Geno Smith and rookie Ashton Jeanty are in active danger behind the crumbling Las Vegas Raiders line. The Cleveland Browns exploited the Green Bay Packers’ injuries up front and erased Jordan Love in the passing game. Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles clawed back into the game after losing Lane Johnson. The Indianapolis Colts are still scorching hot, while the Miami Dolphins defense is falling apart. From breakouts to breakdowns, these are the numbers that cut through the chaos of NFL Week 3.
59 Percent
Dropbacks in Which Geno Smith Faced Pressure
No quarterback has faced more pressure in a single game this season than Smith did in the Raiders’ 41-24 blowout loss to Washington on Sunday. Through the first three quarters, Smith was pressured on 64 percent of his dropbacks. He completed just 4-of-9 passes for 32 yards and took five sacks when pressured, and Las Vegas entered the fourth quarter trailing 34-10. Smith padded his overall stats with 165 passing yards and two touchdowns in garbage time, but the game never seemed close because of the mismatch between his offensive line and the Washington defense.
Commanders head coach Dan Quinn had a lot of success switching up his fronts, oftentimes walking linebackers Bobby Wagner and Frankie Luvu to the line of scrimmage and rushing his defensive linemen from different alignments. Wagner generated five pressures on just six (!) pass rushing snaps, including two plays in which he was left completely unblocked up the middle. Defensive tackle Daron Payne was a one-man wrecking crew, totaling a team-high seven pressures, and both Dorance Armstrong and 36-year-old Von Miller had multiple pressures against Raiders right tackle DJ Glaze. It was a lopsided beatdown; Las Vegas’s front five was overpowered, and the Raiders coaches were outschemed.
Left tackle Kolton Miller is still a relative bright spot for the Raiders up front, but Glaze is a clear liability, center Jordan Meredith is replacement level (at best), and four-year starter Dylan Parham is one of the lowest-graded guards in the league. Second-year guard Jackson Powers-Johnson was off the injury report after missing Week 2 with a concussion, but head coach Pete Carroll said that he wanted “continuity” after a short week and started veteran backup Alex Cappa again instead. Payne demolished Cappa for most of the game, and Cappa finished with the most pressures allowed of any guard in Week 3 (seven). Possibly compounding these issues is the fact that Pete and his son, offensive line coach Brennan Carroll, had moved Parham, Meredith, and Powers-Johnson to new positions before the season. The entire unit is a mess, one that neither of the Carrolls might be able to solve. The last time the two coached together in Seattle (2015-20), the team ranked dead last in pressure rate allowed. And even though Smith has faced pressure at the fourth-highest rate (43 percent) among starting quarterbacks this season, somehow, Raiders rookie running back Ashton Jeanty has had it worse.
68 Percent
Carries in Which Ashton Jeanty Was Hit at or Behind the Line of Scrimmage
The Raiders’ first-round pick running back has had flashes of brilliance, including multiple runs for 10-plus yards against Washington and a highlight-reel truck stick almost every week. But they’re still just flashes. His single-game high is 63 yards, and he’s totaled just 144 rushing yards on 47 carries (3.1 yards per carry). A more stunning stat is that he’s had 146 yards after contact. Yards after contact is measured starting from where the defender is first hit, even if that’s behind the line of scrimmage. The total is more than the yards from scrimmage only when the ball carrier is constantly getting hit in the backfield. The same offensive line that’s failing to keep Smith upright is also failing Jeanty on the ground. He’s been contacted at or behind the line of scrimmage on 68 percent of his carries, the highest rate in the league for any back with 30-plus rushes, and he ranks second to last in yards before first contact per attempt, at -0.04 yards. If you want to do the conversion here, that means that on average, Jeanty is running into contact 1.44 INCHES before the line of scrimmage. This ridiculous number is because of how much he’s getting hit way behind the line of scrimmage, like in these two hideous runs.
Of course, Jeanty isn’t blameless here. He’s been impatient when navigating blocks behind the line of scrimmage and has missed open rushing lanes. But it’s clear that the biggest issue for the Raiders offense overall is the offensive line. Jeanty won’t be the player the Raiders hoped he’d be when they drafted him sixth until he gets more help in the trenches.
50
Average Yards Gained per Indianapolis Colts Offensive Drive
No one predicted that Daniel Jones and the Colts would have the NFL’s best offense through the first three weeks, but here we are. Indy is averaging 50.3 yards per drive—10 more than any other team and the most for any offense in Weeks 1-3 in this millennium. It went without a punt in the first two games, and even after finally punting once against Tennessee in Week 3, it still has five fewer punts than any other team. The Colts also own the lowest three-and-out rate in the NFL (8 percent).
