elias superfan for his tenure, but there can’t be unlimited rope.

If he’s going to be back for 2027, he has to have some conviction about the roster he wants, and he has to figure out to build a contender.

I like positional versatility.
I like having a team that has multiple bites at the apple vs. going all in on any one particular season.

But barring some crazy run here in the last 12 games, the O’s will have not reached October two years in a row.
The mentality for everyone in The Warehouse should be that can’t continue in ’27.

The National League is probably superior to the American League at this point, but the AL East remains the best division in baseball.
The goal should be to build a team that looks like they could win 95 games and the East next year.
The goal shouldn’t be to build a team that looks like they could possibly / maybe sneak into the post-season next year if everything goes right.

You’ve got a deep system, you’ve got an Owner who says he’s committed to spending.
You’ve got an existing roster which has both plenty of questions and plenty of talent.

It’s on Elias to figure out how to make everything work in 2027.

The post The Winter Ahead appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

Today, Baltimore began the Jesse Minter era with 41 points in Indianapolis.

Let’s go through what Week 1 told us, what it didn’t, and what it means for a home opener against New Orleans.

Superman And Batman

Derrick Henry carried it 24 times for 144 yards and scored three times in the 41-23 win — from four yards, then 32, then three. That’s 125 career rushing touchdowns, past Marcus Allen and behind only Emmitt Smith and LaDainian Tomlinson. It was his 33rd game with multiple rushing scores, the most in the league since 2016, and it moved him past Marvin Harrison into ninth all-time in total touchdowns.

Jackson went 17-of-25 for 324 yards and a touchdown, ran four times for 43, scored from five yards out on the opening possession, and had a 19-yard scramble that answered the “does he still run like that” question for at least one afternoon. He also threw the 49-yard strike to Zay Flowers on the second snap of the season that set up the first score.

Of those 324 passing yards, 229 came in the first half. The first half that Flowers played. Baltimore scored 31 before the break, the fifth time in franchise history they’ve done that, and 10 after it. The last of that 10 came on a drive that chewed more than six minutes and ended in Tyler Loop’s 45-yarder with 4:09 left, which is what a team protecting an 18-point lead is supposed to do.

Henry of course wears down opposing defenses with his physicality, and historically is a finisher. With the lead, and running out of WRs; it was even easier to continue to feed Henry late.

The Receiver Depth

Flowers had five catches for 150 yards and a 54-yard catch-and-run touchdown, all of it before halftime. Next Gen Stats had him gaining 48 of those 54 yards after the catch, 33 more than expected, and ranked him fifth among all receivers in yards after the catch since the start of 2025. He signed for four years and $140 million a month ago.

Stampede Blue’s game-day preview predicted Sauce Gardner would lock him down early and take away Baltimore’s easiest answer. Flowers had 150 yards by halftime. Then, with about five and a half minutes left in the second quarter, he grabbed at his left hamstring after a 12-yard catch on which Gardner made the tackle. He didn’t play again.

The hamstring is an aggravation, not a new injury. Flowers missed two weeks with that hamstring in August, returned to practice last week, was a full participant on Friday and carried no injury designation into Sunday. He broke down anyway, in the first half of Week 1. Soft-tissue recurrences in a player who just went through this do not typically clear up in six days.

Ja’Kobi Lane hurt a wrist in the first half and finished his NFL debut with one catch for 11 yards. Devontez Walker was already inactive with a lingering groin, and Elijah Sarratt was a healthy scratch.

Which left this as Baltimore’s healthy active receiver room for the second half of a season opener: Rashod Bateman, LaJohntay Wester – who is primarily a punt returner – and Chris Moore, elevated off the practice squad on Saturday. Moore returned a kick 42 yards and pulled in a 53-yard catch at a point in the game when somebody had to.

The veterans who were available didn’t fill the hole. Sarah Ellison’s postgame read called it a disappointing afternoon for both Mark Andrews and Bateman, in a game where their two teammates went down in front of them and 41 points went up. In our season preview we talked about the need for Andrews and Bateman to rebound to their 2024 production vs. their 2025 seasons. Would have liked to have seen more from Bateman today, especially once Flowers went out.

We should know more this week on Flowers and Lane.

What Minter’s Defense Actually Did

Indianapolis opened the game with a nine-play, 65-yard touchdown drive. Roquan Smith told Jamison Hensley afterward that the defense took a deep breath on the sideline and told each other that wasn’t them. Then Smith picked Daniel Jones on the Colts’ second possession, Marlon Humphrey – who played through an illness that had him questionable – stripped Jonathan Taylor to end the next one, and Baltimore converted both into points and was up 28-6 in a hurry.

Strip out the takeaways and the picture is less flattering. That opening drive was built almost entirely on short passes: 25 yards to Josh Downs on third-and-three, 12 more to Downs on third-and-eight, seven to Keenan Allen, 13 to Alec Pierce. In our season preview we noted that this defensive scheme gives you a clean look, rushes four, concedes the underneath throw and dares you to be patient. Indianapolis was patient for one drive, then Jones made two mistakes and it stopped mattering.

The final numbers for the run defense weren’t great. Taylor carried 19 times for 98 yards and scored twice. That’s 5.2 yards per carry.

Stampede Blue predicted that production this morning, pointing out that Taylor went for 94 yards and three touchdowns against Minter’s Chargers last October and that the scheme hasn’t fundamentally changed. He then went out and did it again.

Our preview said Baltimore’s plan was to stop Taylor with the front, specifically Madubuike, Travis Jones and Campbell holding up on early downs. Madubuike wasn’t there. Zion Young, drafted in part because he posted an 86.6 run-defense grade in college and could cover Hendrickson’s weakness setting an edge, was playing his first NFL game.

