Week 3 in the NFL

Some things that I noticed in Week 3:

• Who could have guessed that the league's last remaining undefeated teams would be the: Steelers (with a backup QB), Bears and Chiefs?  None were even considered playoff contenders in the pre-season.
• Of those three, the Steelers seem to be the most legit because of their outstanding defense.  The Bears' defense looks much improved, in part because Brian Urlacher is now healthy.
• Hard to imagine the Chiefs making the playoffs, but Cassell did lead the Patriots to 11 wins in 2008 playing in a similar system. The other teams in that division aren't very good, but keep in mind that the Chargers typically start out slow and end strong.  The Chiefs start is reminiscent of the start the Broncos had last year, where they eventually fell apart and watched as San Diego, umm... charged passed them.
• We saw this coming - Adrian Peterson ran wild against Detroit.  Brett Favre should have been able to do more against that defense, but at least this week he didn't have to.  Despite another poor performance from the old man, the Vikings managed to finally win a game.
• Jahvid Best's injury better not keep him out long.  He's the only thing Lions fans have to look forward to.  In fact, he's really the only thing the entire city of Detroit has going for them.
• The Patriots still know how to put up points.  Unfortunately they give them up nearly as well.  A win is a win, but when you give up 30 points to a team with one of the worst offenses in the game, that's a major concern.
• Patriots RBs are dropping like flies due to trades (Maroney) and injuries (Faulk, Taylor), paving the way for a more prominent role for Ben Jarvis Green-Ellis.  The Law Firm may not be a game changing talent, but you have to love that nickname.
• The lack of RB depth has also given a role to Danny Woodhead, who looks like he's 16 years old.  The Tom Brady style hair cut isn't helping.
• The young Tight Ends continue to thrive for the Patriots, but you have to wonder if spreading it around so much will cause Randy Moss to lose interest.  Does he even catch passes anymore that aren't in the red zone?
• Big win for the Falcons playing in New Orleans.  Not to knock their performance in that game, but there's no way they should have won.  How does Hartley miss that kick in OT?  The Saints need to start auditioning new Kickers.
• The Saints won the Super Bowl last year, in part because they had a lot of playmakers on defense.  We've seen less of that so far this year, and it's becoming apparent that teams can run against them.  We may begin to see a similar strategy used against them that teams are using against the Colts; running the ball to keep Brees off the field.
• So much for Reggie Bush's injury opening up the chance for Pierre Thomas to get more carries.  He split carries 9-7 with some guy named Chris Ivory.  Neither did particular well, but Ivory's 1.9/carry average did nothing to warrant giving him the ball more.
• In case you didn't know, Chris Johnson is still good.  We can brush off last week's poor performance based on the Steelers defense just being that good.  Against a mediocre defense like the Giants, he can still dominate.  However, 32 carries this early in the season seems a bit excessive, especially when the game wasn't all that close.  It was the 2nd highest total of carries in a game for his career.
• Eli had a big yardage day because the team was playing from behind all day, but he really wasn't very good.  He had two interceptions, one of which was just ugly.
• Charlie Batch is getting it done for the Steelers.  If they win again next week, can they ask Commissioner Goodell to increase the suspension for Ben Rothlisburger?
• Clearly it was too early for Carolina to throw Jimmy Clausen into game action.  Clearly when you have a rookie QB that isn't getting it done then you may want to give more carries to your RB duo of DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart.  Clearly nobody in Carolina is paying attention to this.
• Payton Hillis had a big day (180 total yds, 1 TD) that absolutely killed my fantasy team. 
• Joe Flacco looked much better this week, but keep in mind it was against the Browns.  Also, Anquan Boldin was the only receiver to do much of anything, he just happened to do A LOT of it.  They can't afford to be a one dimensional offense, which means they better hope the injury to Ray Rice isn't serious.
• The Cowboys won a must win game against a Texans team that everyone thought was a contender after 2 weeks.  Dallas finally looked good, while Houston couldn't score.  Penalties and sacks killed several of their drives.  Kind of like how things had gone for Dallas the previous two weeks.
• Andre Johnson aggravated his ankle injury and left for part of the game.  He returned (again), but they better hope this doesn't linger or get any worse.
• Roy Williams is back from the grave!  Houston's game plan was clearly to shut down Miles Austin, which they did (20 yards), but how did they let Williams (117, 2TDs) beat them?
• If you give up 30 points to St. Louis and only score 16.... not only does that mean you lost the game (obviously), but it means you lost the privilege to be considered a contender in your division.  Early this season it seemed like McNabb lucked out when he got traded to Washington, but now that Vick has taken over, the Eagles are soaring and the Redskins are... getting trampled by the Rams.
