With only one game per week, no major American sports league creates a pathway to ruinous thinking quite as wide as the NFL’s.
A full seven days of analysis — or four, or six, or sometimes 10 or 14 — creates plenty of time to overthink and overreact. Are the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs back and angling for another glorious playoff showdown? Are the Cleveland Browns positioned to win the AFC North for the first time since (oh my god) 1989? Can Chicago Bears fans at least hold out hope for the 2024 season since this one is (/fart noises).
These are all understandable takes after three weeks of the 2023 campaign. But are they reasonable? Well, that’s what we’re gonna take a look at in this week’s edition of the Overreaction Index.
I gave the Dolphins’ offense, which harnesses the things that worked for the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers and engineers it in a way to best suit Tua Tagovailoa, its flowers in my Monday morning recap. I took on Sean Payton’s dire performance and the Denver Broncos’ flameout in this week’s list of the Most Fireable Coaches. Let’s move past those and head to some other emerging stories that could be trends or merely blips on a horizon loaded with data points that create a star map to Super Bowl 58.
1
The Buffalo Bills have their house in order and the rest of the AFC is in trouble
After losing to the Aaron Rodgers-less New York Jets in Week 1, the Bills have been on a hot streak. First came a 38-10 stomping of the Las Vegas Raiders. Next was a 37-3 dismantling of the Washington Commanders.
In that stretch, Buffalo forced eight turnovers. Josh Allen completed nearly 75 percent of his passes and had nearly as many rushing touchdowns (one) as sacks taken (two). Stefon Diggs is nearing a 1,600-yard pace and James Cook looks like a dominant running back.
One more blowout and we can confidently label this a rampage. Was this the realization of Buffalo’s potential, or merely the result of two overwhelmed teams laid at the Bills’ feet in an act of NFL sacrifice? A 75-13 aggregate suggests this team is not only angry about that Week 1 defeat, but liable to do it again, and again, and again all the way back to the AFC title game.
Verdict: A slight overreaction.
The Bills took care of business in Weeks 2 and 3, doing everything that could reasonably be asked of them against two lower-middle class opponents. A secondary with established stars who’ve missed significant time recently has shined, setting the stage for six interceptions in the last two games. They’ve benefitted greatly from a front four that has harassed quarterbacks, allowing plenty of static in the defensive backfield and limiting throws downfield.
Through three weeks, Buffalo’s 16.7 percent blitz rate is the fourth-lowest in the NFL. But the team’s 30 percent pressure rate is third-best and its 12 sacks are tied for second.
This is all happening without Von Miller in the lineup, which is scary for the rest of the league. His return will help any late-season dropoffs from veterans like Leonard Floyd and DaQuan Jones, who have been wonderful to start the season but who may fade. So not only can the Bills get to you without blitzing, they have the maid service to clean up your mistakes once you make a rushed throw downfield.
Also, Matt Milano is a death star unto himself, but we knew this.
That's @MatthewMilanoo's ball!
📺: @CBS | @paramountplus pic.twitter.com/INMzgiL7xf
— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) September 17, 2023
Why not a full buy here? The flaw that held this offense back in the postseason the last two seasons persists. Diggs remains the only true threat in the passing game. He has more than twice as many targets (32) as the next man in the pecking order (Gabriel Davis, 15). Davis has been a viable big play threat — his average target comes seven yards deeper than Diggs’ — but he wasn’t enough to take the reins in big moments and push Buffalo’s offense across the finish line.
Come playoff time, are the Bills gonna get the guy who torched the Dolphins’ for 100-plus yards in a Wild Card win? Or will they get the one who, on an afternoon where Diggs was stymied, came through for just two catches and 34 yards against the Bengals in the 2023 Divisional Round?
The hope is that Cook’s breakthrough and Dalton Kincaid’s slow emergence over the course of the season will create viable pathways to the end zone when Diggs is limited. That’s an underdog bet, but it could pay off. It may not have to if the defense continues to bring a lead pipe to its dinner parties — though we’ll get an idea of how sustainable that is when Buffalo hosts Miami’s absurd offense in Week 4.
2
The Kansas City Chiefs have their house in order and the rest of the AFC is in trouble
All it took was a date with the Chicago Bears to get the Chiefs back to their old selves. Kansas City lost its opener to the Detroit Lions and survived a rock fight on the road against the Jacksonville Jaguars before squaring off with the scattered remains of a once-notable NFL franchise. Patrick Mahomes’ offense put up 34 points at halftime and blessed the world with 1.5 quarters of Blaine Gabbert cameos en route to a 41-10 win.