The Colts scored 23 with a quarterback nine months off an Achilles. Minter’s Chargers gave up 38 to this offense last year.

Tavius Robinson got home for a sack, Travis Jones showed up in the run game early, and Young made his NFL debut.

Ellison’s postgame read was that the defense got consistent pressure and closed the game strong. Russell Street Report, watching the same fourth quarter, wrote that the four-man rush was not closing this game out. Baltimore won this game in the first half, with two takeaways and a 28-6 lead. Indianapolis was still moving it late, and Jones found Tyler Warren for a score to make it 38-23.

Despite that late Warren score, the Ravens did a strong job of largely taking him out of the game.

Doyle’s Debut As OC

The Week 1 preview spent a long section on Doyle against Lou Anarumo. When he was with the Bengals, Anarumo ranked fourth in Quarters usage behind a blitz and third in two-high rate when blitzing, which is the call that punishes a young play-caller whose hot routes rest on a pre-snap read that turns out to be a lie. The prescription was play-action from under center with Henry as the threat.

Baltimore gained better than 500 yards. Doyle kept generating different looks and reshaped the plan on the fly once Flowers and Lane went out. Chase Daniel watched Jackson go 10-of-13 for 214 and a score and called Doyle and Jackson a perfect match. Leaning on Henry in the fourth to move the sticks and bleed six minutes off the clock is the unglamorous half of the job, and he did that too.

Nice debut for the OC.

The O-Line

PFF had this line 24th in the league going in. Indianapolis’ entire defensive plan, per Stampede Blue’s preview, was to win the pressure battle with four rushers – DeForest Buckner and Grover Stewart against a shaky interior and a center making his first career NFL start – without needing Anarumo to dial up anything exotic. Jovaughn Gwyn got that start, Jackson was not sacked into oblivion, and Henry ran for 144.

The details are worse. Ten penalties for 86 yards. A holding call wiped out a touchdown inside the five, and Baltimore then failed on fourth-and-goal from the three when Jackson threw incomplete. Andrews had a false start on the goal line on the opening drive. SI’s Ravens site called the line penalty-happy and shaky in spots in protection.

You can absorb ten flags when you’re moving the ball on a team that can’t answer. For contrast: New Orleans played a clean game in Detroit, six penalties for 53 yards, and lost by a point.

Danny Pinter is out for the season. Emery Jones Jr. was a healthy scratch, with Andrew Vorhees and Carson Vinson dressed as the interior depth instead.

Thoughts One Week In

We expected the road Week 1 win.  We were a bit apprehensive going in that this game could be tighter than expected. That apprehension wasn’t lessened after the Colts initial drive. It was fun seeing the Ravens immediately answer and grab control of the game.

The Colts are a middling team, even if they end up competing in the AFC South. Not a horrible team, but a team that doesn’t scare you if you are a true contender.

The Ravens are a superior group, and it was good to see them avoid a stumble out of the gate.

Lots of talk Nationally about how easy the Ravens early schedule is. Everyone is expecting the Ravens to get out to a quick start.

The biggest notes from today are that Jackson was moving well, Father Time still hasn’t come for Henry, and we will find out what the injury statuses of Flowers and Lane are.

Nnamdi Madubuike did not play – he was inactive with the neck, along with Teddye Buchanan’s knee. Flowers played and was excellent until the hamstring. Tyler Loop went 2-for-2 with a 57-yarder to end the first half and a 45-yarder to close it out, ten months after the 44-yard miss in Pittsburgh that ended last season.

What does the defense look like with Madubuike and Buchanan back?  What is their production level and snap count availability when they return? Presumably / hopefully their play improves as the season progresses and they get their feet back under them.

The center job belongs to Gwyn to start the year. The expectation remains that Ethan Pocic will take over as he rebuilds his lower body strength from the Achilles injury. Gwyn drew Buckner and Grover Stewart in his NFL debut at the position and Baltimore gained better than 500 yards.

Week 2: Saints at Ravens

Sunday, September 20th, 1:00 p.m. ET, CBS, M&T Bank Stadium. Ravens -7.5, total 46.5. ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor gives Baltimore a 76.2% chance to win.

This is the first Ravens home opener without John Harbaugh on the sideline since 2007.

Kellen Moore’s Offense, Year 2

New Orleans lost 31-30 in overtime at Detroit, as they were unable to convert a 2 point conversion attempt for the win.

The Saints were down 21-0 midway through the third quarter and looked finished. Tyler Shough threw two interceptions – one to Derrick Barnes, one to Chuck Clark – and then, per the Detroit News’ live coverage, was sacked by Barnes and strip-sacked by a blitzing Roger McCreary on the very next play. Detroit scored off both turnovers.

Then they scored 24 unanswered. Shough hit Chris Olave for 47 to flip the field and Kendre Miller punched in an eight-yard touchdown. Devaughn Vele caught a one-yard score set up by a pass interference call. A 28-yard field goal made it a one-score game. Then Olave made a contested 43-yard grab and Shough found Juwan Johnson for nine in the back of the end zone to tie it at 24 with just over a minute left. Detroit scored a touchdown in overtime, New Orleans answered with one of its own, and came up a point short on the conversion.

New Orleans outgained Detroit 469 to 369 and had 29 first downs to 26. They converted 8 of 17 on third down and went 2-for-2 on fourth. They scored in four of five red zone trips. They lost because they turned it over three times to Detroit’s one, and because Detroit ran it 33 times for 165 and held the ball for nearly 37 minutes.

