Week 3 Wrap Week 4 Preview

 Welcome to the TotallyGruntled Pro Football blog, where we discuss Pro Football in a different way.   What you will see here are not power rankings, how to bet or who to play in your fantasy league.  This is more team, schedule and win/loss trends across the league.  

It's a late start but after 3 weeks of NFL games, it is clear that the new(er) kickoff rules has led to a lot of  scoring especially late in games.  Tampa Bay has scored in the last minute of each of their 3 games to ultimately win (although they had to hold their breath on a late Falcons field goal that would have tied game 1.)  Lucky or good?  Similarly Philadelphia has held a late lead and has had to stave off drives by their opponents, including a FG try by the Rams last Sunday that was blocked and run back for a touchdown.  And we all remember the week 2 game between the Giants and Cowboys who together scored on their last 9 possessions of regulation for a total of 51 points.   Then it took 5 possessions for someone to score in OT. 

On Sunday, the Chargers, Browns, Buccaneers, and 49ers all won a last second Field Goal.  The Rams would have been the 5th had it not been blocked.  The Packers by the way, won by 2 scores against two 2024 playoff teams (Lions and Commanders) and could only manage 10 points against the Browns. 

The Chargers have probably gotten off to the best possible start of all the teams, by playing and beating all 3 of their division opponents.  9 other teams have played 2 divisional opponents with Buffalo the only team to go 2-0 in their division.  Miami, Cleveland, Chicago, NY Giants, and Atlanta are currently 0-2. 

6 Teams are off to 3-0 starts--Bills, Colts, Chargers, Eagles, 49ers, and Buccaneers.  Two of those teams, Eagles and Buccaneers will face off in Tampa this week.  

6 Teams are 0-3--Jets, Dolphins, Texans, Titans, Saints and Giants.  Titans and Texans face off on Sunday while the Jets and Dolphins will play in an electric Monday night game. (Good thing there's a second simultaneous MNF game Bengals (2-1) at Broncos (1-2). 

In winless vs undefeated competition, The Bills host the Saints, and Chargers go to the Giants. 

There are other games that look interesting. Two AFC playoff teams from last year, Ravens and Chiefs take their 1-2 records into Arrowhead. One team will get their 2nd win, while the other will get their 3rd loss.  (Wouldn't this have been a better SNF matchup than last week's Giants/Chiefs matchup?  I'm sure there are television reasons why that happened. At least it's a (mostly) national game, like the Eagles/Chiefs a couple of weeks ago. 

The surprising 3-0 Colts take on the stunned Rams in LA that is NOT a national game, but if you're lucky enough to be in New Orleans!? you will be able to see it outside the LA and Indy markets. 

Speaking of SNF, the Packers will go to Dallas to play the Cowboys. This was scheduled before the Micah Parsons trade, and I'm certain that trade will only be mentioned a handful of times.  

49ers/Jaguars could be an interesting game in figuring out which team could be real.  Both struggled last year, but are off to good starts this year. 

The Minnesota Vikings embark on a two-city international road trip--a first for the NFL, as they head to Dublin this Sunday to take on the Steelers, followed by a trip to London to play the Browns, before their bye week in week 6.  This will be the 2nd and 3rd international games of the season after the Brazil game with the Chiefs and Chargers.  International games will continue through week 11 with the exception of week 8, so get used to the Sunday Quadruple Headers!  

Should be another fun week!