• Speaking of Mike Vick, he had another vintage performance, scoring 3 TDs through the air and another on the ground.  He's found a good rapport with DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin.  We'll have to wait and see how he does against better defenses before he can be fully trusted to lead this team.  The numbers are nice, but when they come against the Lions and Jaguars it's not quite as impressive.
• Looking forward to the many sub-plots involved in next week's Eagles/Redskins match-up. 
• Denver hung in with the Colts for most of the game, but couldn't get it done in the 4th quarter.  That game seemed closer than the final score made it seem.
• Kyle Orton is quietly putting together a nice season so far.  He's second in the NFL in passing yards (1078) through Week 3.  Keep in mind, this is after Denver just traded away one of the game's elite WRs (Brandon Marshall - sent to Miami in the offseason).  He's getting it done with some unproven youngsters (Demaryius Thomas) and other team's cast offs (Brandon Lloyd, Jabar Gaffney).
• Austin Collie is official legit.  While Pierre Garcon was last year's break-out WR for the Colts, he's now been supplanted by Collie.  Meanwhile, Garcon has been mostly invisible so far and was inactive this week, while Anthony Gonzalez has barely seen the field.
• Even when given a chance against a poor run defense, Laurence Maroney still can't get it done.
• Arizona is somehow 2-1, but only because they've played terrible teams in the games they won (Rams, Raiders).  It took 3 missed FGs for them to squeak by in this one. 
• Derek Anderson continues to be terrible.
• Beanie Wells finally saw the field, and actually played well.  Too bad for Tim Hightower, who has been playing well in his absence, but now will likely take a backseat.
• Don't worry San Diego, you always get off to a slow start each season.  So don't be too worried about losing a game in September to... Seattle.  Nevermind, maybe you should panic. 
• I can't figure out what's wrong with the Chargers.  Rivers has been on fire, leading the league in passing yards (1087).  Nobody can guard Antonio Gates and Malcom Floyd is starting to look like a legit #1 receiver, so you can't blame it on "Mr. Holdout" Vincent Jackson.  I was ready to write off Week 1 as a fluke (on the road, bad weather), especially after they dominated Jacksonville in Week 2 (then again, who hasn't?).  But now after this loss has dropped them to 1-2, it's time to start questioning them.  They better hope KC's fast start doesn't last or they may end up in too big of a hole to climb out of.
• Who knew the Jets and Dolphins were even capable of putting up this many points?  Both team's strengths were supposed to be their defense, but it didn't show in this one.  The Jets miss having Revis around to shut down the opponents top receiver.  Antonio Cromartie was abused by Brandon Marhsall (166 yds, 1 TD).
• Neither team had much success running the ball, in part because both teams threw the ball more than what is typically expected from them.  Miami seemed hell bent on exposing the Jets' injury depleted secondary.
• Dustin Keller continues to be a top target for Mark Sanchez, especially near the redzone.  He had two TDs in the game, and his 6 catches on 10 targets were by far the most of any Jets receiver.
• The Jets RB timeshare continues to tilt more in favor of LT over Shonne Greene.  He got 60% of the carries and did more with those opportunities.
• Frustrating loss for the Packers.  A franchise record 18 penalties was bad enough, but the Bears' drive for the game winning FG was set up by a costly fumble by James Jones.  Too much sloppy play against a better than expected Chicago team.
• Aaron Rodgers did all he could, even putting his body on the line to run the ball into the endzone himself.  He takes a lot of hard hits, but he's a warrior that somehow manages to get back up and do it again week after week.
• JerMichael Finley is a beast.  You can't stop him!
• Jay Cutler has 3 times as many TDs as Ints!  You would have guessed those numbers would have been reversed.
• Devin Aromashodu was popular pick to break-out this year in Mike Martz's offense, but so far he appears to be the only Bears receiver that is not.  After not being targeted at all last week, he was inactive for this game.  He's apparently in the doghouse.  He had a good game in week 1 with 5 catches, but also had 3 drops and seemed hesitant on some of his routes.
• Maybe a TE can be effective in a Martz offense after all.  5 catches, including a TD, for Olsen.
• Whoever said that Brandon Jackson could step right in and essentially provide similar production to the injured Ryan Grant... that person lied.
• The NFL's worst team thus far has been the extremely disappointing 49ers.  They are 0-3 with a point differential of -49.  They just fired their OC, but their defense seems to be a bigger problem.
• This seems to be another year where my Fantasy Football team will get screwed in a Head-Head league based on match-ups.  So far in that league I'm 1-2, but have the 2nd highest total points of anyone in the league.  Last year I had the most total points, but missed the playoffs.  This is one of several reasons why the league that I run uses total points for football.  Too many flukes can occur when there is only 1 game per week, and things will only get worse after this when Bye weeks begin.