Detroit played Sunday without Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph, both on IR for at least four weeks. Canal Street Chronicles said before the game that exploiting that group was New Orleans’ path to a win, and the Saints did exactly that.

Shough threw for 410 yards and three touchdowns. He also threw two interceptions and was sacked five times, and Detroit’s front had turned him into a statue for the first two and a half quarters.

Bill Barnwell split it live at the opening play of the third quarter and the two halves barely look like the same player: 10-of-22 for 85 yards with two picks before, 19-of-25 for 234 with two touchdowns after, and he kept going from there to 410.

The Schultz Report noted that on the tying drive Shough stood in knowing Aidan Hutchinson was arriving, took the hit, and put the ball on Olave downfield anyway. Juwan Johnson scored on the next play. Whatever the pressure-to-sack number says, that is not a quarterback who folds when he’s hit.

The rest of it confirms what we already published about him. We said Shough had the league’s worst pressure-to-sack ratio last year and that it was a real ceiling on a quarterback who otherwise showed enough. When Detroit got to him, the ball came out late or not at all, and it cost New Orleans 14 points inside four minutes. When he was clean, he found Olave 10 times for 182 yards and brought them back from three scores down on the road against a playoff team.

New Orleans Is Short-Handed Too

The defensive line was down three bodies, not one. Cameron Jordan was inactive with a hamstring – the 37-year-old led the Saints with 10.5 sacks last season and holds the franchise record at 132 – and so were John Ridgeway and Khristian Boyd. Bryan Bresee is already gone for the year. Our Saints preview said New Orleans had no depth in the trenches and leaned on Chase Young as the pass-rush story. Sunday they played Davon Godchaux, Vernon Broughton, Nathan Shepherd and Colby Wooden inside and got one sack out of the whole front.

Kamara practiced and still didn’t dress. We wrote in early September that Travis Etienne was carrying it alone with Alvin Kamara out at least a month on the MCL. Kamara did practice the Wednesday before Week 1, his first work since August 18th, which had people talking about a quick return – but he was on the inactive list Sunday. Maybe he’s active at M&T Bank Stadium, but if so, he’s probably on a pitch count.

The run game didn’t get going vs. Detroit. New Orleans ran it 25 times for 91 yards, 3.6 a carry. Etienne was the only one moving it – 9 for 46, a 5.1 average, plus seven catches while Kendre Miller went 8 for 28.

Jordyn Tyson is still on IR with the hamstring, so the No. 8 overall pick remains unavailable. New Orleans’ initial Week 1 depth chart listed three wide receivers – Olave, Vele and rookie Bryce Lance – alongside three tight ends.

Brandon Staley’s defense finished ninth in total defense in 2025. It is Year 2 in the system and New Orleans drafted Christen Miller specifically to shore up the interior against the run.

It just didn’t get home. One sack, by Carl Granderson. Chase Young – coming off 10 sacks in 12 games –  had no tackles, one quarterback hit and one pass breakup. Detroit got five going the other way.

Detroit finished with 33 carries for 165 yards at 5.0 a pop and held the ball for 36:51. Gibbs alone went 29 for 156 and two scores.

What Baltimore Has To Take Away

The underneath throw, again. Indianapolis moved the ball on Minter’s defense in Week 1 doing exactly what Shough does best – short, quick, rhythm passing that never asks the quarterback to hold it. Moore’s offense is built on the same principle, and New Orleans just picked up 19 first downs through the air in Detroit on 86 total plays. If Baltimore plays two-high, rushes four and lets the Saints complete six-yard throws all afternoon, they could put together long drives and keep this game competitive.

You want to see the Ravens be able to get to Shough. Malaki Starks had career sack number 1 today.  Tavius Robinson had a sack today, and several other pressures.

Would like to see Trey Hendrickson and Mike Green get on the board vs. New Orleans.

Ravens Availability

Madubuike is the headline. Minter said Friday he was “really, really close” to his debut, and both he and Madubuike framed the absence as a conditioning ramp-up rather than a neck concern. SI reported there’s a real chance he plays against New Orleans. If he does, expect a snap count rather than a full workload from a man who took zero 11-on-11 reps in camp.

Teddye Buchanan was ruled out with the knee and is also pointed at a Week 2 return.

Zay Flowers and Ja’Kobi Lane are the concerns going the other direction, and Minter gave no update on either. What he did say, per Jeff Zrebiec, is that Baltimore may have to do some things to get that receiver room ready for Week 2.

Given the importance of Flowers to this team, you’d think they’d probably plan to give him the week off. They can’t risk it becoming something more significant.

I’d expect Rookie Elijah Sarratt to be active in Week 2.  Will have to see where Devontez Walker is with his groin and ankle issues.

Rookie TE Matthew Hibner had his first career catch today. Maybe he gets more action.

Moore is going to be active and his 53 yard grab today will earn him additional WR snaps.

Humphrey left briefly in the fourth quarter with what looked like a right leg injury, but did return. T.J. Tampa Jr. did not return after hurting his knee in the first quarter.

Chandler Rivers and Emery Jones Jr. were healthy scratches. Keyon Martin was the backup nickel and made a tackle.

Matchups To Watch

Does Madubuike play, and if he does, how many snaps?

Is pressure enough, or does Baltimore need sacks? Detroit pressured Shough all day, got five sacks and two picks, and he still threw for 410 and nearly won it. Baltimore’s four-man rush didn’t finish the Colts in the fourth quarter.

Who covers Chris Olave? Ten catches for 182 yards against Detroit, including a 47-yarder and a contested 43. Nate Wiggins against a receiver on a $132 million deal is the best individual matchup on the field, assuming Baltimore has its corners.