Jones has been decisive with the football and is comfortable from the pocket. Against the Titans, he layered a 16-yard strike to Alec Pierce over second-level defenders on the opening drive, spun away from a collapsing pocket for a 17-yard scramble on third down, and threaded a 20-yard touchdown to Michael Pittman Jr. in between zone defenders to extend a 27-6 lead. Pierce (6-foot-3) and Pittman (6-foot-4) are two big-bodied receivers, and Jones has taken full advantage of their size on downfield throws. Jones also hasn’t turned the ball over, has been sacked just twice, and ranks first in net yards per attempt (9.0) and second in EPA per dropback (0.36). He’s the first player in the Super Bowl era with three passing touchdowns, three rushing touchdowns, and zero turnovers in his first three games in a season.
It helps that Jonathan Taylor looks like the best running back in football again. He leads the league with 338 rushing yards and ranks second in yards after contact per attempt (4.35), behind the Lions’ David Montgomery (4.72). His 46-yard touchdown against Tennessee included four broken tackles, and he stiff-armed the Titans’ L’Jarius Sneed into the dirt on another highlight-reel play earlier in the game. Taylor is a load to bring down and looks as strong and explosive as ever. Rookie tight end Tyler Warren looks like a star in the making, ranking fifth in the NFL in yards after the catch (130), and he’s springing open big runs as a lead blocker, too. It’s the best situation and the best start to a season that Jones has had in his career, and it’s not close.
Can it last? We’ll have to wait and see. Indy will face its toughest test yet when it goes to Los Angeles to take on the Rams’ menacing defensive line in Week 4.
-2
Russell Wilson’s Passing Yards in Goal-to-Go Situations
Russell Wilson has been a disaster from inside the 10. Through three weeks, he’s completed just one pass on 12 goal-to-go dropbacks—a screen to Malik Nabers that lost 2 yards on the team’s first goal-to-go nightmare sequence in Week 1. Every other throw has been an incompletion or, worse, a throwaway. Against Washington in Week 2, he airmailed two passes and threw the ball away twice. Against Kansas City in Week 3, he somehow threw the ball away on first, third, and fourth down in the same series late in the fourth quarter—and was flagged for an intentional grounding penalty on the first-down throwaway.
It’s the kind of futility that makes Wilson’s 450-yard, three-touchdown outburst against Dallas in Week 2 seem irrelevant. That game was the exception; this is the trend. On Monday, head coach Brian Daboll wouldn’t commit to starting Wilson in Week 4 against the Chargers’ top-ranked defense (thank God). It’s hard to imagine rookie first-rounder Jaxson Dart being any worse. At this point, simply keeping the ball in play would be an upgrade.
Seventh
Where Marvin Harrison Jr. Ranks in Receiving Yards Among the 2024 Draft Picks
Marvin Harrison Jr. has had a frustrating start to the season. Against San Francisco in Week 3, he dropped a deep ball while running free downfield, and another pass clanged off his hands in the end zone. The latter play was wiped out by a defensive pass interference penalty away from the ball, so it won’t technically count as a drop, but still—another tough look for the former first-round pick. Harrison finished the game with just three catches for 44 yards. Against Carolina a week earlier, he dropped a pass on a potential third-down conversion and lost a jump ball in the end zone, exactly the kind of play he was expected to make when Arizona selected him as the first receiver off the board in last year’s draft. A handful of guys in his draft class have had much stronger starts this year.
Through three games, Harrison has had only 142 receiving yards. That puts him seventh among the 2024 draft’s pass catchers, trailing, among others, his fellow first-rounders Ricky Pearsall, Malik Nabers, and Rome Odunze and even the banged-up Brock Bowers. Nabers and Odunze look like the clear no. 1s in their offenses, while Harrison is still a second option after tight end Trey McBride in Arizona. One big game from Harrison would change all of these early-season numbers pretty quickly, but he’ll need a lot more than that to live up to his predraft hype. The competition for best receiver in the 2024 draft class looks a lot closer than it was billed to be when Harrison was the consensus-best prospect.
0.61
Caleb Williams’s EPA per Dropback, a New Career High
Caleb Williams put together the first commanding performance of his career on Sunday. He averaged 0.61 EPA per dropback against Dallas, the best mark of any quarterback in Week 3 and the highest single-game number of his young career. He now sits sixth leaguewide in EPA per dropback through three weeks, a steady climb from his shaky debut on opening night.
Much of the credit goes to head coach Ben Johnson, who delivered a master class in play calling. The Bears had receivers streaking open off play-action, trick plays, and well-timed shot calls. But Williams capitalized on every chance. He found Rome Odunze for a 35-yard touchdown on third-and-8 after Trevon Diggs stumbled when trying to press Odunze at the line. Then he delivered the throw of the day: a 65-yard touchdown on a flea flicker to rookie Luther Burden Jr. Next Gen Stats charted the throw at 62.1 yards in the air, the longest pass of Williams’s career and the longest by any quarterback this year.