This looked much more like the Chiefs juggernaut we’re used to seeing each fall. Mahomes threw for 272 yards and three touchdowns in two-and-a-half quarters of play and Kansas City took its familiar place atop the AFC West. It’s been nearly six years since the world saw an AFC title game without Andy Reid’s mustachioed face roaming one sideline. Once again, Kansas City is a problem.
Verdict: A possible overreaction, but the Chiefs have earned the benefit of the doubt.
If we’re unable to glean much meaningful data from the Bills pasting the Raiders, just imagine how little we can transfer over from trouncing the Bears. Kansas City was content to do its own thing and let Chicago’s implosion continue, but managed to look good in the process (in front of a newfound crowd of teenage girls thanks to Taylor Swift’s presence. Football is weird).
There aren’t many new developments to unpack when it comes to good things along Mahomes’ offense. He threw a touchdown pass to Travis Kelce, because of course. He relied on a platoon of veteran and forgotten running backs who rose up to rip off chunk plays and score touchdowns (two from Jerick McKinnon, one each from Clyde Edwards-Helaire and Isiah Pacheco). He scored on seven straight drives, because that is what the Chiefs do.
But all is not completely well in Kansas City. There’s been a marked dropoff that lingers in this passing attack.
After three weeks last season, the Chiefs’ Tyreek Hill-less offense ranked second in the NFL in expected points added (EPA) per play at 0.202 and had an EPA/play of 0.337 on dropbacks. This year that unit ranks eighth at 0.078 EPA/play and 0.133 per dropback. Those are still top 10 numbers, but they’re roughly a third of where they were at this time in 2022.
There’s no issue with being grouped in with good offenses like the Cowboys and Ravens, but it’s not a very Patrick Mahomes place to be. It’s reasonable to be concerned about the receiving corps. By this time last season JuJu Smith-Schuster had 14 catches for 178 yards while averaging 9.4 yards per target — all good-not-great numbers. This year the team’s top wideout, at least in terms of passes thrown his way, is rookie Rashee Rice who has 10 catches, 108 yards and 7.7 yards per target. This is an issue when, say, someone on the team drops multiple first down targets in an opening week home loss.
It’s more obvious than ever there’s no clear second option behind Travis Kelce. If that’s something we’re worried about for Stefon Diggs’ Bills then it applies here. But, unlike Buffalo, the Chiefs have earned the benefit of the doubt with Super Bowl wins and AFC titles. Kansas City is also getting a top five defensive effort through three games after ranking 15th in EPA/play allowed last season, which further shrinks that worry zone.
So yeah, the Chiefs are a contender again — even if they’ve given us a little to worry about.
3
The Cleveland Browns have their house in order and the rest of the AFC is in trouble
Let’s cap off this theme with that other AFC team that’s 2-1 by virtue of two convincing wins. Sandwiched between a road loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers are 20-plus point victories in which the Browns held their opponent to a lone field goal. Deshaun Watson, whose arrival was marred by more than 20 accusations of sexual misconduct and what the NFL itself later described as “predatory behavior,” shook off his standing as the league’s 30th-best quarterback to play the best game of his Cleveland career against the Tennessee Titans in a 27-3 mollywhopping.
But Watson and the offense isn’t the headliner here. A defense that’s allowed exactly one touchdown in three games is. The Browns have long amassed intriguing young defensive talent, but 2023 marks the year they found the right balance of raw skill and veteran production. Through three games, Cleveland doesn’t just have a dominant defense; it has one of the best defenses the league has ever seen.
This is invaluable Watson insurance and potentially the backbone to the franchise’s first conference championship game appearance since 1989. The Browns may not have Nick Chubb, but if Watson can simply approach the heights he hit in Week 3 and his defense continues to suffocate opponents like a cloud of carbon dioxide over a flame this Cleveland team will be the best in decades.
Verdict: Trustable as a playoff team, after that…
The AFC North is filled with great rivalries, but the foremost among them may be Myles Garrett vs. TJ Watt in the battle for this year’s Defensive Player of the Year honor. Garrett remains a human that should not exist due to the laws of nature. He’s on pace for 25 sacks and 56 quarterback hits this year. He commands opposing blockers to shadow him on the field like a low-rent Marx Brothers bit.