Can Baltimore stop the run? Taylor went for 98 and two scores.. Etienne is also a good back, but he has a lesser line in-front of him.

Does Doyle scheme around a depleted receiver room, or lean on Henry until it stops working? Sunday’s second half was improvisation. The Saints let Detroit run 33 times for 165.

Our Call

The Saints are better than their record will look in October. Down 21-0 at Ford Field, they tied it with a minute left and lost by a point in overtime. Our preseason read was 8-9 and the over on 7.5, and if anything Sunday firmed that up.

Saints were at Detroit today, and will again be facing a team in their home opener.

Not going to feel great if Flowers and Lane aren’t available; but would still expect a Ravens win at home.

Let’s see if the Ravens clean up the penalties that plagued them in Week 1.

Let’s see if Bateman can get going.

Let’s see if the Ravens can generate a consistent pass rush, and show improvement with the rush defense.

Give New Orleans respect for not folding today in Detroit.  Note their yardage vs. the Lions, and that their three turnovers is what really doomed them today.

If the Ravens can’t turn the Saints over, or get to Shough; does this end up being a bit of a shootout?

I’m going to say no.

With or without Flowers, I don’t think the Saints will be able to really slow Henry and Jackson.
And if they do overload the box, that will create 1×1 opportunities for Jackson to take advantage of with whatever receivers he has available.

I’m still a bit wary about the Ravens overall skill position talent and depth; but today was my reminder that as long Jackson and Henry are available – this offense will remain productive.

Ravens 31, Saints 20. Baltimore wins and covers. Take the over on 46.5. 

The post Ravens Week 2: New Orleans Comes To Baltimore appeared first on Baltimore Sports and Life.

ESPN gives Virginia Tech a 58.3 percent chance to win. The Hokies are three-point favorites and the total is 54.5. Maryland is a slight home underdog, which is itself an improvement. The ESPN model had the Terps at 36.9 percent in August and has them at 41.7 now.

Here is how the game sets up.

The Numbers

Old Dominion put up 310 yards on the Hokies, ran for 123 at four yards a carry, and broke a 76-yard touchdown run.

Every number above is built on four games against lesser opponents.

Maryland’s OL Against Virginia Tech’s Front

Maryland’s offensive line has overpowered smaller teams the first two weeks. The Terps have allowed exactly one sack in two games, on a second-and-one against UConn. That follows a 2025 season in which Maryland gave up nine sacks all year, tied for the third-fewest in the country. Michael Hershey had a couple of false starts yesterday, but is a Rimington Trophy watch list center, Rahtrel Perry has started every game since arriving from Central Connecticut State, Isaiah Wright has 24 career Power Four starts, and Tellek Lockette brought 28 starts and 2,011 snaps from Texas State.

Virginia Tech has twelve sacks in two games, seven of them against Old Dominion, and 8.5 belong to three edge rushers. Mylachi Williams and Cortez Harris each had two against Old Dominion. Aycen Stevens added one and a forced fumble. Between them the trio has four forced fumbles in two weeks. Williams and Harris followed James Franklin from Penn State, where Franklin built a reputation for producing pass rushers regardless of what else was going on. Inside, Kemari Copeland is a preseason All-ACC tackle who had 4.5 sacks last season and was retained when the staff changed.

Against VMI the Hokies posted 16 tackles for loss. That number means less than it looks like, because VMI rushed 43 times for minus-four yards and has won one game in three of its last four seasons. But this is unambiguously the best defensive front Maryland has seen, and SB Nation’s Gobbler Country’s read on the edge group is that it is built to stay effective deep into games. Maryland was outscored 102-34 in fourth quarters last season. That is the specific place where a fresh, deep pass rush does its damage.

Virginia Tech’s edge rushers are built for speed rather than size. Samuel Okunlola is listed at 6-3 and 249 pounds, Aycen Stevens at 6-5 and 260. Maryland’s tackles outweigh them by 60 to 80 pounds. Inside, where the Hokies are heavier with Eric Mensah and Randy Adirika both above 315, the size gap closes. If Maryland can turn this into a downhill, heavy-personnel game, the matchup tilts. If Virginia Tech can make it a second-and-long passing game, the speed on the edge takes over.

The counter-question is whether Maryland’s line can move people. Against UConn, without DeJuan Williams, the Terps ran 36 times for 125 yards at 3.5 a carry. The 9.1 average against Hampton was a different sport. Clint Trickett ran the ball a lot at Jacksonville State. Against Virginia Tech and more equal personnel, we will see how committed and effective MD is at running the ball.

The Terps’ DL Against A Banged-up Hokie OL

Maryland’s defensive front has been the best unit on the field in both games. Ten sacks in two weeks. Hampton rushed 31 times for 10 yards. UConn rushed 31 times for 67, and Kalieb Osborne, who had 92 rushing yards against Lafayette, was held to 30 on 13 carries with 26 of those coming on one scramble.

That is a meaningful result, because Osborne is the kind of quarterback who has historically given Maryland trouble. The Terps kept him inside the tackles and spied him with Carlton Smith. Derrick LeBlanc had two sacks. Zion Elee got his first career sack and stripped the ball on it. Eyan Thomas and DD Holmes had two apiece the week before. The interior has produced in both games; again against smaller, inferior competition.

Virginia Tech’s offensive line looks like a soft spot. The Hokies rushed 42 times for 89 yards against Old Dominion, and their top two backs, Marcellous Hawkins and Jeffrey Overton Jr., combined for 25 carries and 90 yards. Gobbler Country’s explanation is that Old Dominion sold out to stop the run, which is fair and also a plan other teams will copy. Starting center Kyle Altuner missed that game with an injury and his status has not been clarified.