It was the first game of Williams’s roller coaster professional career in which he wasn’t sacked, and he consistently climbed the pocket and made clean, confident decisions. The Cowboys defense has been abysmal all season, but that shouldn’t overshadow what mattered most: Williams finally looked like a quarterback who was in control of the offense.
1.9
Jordan Love’s Average Depth of Target Against Cleveland
Jordan Love’s average throw traveled less than 2 yards beyond the line of scrimmage in Sunday’s loss to the Browns—the lowest single-game mark of his career and the lowest by any quarterback this season. He didn’t complete a pass for more than 10 yards downfield until the fourth quarter, when Browns safety Grant Delpit was late and took a bad angle over the top of rookie receiver Matthew Golden. Love’s only other downfield throw—a go ball to Romeo Doubs, who was working against one-on-one coverage in the slot—isn’t in the stat sheet because Golden drew a 20-yard pass interference penalty on the play.
Everything else came underneath for the Packers’ passing game: slants, outs, checkdowns, and screens. Cleveland dictated that plan from the jump. Jim Schwartz’s defense lined up in two-high shells on 43 percent of snaps, his highest rate since 2023, and let the front four go to work. The Packers running backs averaged 2.5 yards per carry, the second-lowest rate in Week 3. Love was pressured on 45 percent of his dropbacks, with Myles Garrett, Maliek Collins, and rookie Mason Graham each recording four pressures against the banged-up Packers offensive line.
After missing Week 2 with an oblique injury, right tackle Zach Tom played just one snap before re-aggravating it, forcing the Packers to rotate linemen for the rest of the game. Cleveland took full advantage of the reshuffling, winning the battle up front.
Love wasn’t shying away from deep throws; the Browns just took them away. They gave up almost no downfield opportunities, and Love faced constant pressure, especially from the interior. It was an excellent game plan from Schwartz, coupled with stellar play from all three levels of the Cleveland defense.
32 Percent
Inaccurate Bo Nix Throws at or Beyond the First-Down Marker
Bo Nix has been scattershot when throwing downfield this season. Per TruMedia, Nix has the highest percentage of off-target throws at or beyond the sticks (32 percent) among starters. He’s completed just 38 percent of those throws and only 28 percent of his attempts of 15-plus yards, one of the lowest marks in the league.
Those issues were glaring against the Chargers on Sunday. Nix missed Marvin Mims twice on what should’ve been long touchdowns—sailing a flea flicker over both Mims and Troy Franklin when they were wide open, then overthrowing to an open Mims again in the end zone. His last failed deep shot came in the final two minutes, with the game tied 20-20. Courtland Sutton broke free down the sideline. Nix had a clean pocket, but the ball sailed too far (again), a miss that likely cost Denver a chance at a go-ahead field goal. CBS’s cameras caught him on the sideline afterward appearing to say, “I had so many chances today.”
72 Percent
Sam Darnold’s New Career-High Dropback Success Rate
Sam Darnold delivered the most efficient game of his career in Seattle’s blowout win against New Orleans. He posted a 72.2 percent dropback success rate and 0.90 EPA per dropback—the highest marks for any quarterback with 15-plus dropbacks in a game this season. Darnold completed 7-of-9 passes, throwing 10-plus yards downfield for 158 yards and two touchdowns: a 45-yarder to Jaxon Smith-Njigba and a dime to Tory Horton on a go route for a 14-yard score. Darnold, unsurprisingly, has thrived with play-action. After calling just two such plays in Week 1, Seattle has used it 17 times across the past two games. Darnold now ranks third in success rate on play-action dropbacks.
The Seahawks didn’t need Darnold to carry them against New Orleans—two special teams swings and a dominant defensive performance set the tone—but it’s still encouraging to see him play such a clean game. Of course, a career day for Darnold could easily be a blip, especially since it came against the struggling Saints defense on New Orleans’s first road trip of the season. But Smith-Njigba (who leads the league in yards per route run) looks like a legitimate breakout star, and Mike Macdonald’s defense is one of the best units in the league. The Seahawks rank second in explosive play rate allowed (5.5 percent) and first in points allowed per drive (1.3). Darnold could be a lot worse (as we know), and Seattle should still be competitive from week to week.
41.1 Percent
The Miami Dolphins’ Pass Defense Success Rate—the Worst in the NFL
The Dolphins defense is a bigger problem than Tua Tagovailoa and Mike McDaniel’s offense right now. The Daniel Jones–led Colts famously didn’t punt against the Dolphins in Week 1, the Patriots’ Drake Maye had a career day in Miami in Week 2, and the Bills bowled over the Miami defense in a 31-21 win on Thursday Night Football in Week 3. Buffalo’s big men up front, including rookie blocking tight end Jackson Hawes, dominated in the trenches, and running back James Cook was a menace when cutting back on outside zone and gashing through the second level for chunk gains. Josh Allen was comfortable taking what the Miami defense gave him, completing a week-high 79 percent of his (mostly short) passes for just 213 yards and three touchdowns. Everything looked easy for the Bills, the same as it’s been for every offense the Dolphins have faced this season. The Miami defense ranks 32nd in defensive success rate (49 percent). It also ranks dead last in opponent yards (41.9) and points (3.6) allowed per drive. No defense gets this bad without a multitude of issues, but the biggest by far is the injury bug running rampant among the defensive backs.
