Trending 📉 📈 after NFL’s third Sunday, and the Vikings keep rolling

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Good morning. Sam Darnold and Justin Fields are 3-0, while Andy Dalton looks like an All-Pro and the uncuttable Deshaun Watson — who makes nearly triple all three combined, with a dead cap hit of $172.7 million next year — is arguably the league’s worst quarterback. Wow.

Today:

• Week 3 risers/fallers
• Kevin O’Connell’s contract
• Stats of the Week
• Tonight’s Doubleheader

Trending

After Week 3, we finally have enough information to confirm prior takes. Either “they are who we thought they were,” as Dennis Green once said or — like Bo Nix and the Broncos beating the previously 2-0 Buccaneers — we get a big surprise.

Yes, the Bears need a new offensive coordinator. No, the Saints aren’t unstoppable. The stock report after Week 3:

Week 3 risers 📈

Sam Darnold and the 3-0 Vikings. Minnesota entered as 1.5-point underdogs to the Texans, but exited with a statement 34-7 win and legitimate contender status. Darnold had four touchdown passes, returning after an injury scare to MVP chants, and Brian Flores’ dominant, blitz-heavy defense caused the first two interceptions of C.J. Stroud’s season. They face another test in Green Bay (2-1) next week.

Pittsburgh and Seattle are 3-0, too. The Steelers’ defense limited the 2-1 Chargers to negative-five yards in the entire second half and has allowed just 8.7 points per game (leads the league), but Justin Fields’ accuracy was the difference in a 20-10 win. Next week: the 1-2 Colts.

I’m less sold on the Seahawks, who are league leaders in defensive EPA per play but (barely) beat the Broncos 26-20 in Bo Nix’s debut, then (barely) beat the Patriots in overtime 23-20 before handling the Skylar Thompson-led Dolphins 24-3. Geno Smith and the offense struggled yesterday. Next week: the 2-1 Lions.

Malik Nabers. The Giants first-round pick became the first player to need just three career games to reach 20 catches (23, actually) and three touchdowns. He caught eight for 78 yards and two touchdowns in yesterday’s 21-15 win over 1-2 Cleveland. (Great discussion about Nabers on “The Athletic Football Show” Week 3 recap at the one-hour mark.) Unfortunately for Giants fans, Nabers might be good enough to save Daniel Jones’ career. Just look:

Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford. Down Cooper Kupp, Puka Nacua and a host of other starters, as well as being down 10 points in the fourth quarter, the duo somehow positioned the Rams to hit a 37-yard game-winning field goal with five seconds left in regulation. In beating the 49ers 27-24, the 1-2 Rams completed what Jourdan Rodrigue noted was their biggest second-half comeback since 2006.

Week 3 fallers 📉

Two NFC favorites. After two consecutive losses each, the 49ers and Cowboys are both 1-2.

49ers: 

• Though Brock Purdy — who finished 21-of-29 passing for 258 yards and three touchdowns — was sharp, San Francisco desperately needs Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel and George Kittle back. Health aside, as Marcus Thompson II writes, this team needs to get it together.

Cowboys:

• For Dallas, a formerly vaunted defense can’t stop the run, allowing 274 yards to the Ravens this week after the Saints posted 190 yards. Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence were frustrated during (and after) a 28-6 fourth-quarter comeback attempt fell short, ending 28-25. HC Mike McCarthy called the team a “work in progress.” Jon Machota has more takeaways here.

Two former 2-0 teams. The once-unstoppable Saints are now a more reasonable 2-1 after their offense struggled in a 15-12 loss to the Eagles. Meanwhile, the Chiefs are 3-0, but as Zak Keefer notes in his Week 3 learnings, they have won by a combined 13 points, escaping last night’s 22-17 win over the 1-2 Falcons thanks to their defense (and pass interference, again).

Will Levis, though his memes continue trending upward. In Week 1, it was the surrender cobra after a pick-six. Week 2, the falling fumble. This week, we saw whatever this was as the Titans fell to 0-3. Levis leads the league with eight turnovers through three games, and was outdueled by his former backup Malik Willis and the Packers 30-14.

What Dianna’s Hearing: In O’Connell they trust — just ask opposing coaches

The Vikings’ rise comes one year after they stayed in the playoff chase despite a revolving door of three different starting quarterbacks, including midseason acquisition Joshua Dobbs, after Kirk Cousins’ achilles tear.

It’s why, with teams across the NFL so often struggling to develop quarterbacks, Kevin O’Connell is the early front-runner for Coach of the Year. As one opposing defensive coach put it to me: “I’d trust Kevin O’Connell more than anyone in our league to get the most out of his quarterback.”

It’s also why Vikings ownership will have to show him some love sooner rather than later. O’Connell’s current deal expires after the 2025 season, so there’s time. But keep in mind that the Dolphins moved to sign Mike McDaniel, whose original contract also ran through 2025, before this season, while the Vikings chose to wait.

Back to you, Jacob.

Three telling stats for Week 3

If a picture is worth a thousand words, stats tell the entire story. Here are three for Week 3:

11 catches, 175 yards and three touchdowns for Jauan Jennings. Given all the injuries in SF, we expected a monster game from Brandon Aiyuk. Instead, Jennings had the best game by a 49ers receiver since Jerry Rice in 1995, per Matt Barrows. His 276 receiving yards rank third this season, just ahead of Justin Jefferson’s 273.

319 passing yards, three touchdowns for Andy Dalton. The 36-year-old was excellent in Carolina’s 36-22 road win over the Raiders. As Mike Sando notes in his Pick Six column, “Bryce Young’s tape through two games was so bad that it should have taken intervention from ownership to keep him in the lineup.” Now it’d probably take something even more drastic to get Young back in, as it’s clear Dave Canales made the right decision. Next up: Dalton’s revenge game against the 0-2 Bengals.

Tonight’s Doubleheader: Jags-Bills, Commanders-Bengals

Tonight marks our first Monday doubleheader of the year, with the schedule as follows:

7:30 p.m. ET: Jaguars at Bills (ESPN): Jacksonville is 0-2, losing close games to Miami and Cleveland, while Buffalo sits at 2-0 as 5.5-point favorites, per BetMGM. Expect this to be closer than projected. As for who to watch, check on the Bills’ best-kept secret.

8:15 p.m. ET: Commanders at Bengals (ABC): A battle of two quarterbacks who took eerily similar paths to the NFL, as Jayden Daniels and Joe Burrow weren’t top draft prospects until their surprise Heisman years upon transferring to LSU.

Before we go, can anyone explain why a QB who can still make throws like this wasn’t already a starter somewhere?

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(Photo: Ian Maule / Getty Images)