The Hokies also allowed four sacks to Old Dominion. Maryland has ten sacks in two weeks. If Altuner is out again, Maryland’s interior rush against a backup center is the single best matchup the Terps have on the field.

The QBs

Both are playing well and neither has thrown an interception.

Washington was ordinary against Hampton and then went 34-of-41 for 347 yards against UConn with a 170.1 rating, including 18 consecutive completions, the longest such streak by a Terp since at least 1953, and 16-of-16 to open the second half. He had a couple of really spectacular high-level throws. He also had two running decisions which were questionable. A 3rd and short early where he ran vs. making the easy completion to the opening RB. And later in the 4th Quarter with a significant lead, he choose contact vs. getting rid of the ball.  Maybe the 4th Quarter play is more on the Coaches for still having him out there.

Grunkemeyer has been steady so far. The Penn State transfer missed three throws against VMI and then completed 31 of 42 for 327 against Old Dominion, spreading the ball to eleven different receivers. He works short and intermediate and lets the playmakers Franklin has assembled do the rest.

Each has a soft spot worth watching. Grunkemeyer missed Que’Sean Brown deep twice against VMI on throws that would have been touchdowns, and Gobbler Country suggested timing rather than arm. Maryland’s secondary gave up touchdown passes of 36 and 39 yards to UConn, so the Terps have their own reason not to feel good about the deep ball. Washington, meanwhile, has started slowly in both games. He completed four passes for 15 yards in the first quarter against Hampton, and against UConn the first fifteen plays were nearly all passes and produced almost nothing until he took a hard hit early in the second quarter and settled in. Virginia Tech jumped on Old Dominion early and led 34-6 at halftime. A slow Maryland start in a night game against this front is how the evening gets away.

Skill Positions

Maryland’s receiver room has sorted itself out faster than expected. Na’eem Abdul-Rahim Gladding has 14 catches for 187 yards and two touchdowns, including a 60-yarder at UConn. Chris Durr has 16 for 147 and a score, with a career-high ten receptions on Saturday. Kaleb Webb dropped two against Hampton and answered with five catches for 60 yards in East Hartford. That is three functional options, which is two more than the room had a month ago. Really nice game vs. UConn for all three of them, as each made a couple of contested catches, and found YAC.

The tight ends remain underused. Dorian Fleming has four catches on seven targets in two games, and the whole room has drawn 12 of Maryland’s 80 pass attempts, about 15 percent. The two-tight-end plan that was reported in August has not shown up in the passing game. Preston Howard was banged up late, and that’s something to monitor this week.

Virginia Tech’s passing game runs through two players. Que’Sean Brown is the outside threat, and tight end Luke Reynolds has 13 catches for 158 yards and three touchdowns through two games, including eight for 108 and two scores against Old Dominion. Reynolds and Grunkemeyer were teammates at Penn State for two seasons and the chemistry travelled. At his size and speed he is a matchup problem for linebackers and safeties, and Gobbler Country is already making an All-American case.

In the backfield, Maryland’s situation is the bigger unknown. DeJuan Williams ran three times for 116 yards against Hampton, including a 94-yard touchdown, then was hurt in the second quarter and did not play against UConn. Iverson Howard has 26 carries for 121 and three scores, Harry Dalton 24 for 87 and three more. They are functional. Williams is the one who changes the math. Virginia Tech counters with Overton, who went for over 100 on nine carries against VMI, and Hawkins, who scored three times that night.

EDIT: DeJuan Williams is out 4-6 weeks after undergoing a procedure on his knee

Matchups To Note

• Williams, Harris and Stevens against Perry and Wright. Maryland has allowed one sack. Virginia Tech has twelve. Who wins here? If the Terps keep Washington clean, they can win this game; if the edges get home in the fourth quarter, the pattern from last season repeats itself. MD has a big O-Line. If they can get a consistent ground game going, they can wear teams down. Also helps with the play-action game.
• Luke Reynolds against Maryland’s second level. Daniel Wingate, Carlton Smith, Messiah Delhomme and Lavain Scruggs will all take turns on him. Maryland has not faced a tight end who can do this. It is the likeliest way Virginia Tech scores efficiently.
• Derrick LeBlanc and Eyan Thomas against a Hokie line that may be missing its center. If Maryland wins this one the run game never gets going for Virginia Tech, and Grunkemeyer becomes one-dimensional.
• Goal-to-go, for both teams. Maryland has stalled inside the ten three times in two games, settling for a field goal each time, though it has converted the majority of its goal-to-go trips. Virginia Tech bogged down inside the ten against Old Dominion too, including once at the one. In a game the models see inside a field goal, whoever finishes drives wins.
• Special Teams. The Hokies returned a punt for a touchdown and blocked a punt for another against VMI, and Brown returned one to the one-yard line against Old Dominion. Their special teams coordinator, Doug Shearer, came from four seasons at UConn. Maryland, meanwhile, had zero return yards at UConn, Sean O’Haire missed a 36-yarder, and Bryce McFerson averaged 37.0 on three punts, well below his norms. Maryland has the better specialists on paper – in a game that should be close, their performance could be the difference.

The Rosters

These teams were assembled in opposite ways, and it shows up in the 247Sports composite. Virginia Tech ranks 27th nationally in team talent. Maryland ranks 46th. The Hokies have 29 four-star players on the active roster, up from 17 a year ago, against Maryland’s 13.