Myles making #Titans send 2 guys chasing him back and forth pre snap lmao 🔥🔥🔥💀#DawgPound pic.twitter.com/x9V8uw43fG
— OG from CLE (@gmbuddyboy) September 24, 2023
This year he’s got some much needed support. Za’Darius Smith has yet to record a sack but he’s been a valuable cantilever to Garrett’s pass rush and contributes crucially in ways other edge rushing partners hadn’t. Here he stands up his blocker, throws him into Derrick Henry’s path and creates a tackle for loss that won’t show up on his stat sheet but will help an absolutely dominant unit.
yeahhhh Za'Darius Smith will do that to you pic.twitter.com/dm6arfEyXm
— Derrik Klassen (@QBKlass) September 25, 2023
Behind them, Denzel Ward is allowing only 48 percent of the passes thrown into his coverage to be caught. This would be more comparatively impressive if Martin Emerson hadn’t allowed only two catches on 13 targets to start the season (15.4 percent). Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah’s missed tackle rate has fallen for the second straight season (it’s currently at zero) and Sione Takitaki plays like a high-motor lunatic.
The point of this is to inflate the Browns before we get to Watson, who remains untrustable. Even if we include his Week 3 breakthrough against the league’s fifth- or seventh-worst passing defense, depending on which metric you’d like, the fact remains that the man Cleveland gave an unprecedented, fully guaranteed $230 million to has been decidedly below average since 2022.
There’s reason to believe Watson is better than that because he gave us ample evidence of this in Houston — albeit before a trade request, criminal investigation and league discipline kept him off the field for nearly two seasons. He’s also got Amari Cooper playing like the best version of himself at age 29 and is doing … something with Elijah Moore, who is on pace for 85 catches but only about 700 yards because his average target distance has dropped from 12 yards downfield as a misused Jet to eight yards downfield as a misused (?) Brown.
Watson needs those two to step up now that Chubb is out for what’s likely to be the rest of 2023. Cleveland only averaged 2.5 yards per carry last week, albeit against a Titans’ defense that’s been a top five unit against the run. This didn’t matter because Tennessee is a mess, but the next four weeks bring three games (and a bye) against top seven defenses in the Baltimore Ravens, San Francisco 49ers and Indianapolis Colts.
We’ll know pretty quickly whether this offense is viable and if Watson can approach his past performances. And if he can’t, well, the defense might be good enough to make the playoffs anyway.
4
Congratulations to the Chicago Bears, owner of two 2024 top three draft picks
The Bears are about to get through the month of September without winning a game. They’re going to get through the month of September without losing a game by less than double digits. Two of the quarterbacks they faced in this stretch were Jordan Love and Baker Mayfield.
October is extremely early to wave a white flag, particularly in what appears to be a down year for the NFC and a disheveled NFC North. But there are few signs of life in Chicago for a team that has proven incapable of playing to Justin Fields’ strengths or turning its young defensive players into anything more than a dropped casserole of potential. 2023 may merely be 14 more weeks of misery.
The good news is 2024 will set the stage for a teardown and rebuild, as the franchise can move away from head coach Matt Eberflus and set his successor up with two premium young talents. Per Tankathon, here’s how the 2024 NFL Draft order currently looks:
So, chin up Bears fans. You might be able to draft Caleb Williams AND Drake Maye next spring.
Verdict: Worst case scenario, it’ll probably be two top *five* picks
The Bears are going to lose games, because they are on a collision course with a full reset and own their own draft pick. The bigger question is how bad the Carolina Panthers can be, especially since losing doesn’t boost their Day 1 draft stock.
There’s good news there, specifically for Chicago and not the folks in Charlotte. The Panthers gave Young a steep learning curve behind a veteran corps of receivers who’ve struggled to create separation. He’s also playing behind an average offensive line that’s still waiting for potential franchise left tackle Ikem Ekwonu to turn his potential into star production.
Young is holding the ball way too long — his average time to throw is 3.14 seconds, second-highest in the NFL behind only discarded 1980s My Buddy doll Zach Wilson of the New York Jets. By these powers combined, the rookie has been sacked on roughly eight percent of his dropbacks and his 4.2 average yards per attempt rank dead last among starting quarterbacks. Even with modest improvements, it’s likely this is going to be a difficult offense to watch in 2023.
The Panthers could previously rely on a solid defense filled with budding young(ish) stars, but that hasn’t been the case so far. A unit that ranked 17th in EPA/play allowed in 2022 has backslid rather than step forward, falling to 24th this season and giving up 50 first downs and 57 points in its last two games. Carolina is once again generating pressure less often than it blitzes (23.5 percent to 24.5 percent) and the run defense is second-worst in the NFL.
That will improve slightly when Jaycee Horn returns from injury and Donte Jackson regresses back toward the mean, but it’s a problem. Carolina doesn’t have the chops to overcome a soundly below average offense. The Panthers won’t be the worst team in the NFL, but they’re gonna have to work to escape the bottom five.
