Week 3 brought a lot of drama and left with broken records, victorious underdogs and more questions than answers for our crop of rookie quarterbacks.
And amidst all these late-game heroics and blunders, there are a few performances that stand out:
Overachieving Team: Los Angeles Chargers
The Kansas City Chiefs out-gained the Chargers by 109 yards on the ground, amassed 12 more first downs, won the time of possession battle by five minutes, and even held a three-point lead midway through the fourth quarter.
So how the hell on Monday morning are the reigning AFC champions sitting at 1-2 and at the bottom of their division? The short answer is simple: turnovers. Kansas City turned the ball over four times as an opportunistic Chargers defense intercepted Patrick Mahomes on the Chiefs' opening drive and followed that up by recovering fumbles on each of their next two possessions, but even after those turnovers led to a 14-0 lead, the Chiefs started doing Chiefs things and scored on four-straight drives, three of which ended in touchdowns, and took the lead.
But after Mahomes was intercepted with less than two minutes remaining, Justin Herbert led a drive highlighted by a fourth down converted by a pass interference call and scored the game-winning touchdown with 34 seconds remaining.
Herbert put together his best game as a pro, tossing four touchdowns and committing zero turnovers. The Chargers had just one win against Mahomes before Sunday and maybe the Chiefs weren't as focused with Andy Reid dealing with health issues. But Los Angeles is now 2-0 outright when underdogs and 0-1 when favored by the spread. The Chargers have already opened as three-point home favorites against the undefeated Las Vegas Raiders.
Underachieving Team: Seattle Seahawks
Pete Carroll's Seahawks have developed a reputation for making winning difficult. However, what happens when the wins stop coming? One week after blowing a 15-point halftime lead, Seattle followed that up by blowing a 10-point lead to a previously winless Vikings team who were playing without Dalvin Cook.
However, even without their most dangerous weapon, the Vikings controlled the ball, riding Alexander Mattison for 32 touches and converting nine of their 14 third down opportunities. And defensively, Minnesota shut out Seattle for the final 40 minutes of the game, only allowing them to cross midfield twice, with one possession ending in a missed field goal and another ending with a turnover on downs.
Maybe it's unfair to discredit the Vikings after they lost a pair of heart-breakers in Weeks 1 and 2, and they could have easily be undefeated right now if Cook didn't fumble in overtime or if Greg Joseph made a 37-yard field goal.
But Seattle is a team that is supposed to be leading the NFC West behind Russell Wilson, who has thrown for seven touchdowns, zero interceptions and his adjusted yards per attempt right now is higher than it was after three games last year when he was widely considered the favorite for NFL MVP.
Things don't get any easier for the the Seahawks either as they have a pair of division games on the horizon, travelling to San Francisco next week before hosting the Rams on Thursday Night Football in Week 5. The Seahawks beat the 49ers three times last season and haven't lost to the Rams at home since 2018.
Overachieving Player: Ravens K Justin Tucker
Justin Tucker missed the first indoor kick of his career on Sunday. He had made 50 straight kicks under the friendly confines of domed and retractable-roofed stadiums. And then in the first quarter, Tucker hooked a 49-yarder wide right.
But then crazy things kept happening. Marquise Brown dropped two passes, one in the end zone, the Ravens defense, missing seven starters due to injury and COVID-19, became suddenly porous, allowing 17 points in the final 20 minutes of the game and letting Detroit take a 17-16 lead with just a minute to go.
Detroit's defense then struggled, despite pushing Baltimore back to their own 16-yard-line, Lamar Jackson connected with Sammy Watkins for 36 yards, setting up the most improbable score of the day. Mere hours after Matt Prater's failed 68-yard attempt led to a Jaguars touchdown on the return, Tucker delivered on a kick that bounced between impossible and inevitable in the seconds it hung in the space between the crossbar and the turf.
Impossible? Of course. No player had ever kicked a 65-yard field goal in the history of football, no matter the level of competition. Even the previous record of 64 yards was set in Denver where the laws of physics are simply mere suggestions.
But Tucker had missed just one kick in the final two minutes of regulation and that came six years ago in a contest that he won 75 seconds later with a 47-yard field goal. The guy is automatic. He is clutch. Death, taxes, Tucker.
Underachieving Player: Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger
There are a lot of quarterbacks who struggled on Sunday, the four rookie starters went 0-4 and none of them lost by single digits. Carson Wentz looked like a shell of himself, but no one was as bad as Ben Roethlisberger. The future Hall-0f-Famer threw the ball 58 times against a defense that ranked 25th in net yards per attempt allowed last year and let Joe Burrow carve them up in Week 1 before playing an over-matched Justin Fields last week.
And with each one of those 58 pass attempts, one thing became clear; the old gunslinger just doesn't have it. He's now gone three-straight games without multiple touchdowns for the first time since 2017 and even though he was missing Diontae Johnson, Roethlisberger looked like he was in over his head. Unable to use his veteran savvy to compensate for his age or his injured pec. Making mistakes like this (and this) and for the third-straight week, failing to score a single point in the first quarter.
The Steelers offense has a lot of issues right now after failing to even pick up a first down on six of their 11 possessions on Sunday and putting their defense in disadvantageous positions. Two of the Bengals' three touchdown drives started in the red zone following Roethlisberger interceptions. The Steelers are now 0-2 in the two games they were favored in this year and the under has hit in all three of their games.
Perhaps even scarier, Pittsburgh hasn't scored over 24 points since Week 9 of last season.
Bead Beat: Cardinals/Jaguars Under 51.5
The Jaguars had a lead for most of the second half on Sunday, but couldn't put away the Arizona Cardinals. A pick-six tossed by Trevor Lawrence relinquished the lead and a James Conner touchdown later in the fourth quarter solidified the win for Arizona.
However, Jacksonville had a chance to claw their way back into the game or at least make things interesting in the final five minutes of the game. Needing just two points to hit the over, the Jaguars drove to the Arizona 24 and the Arizona 16 and fumbled the ball both times. Two fumbles by Lawrence on sacks taking points off the board and pushing the Jaguars to 0-3.
Perhaps the under hitting shouldn't be too big of a shock. The Jaguars haven't hit the over on a total of 50 or greater since Week 16 of the 2015 season in a 38-27 loss to the Saints.