The portal explains most of the gap. Franklin treated his first offseason as a volume re-tool, bringing in 29 transfers for a class that ranked 27th nationally, many of them players who had committed to or played for him at Penn State. Grunkemeyer and Luke Reynolds are the headliners. Maryland took 14, ranked 51st, and every one of them graded as a three-star. Gladding and Lockette were the significant ones.

Maryland’s counterargument is the one it has been making all year. The Terps returned 71 percent of their production, second-highest in the country, while Virginia Tech is playing its third game with a roster largely assembled ten months ago.

Bowl Probability With A Win Or Loss

Win Saturday and Maryland is 3-0 with UCLA coming to College Park, and its bowl probability sits around 88 percent. Lose and it falls to about 63 percent. One game representing a 25 point swing in bowl probability.

In our season preview we wrote that finishing 4-8, 5-7, or 6-6 with a bowl should not be enough for Mike Locksley to keep his job, and that at 7-5 there is at least an argument to be made. So run the same exercise against that threshold.

The ACC spent last weekend dismantling the Big Ten, and three of the teams it beat are on Maryland’s schedule. Boston College beat Rutgers, Duke beat Illinois and Wake Forest beat Purdue. ESPN responded by moving Maryland from 56.7 to 84.6 percent against Rutgers, from 44.8 to 63.9 against Illinois, from 48.7 to 60.9 at Purdue, and from 46.2 to 66.4 against Wisconsin. Four games that were coin flips three weeks ago are now games Maryland is favored to win, three of them comfortably. The Terps are now favored in six of their remaining ten.

Win Saturday and the single most likely finish is 7-5 at 31.7 percent, with 8-4 at 22.3. Lose and the most likely finish is 6-6 at 31.7 percent, the exact result we said should not be enough. Beating Virginia Tech makes the likeliest season one that gives Locksley an argument. Losing makes the likeliest season one that does not.

The best case scenario we described in August – beat Hampton, UConn, Rutgers and Purdue, then take four of six from Virginia Tech, UCLA, Nebraska, Illinois, Wisconsin and Penn State – has gone from a 4.5 percent proposition to 12.7 percent. With a win Saturday it is 22.2 percent. With a loss it is 5.9 percent.

Note, these probabilities are built from ESPN’s Match-Up Predictor, and their game-by-game predictions. So far, ESPN is reacting to a 2-0 start against soft competition and to three Big Ten teams losing to ACC opponents in a single afternoon.

The Setting

Kickoff is 7:30 on a Saturday night in College Park, with a national television window. It is the kind of game Maryland has not consistently delivered in, and the crowd will be part of the story. Virginia Tech travels as well as any program in the region, Blacksburg is under four hours from campus, and a sold-out Lane Stadium crowd for each of the first two weeks suggests a fan base that is engaged. A significant share of the stadium will be in maroon.

Some of the surrounding storylines are real without being the story. Franklin spent eight seasons at Maryland across two stints, was the coach-in-waiting before the deal collapsed in 2010, and came up on the same staff as Locksley, whom he replaced as recruiting coordinator in 2003. The two programs are now direct competitors for the same recruits, and the traffic runs both ways: two of Maryland’s better young players, Jaylen Gilchrist and Messiah Delhomme, came out of Virginia. Both staffs will be watching who is in the building Saturday night.

Prediction

Maryland has two of the three things it needs. The defensive front has been excellent, and the passing game has arrived faster than we expected. The missing piece is the run game against a real defense. If MD can run the ball effectively, I think they win. Virginia Tech will try to make MD one-dimensional. If they do that effectively, the odds move in their favor.

We would not be surprised by either result, which is roughly what a three-point spread is supposed to tell you. If Washington starts fast, if DeJuan Williams plays, and if Maryland’s interior keeps Grunkemeyer’s run game from functioning, the Terps win. If the Hokie edge rushers make it a passing-down game and Reynolds works the middle of the field, Virginia Tech could win comfortably.

This is a winnable game for MD. This is a swing game for MD.

Could go either way with the pick, but I’ll say Virginia Tech by a field goal.

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Quick Hits

Our Week 2 picks went 5-3 straight up, 3-5 against the number and 6-2 on totals. Alabama was the only clean sweep of the week, and it was the one we flagged as the pick that hurts. Texas hit the under by half a point on a game that needed a 21-point fourth quarter to get there.

The three straight-up misses shared a shape. Each was a game where our number sat above the market on a favorite, and two of those favorites lost outright. Two weeks in we are 6-6 straight up and 5-6-1 against the number.

Oregon was a L for us, and everyone else. We had the Ducks fourth in the power rankings and gave them a 71 percent chance of reaching the playoff, the fifth-highest figure overall. The stated reason for both was coordinator continuity – two elite units handed to two first-year play-callers, which the preview called the most interesting continuity test of 2026. Oregon then lost outright in Stillwater as a 22.5-point favorite, a week after needing a comeback to beat Boise State at home by seven. Oklahoma State had lost 21 straight to FBS opponents. Dan Lanning had not lost to an unranked team since 2021.

Oklahoma State; Who Are You? The Cowboys were the fifth of our five teams-we-like-better than most to start the year, and then they lost to Tulsa in their opener. And now they follow that-up with a win vs. Oregon.  Somewhere between those extremes lies what Oklahoma State actually is.

Michigan Moves Back Up.  This shouldn’t have been the surprise it was. After the Western Michigan game, we should have expected the Wolverines to be motivated to show something vs. the Sooners. Beating Oklahoma is a nice win for Michigan, that should help their resume all year.