Cornerbacks Kader Kohou and Artie Burns suffered season-ending injuries within days of each other in training camp. Cam Smith, another cornerback, is on the non-football injury list. Starting cornerback Storm Duck suffered an ankle injury in the second quarter of the opener against Indy and missed the next two games. Safety Ifeatu Melifonwu went down in Week 2 and missed the Buffalo beatdown. And rookie fifth-rounder Jason Marshall left the Bills game with a hamstring injury after giving up a first down on third-and-2 halfway through the second quarter. The constants in the Miami secondary this season—cornerbacks Rasul Douglas and Jack Jones and eight-year veteran safety Minkah Fitzpatrick—are all new to Anthony Weaver’s defense in 2025. The back end is a mess. Any defense battered to this degree by injuries will struggle with coverage busts. The defensive line, however, doesn’t have the same excuse.
Miami has used first-round picks on defensive linemen in three of the past five drafts, and it traded its 2023 first-round pick to the Broncos for Bradley Chubb. All four players—Chubb, edge defenders Jaelan Phillips and Chop Robinson, and defensive tackle Kenneth Grant—are healthy. But other than Phillips, who has a team-high nine pressures this season, they have not been delivering. Weaver is blitzing on 43 percent of opponent dropbacks—the highest rate in the league and more than double their rate in Weeks 1-3 last year—yet the Dolphins rank 32nd in pressure rate when blitzing (27 percent). Miami also ranks 31st in pressure rate overall. No one other than Phillips is consistently winning, blitzes aren’t getting home, and the secondary is an injury-battered nightmare. It’s a burn-the-tape situation week in and week out.
-10
The Philadelphia Eagles’ Yards on Their First Six Drives Without Lane Johnson
The Eagles had a 7-0 first-quarter lead against the Rams on Sunday after Jalen Hurts turned a Zack Baun interception into points by converting two fourth downs and bowling into the end zone on a tush push. But then the game got flipped on its head. Star right tackle Lane Johnson suffered a neck injury on that touchdown tush push and was unable to return to the game. The Philly offense proceeded to lose a total of 10 yards on its next six possessions. It went three-and-out four straight times, took a knee (for negative yardage) at the end of the first half, and then lost the ball on a sack-fumble on the second play of the third quarter. During that time, the Rams scored 26 consecutive points and led by 19 … until the Eagles figured out how to replace Johnson in the second half.
Matt Pryor, originally drafted by the Eagles in the sixth round in 2018 before bouncing around the league a bit, had initially replaced Johnson. He played right tackle on those six possessions in which the Eagles went backward. It wasn’t all Pryor’s fault, of course, as the rest of the offensive line also struggled to create any room for Saquon Barkley on the ground against the talented Rams defensive line. Still, Los Angeles had success when blitzing defensive backs to Pryor’s side, including when safety Jaylen McCollough came unblocked on third-and-8 and leveled Hurts for a sack on one of the four three-and-outs. Rams defensive end Jared Verse beat Pryor for the sack-fumble to start the third quarter, and Pryor just watched as his team tried and failed to recover the loose ball. The Eagles benched Pryor and replaced him with Fred Johnson on their ensuing possession, and all of a sudden, the offense started to click.
Hurts had just 17 passing yards before Fred Johnson came in; he threw for 199 yards and three touchdowns after. Now, PFF graded Pryor higher on his 15 snaps than Fred Johnson on his 42, but don’t tell Eagles Twitter that. Johnson was credited with one sack allowed and was given a low run blocking grade, but you could sense the vibe shift when he came on the field. He didn’t allow a strip-sack like Pryor did, so I guess that’s an upgrade. But, more seriously, Hurts and the Eagles’ top-flight receivers were the ones who turned it on in the second half. DeVonta Smith won on an out route from the slot on fourth-and-goal for the go-ahead touchdown, and A.J. Brown bullied the Rams’ smaller cornerbacks in one-on-one situations on multiple clutch third-down conversions. It was a much-needed resurgence from their stars, including Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter, who blocked those Rams kicks, at the right time. One half isn’t enough to make us forget how underwhelming the offense has been to start the season, and the run game is still off to a puzzling start (Barkley is averaging 3.1 yards per carry, and his longest rush is just 16 yards). But it did seem like Philly got some of its mojo back.