We faded Minnesota in the preview and then picked them anyway. The preseason case was the plus-24 points-off-turnovers margin and a scoring profile closer to a four-win team than an eight-win one. Minnesota lost 38-13 at home to Mississippi State. The read was right and the pick, labeled a hunch, ignored it. That is the worst thing we did last week and it was entirely self-inflicted.

Alabama is pushing us toward Phil Steele. We had the Tide 15th nationally against his 7th, and wrote that if Keelon Russell hit, Steele is right and we look silly by October. Alabama trailed Kentucky 17-13 at the half and outscored them 32-0 after it. Russell’s athleticism jumps off the screen. Now in Year 3 of his tenure at Alabama, Kalen DeBoer’s squad is pointing up.

Power Rankings

Texas moves up five to first. The Longhorns own the only win over a top-five team in the country, and they got it from 20 points down with 21 unanswered in the fourth quarter. A one-point home win does not by itself establish who is better on a neutral field. But we picked Texas against our own No. 1 last week, and the point of being right is acting on it.

Ohio State drops one.  You could make the argument of dropping OSU behind Notre Dame.  Surrendering a 20 point lead leaves a bad taste. Still, it’s a 1 point loss to a Top 5 team on the road. Ohio State has eight new defensive starters this year. Lots of talk entering the year about how OSU needs to grow during the season. We will see what they take from this experience.

Oregon drops eleven, the largest move we have made. Two first-year coordinators inherited the SP+ No. 1 offense and No. 2 defense, and two games in the Ducks have a seven-point home win over an unranked team and a loss to a team that had not beaten an FBS opponent in 21 tries. Portland State on Friday will tell us nothing.  After that is is a trip to USC which will be highly significant for both programs.

Alabama moves up seven. Forty-five points on the road in an SEC opener. The preview’s case against Alabama was the running game and a profile that went 8-4 against FPI top-40 teams while outscoring them by two points total. Neither Kentucky nor Louisiana-Monroe tests that. But the defense is real and the schedule misses Texas and Ole Miss, which was always Steele’s argument.

Michigan up six and Oklahoma down six, from the same sixty minutes. Michigan’s win was built on the thing Kyle Whittingham was hired to build, holding a top-15 offense to ten points. Bryce Underwood isn’t a finished product, but he’s electric and competitive. The Wolverines were 20th on a defensive argument and the defense showed up. Oklahoma has the fourth-hardest schedule in America and just scored ten points on the easiest ranked opponent it will see for a month. Brent Venables has alternated six-win and ten-win regular seasons for four straight years.

Texas Tech drops two. Winning at Oregon State by eleven, a week after a pedestrian result against Abilene Christian, is not what the best yards-per-play defense of the playoff era looked like. Tommy Castellanos has been added to the QB room with Will Hammond. Important Big 12 game with Houston this Friday.

BYU moves up two. Provo against Arizona was one of the three toss-ups we said would decide their season, and the Cougars erased a halftime deficit to win it. They do not play Texas Tech or Houston.

Utah enters at 20 and Washington leaves. We had Utah outside our top 20 entirely. They beat up Arkansas 43-7 and join the ranking. Washington needed 16-10 against a Utah State team that lost to FCS Idaho State the week before.

Notre Dame, Indiana, Miami, LSU, Texas A&M and Ole Miss each shift a spot as a consequence of the moves above rather than on their own merits.

The outside check

CBS’s projection of the post-Week 2 poll has Texas first, which matches us, and Oregon 21st, which does not. We have the Ducks six spots higher. ESPN’s selection-committee projection leaves Oregon out of the twelve entirely. That was a costly loss for the Ducks yesterday, and puts them in a precarious position going forward.

The sharper disagreement is Texas Tech. We have them eleventh and as the Big 12 favorite. ESPN projects BYU as the league’s champion and leaves Texas Tech out of the bracket.

The Playoff Field

The twenty named teams, the Group of Six bid and the field still sum to twelve. Boise State’s bid strengthens on the head-to-head win over Memphis.

Conference Projections

ACC. Miami 51 (up 2), SMU 13 (down 1), Louisville 12 (down 1), Virginia 7 (new), Clemson 6 (down 1), Virginia Tech 5 (down 1), Pitt 3 (down 1), field 3. Virginia enters the table for the first time at 2-0 and ranked, Miami gains because nobody behind them did anything, not because 77 points against Florida A&M told us anything.

SEC. Georgia 24 (down 1), Texas 21 (up 4), LSU 14, Alabama 13 (up 4), Texas A&M 12, Ole Miss 8, Oklahoma 4 (down 4), field 4. Texas closes on Georgia without passing them.

Big Ten. Ohio State 32 (up 1), Indiana 27 (up 4), Oregon 15 (down 9), USC 12 (up 3), Michigan 7 (up 4), Penn State 4, field 3.

Big 12. Texas Tech 36 (down 6), BYU 26 (up 4), Utah 13 (up 4), Houston 8 (new), Kansas State 5 (down 2), Arizona 4 (down 4), TCU 3 (down 1), Oklahoma State 3 (new), field 2. This is the league where our numbers moved most and where we are least comfortable.

Pac-12. Boise State 44 (up 6), San Diego State 14 (down 1), Texas State 12 (down 1), Fresno State 11 (down 3), Washington State 8 (down 2), Utah State 5 (down 1), Oregon State 4 (up 1), Colorado State 2 (up 1).  SP+ places Fresno outside the top 90, so they drop here, with Boise the beneficiary.

Conference Overviews

Two weeks in, we rank the Conferences as the SEC, the Big Ten, the Big 12, the ACC and the Pac-12. Again, the SP+ figures below come from its September 8th run and do not include Saturday.

1. The SEC. SP+ put eleven of its top 25 in the league and six of its top eleven, and then Texas went out and beat the No. 1 team in the country, which is the best win anybody owns. Behind that sits a middle class — Florida, South Carolina, Missouri, Vanderbilt, Auburn — that most conferences would run as a top tier. What the league still does not have is a consensus best team, which is what we wrote in August and what this weekend will not settle either. LSU at Ole Miss is Lane Kiffin walking back into Oxford eight months after leaving, on the first road trip of his LSU tenure. Florida at Auburn puts two teams we were higher on than the market against each other, which guarantees one read gets graded and the other gets nothing.
2. The Big Ten, which keeps the spot on Ohio State and Indiana rather than on anything that happened Saturday. Oregon, Ohio State, Minnesota, Illinois, Purdue and Rutgers all lost, four of them to the ACC or SEC, and that is the worst day any league had. The preview’s argument was that the Big Ten had the three best teams in America and seven of the worst. Oregon’s loss only makes you less confident in the overall strength at the top of the conference .The two teams that came out looking better were Michigan, and Indiana, which has not played anybody. A conference with three straight national titles is going to spend September being told its top is thinner than advertised.
3. The Big 12 is the league that changed most and the one we understand least. Five teams in the SP+ top 25, a 43-7 win over Arkansas, and the loudest single result of the weekend in Stillwater. The trouble is that the loudest result came from a team we would have placed fourteenth in this league in August, and the team we placed first has now looked ordinary twice. Texas Tech was pedestrian against Abilene Christian and got all it could handle at Oregon State. This is a deep conference without an apex.
4. The ACC. The league had the best week relative to expectation of anyone: Duke beat Illinois, Wake Forest beat Purdue in double overtime, Boston College beat Rutgers, Pitt handled UCF. Against that, SP+ had exactly two ACC teams in its top 25. On best team the ACC wins easily, with Miami fifth in SP+ and the best Big 12 team fourteenth. On depth the Big 12 wins and not by a little. We went with depth because the Big 12 also owns the better head-to-head result.
5. The Pac-12 is the best of the rest. Boise State beat an unbeaten Memphis team at home after trailing by fourteen, which is the most valuable non-power result of the young season. If those two emerge as their conference champions, the head-to-head should largely settle the Group of Six bid in December. The Broncos have both of their hardest non-conference games behind them.

The Week 3 Board

Spreads and totals are from DraftKings, percentages ESPN Match-Up Predictor. Rankings are CBS’s projection of the post-Week 2 poll. No total had posted for Houston at Texas Tech and no line at all for James Madison at San Diego State as of press time; neither gets a call it cannot support.

One venue note, West Virginia at Virginia is not in Charlottesville. It is at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, with Virginia as the designated home team.

Predictions

Pittsburgh 24, Syracuse 14. Pitt has averaged more sacks per game than anyone but Clemson since 2015 and Syracuse has not solved that particular problem in some time. We are shaving this one — ten points is a win, not a cover at 10.5. Under.

Texas Tech 31, Houston 20. The game we said in August would move this number, and it arrives with Houston 2-0 and ranked 22nd. Our case against the Cougars was never about talent. It was 6-1 in one-possession games, 4-1 in games decided by three or less, the easiest schedule in the league and the largest positive penalty margin in the country. None of that has been tested yet and Lubbock on a Friday night is where it gets tested. We hold Houston outside the top six and take the Red Raiders to cover. No total posted, so no call.

Alabama 38, Florida State 17. Two weeks of second halves that look like a top-ten team and first halves that do not. Florida State has had eleven days to prepare and has a coach who needs a result. We still think Alabama covers, and we think the number of points involved is why Steele has been winning this argument. Over.

Louisville 34, SMU 30. Lincoln Kienholz threw for 332 and four scores against Villanova, which told us nothing, and Kevin Jennings threw for 337 and five against UC Davis, which told us the same. This is the first real Saturday for both. Isaac Brown led the country at 8.75 yards per carry and Clev Lubin is the best returning edge in FBS, and at home that is enough by a possession. SMU has played seventeen ACC games and had a chance to win on the final play of every one of them, which is the reason we cannot take them by more than we are giving. Over.

Auburn 24, Florida 21. The one game on this board where the model and the market name different favorites. ESPN has Auburn at 50.2 percent, DraftKings has Florida laying 2.5. We were the ones who put Auburn first among teams we liked better than the projections, on the strength of 0-6 in one-possession games and a coin that does not land on its edge six times running. Alex Golesh, Byrum Brown and a defense returning most of its production, at home, at night. We take the upset. Under.

LSU 30, Ole Miss 24. Kiffin is 12-2 in his last fourteen SEC games and scored 21-plus in thirteen of them. He is also now walking into Vaught-Hemingway against the quarterback he recruited, on the only road trip LSU takes until October 10th. Sam Leavitt threw three interceptions against Louisiana Tech including a hundred-yard pick-six, and if he does that here it is over early. The reason we take LSU anyway is the defense, which SP+ rated second in the country and which held Clemson to ten. Under.

Virginia 31, West Virginia 17. We faded Virginia in August on the one-score argument and they have answered with two comfortable wins. This is the week to say plainly that the fade is not looking good. Neutral site in Charlotte, which historically favors the ACC team in this particular building. Under.

San Diego State 24, James Madison 21. No line posted, so no call against the number and none on the total. San Diego State’s secondary allowed eight completions on 52 attempts of twenty-plus yards last season, the best rate in FBS. Billy Napier’s first James Madison team put up 87 points yesterday vs. Wagner. How they handle flying across the country, and facing a step-up in competition will be interesting to watch.

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