NFL Sunday Week 3 Takeaways: Chiefs’ Problems; Browns’ Offensive Woes; Frustrating Caleb

• Our NFL Sunday Week 3 takeaways, recap, and analysis look at the Chiefs, the Browns (again), and the Bears’ Caleb Williams
• The Chiefs squeaked by the Giants, but did not look good doing it. Why? It’s a simpler answer than you think.
• What if the Browns had an offense to go along with their defense?
• Caleb Williams was brilliant against the Cowboys, magnifying how frustrating he is

The Chiefs’ Primary Issue Is Not a Mystery

The Chiefs beat the Giants 22-9 on Sunday Night Football, but the game was uncomfortably close, particularly with how bad the Giants are. Late in the game, Tyquan Thornton’s magical catch at the goal line sealed the deal.

Patrick Mahomes had a passable performance despite missing several open receivers, including an uncatchable pass to an open Travis Kelce.

Their rushing attack has been nonexistent. Isiah Pacheco has not been close to the burgeoning star he was before his leg injury last season.

Defensively, they effectively contained Malik Nabors and Wan’Dale Robinson. It seemed to be a tacit plan to focus on preventing Russell Wilson from throwing the ball downfield and tolerating the running game, safe in the presumption that they’d eventually pull it out.

So what’s wrong with the Chiefs?

Some point to injuries to key players like Xavier Worthy and the absence of Rashee Rice. Others look at the difficult schedule in the first two weeks, losing to the Chargers and Eagles.

But the reality is that the Chiefs have won so much in the Mahomes era that, counting the postseason, they have played an extra season-and-a-half since 2019.

They’re not young. Mahomes just turned 30; Kelce is 36; Chris Jones is 31. They have replenished the roster with ancillary players to surround the stars, but none are outright replacements to take the load off three Hall of Famers.

Complacency is also an issue. So too is the hunger that the teams they’ve held off in the past six years, the Bills and Ravens, plus the rising Chargers. In 2024, they won tight games early in the season, then turned it on late to get to another Super Bowl. But this is comparable to the Vince Lombardi Packers, where everyone aged at the same time, and they were completely wrung out.

That, more than any subpar play, off-field drama, and injuries, is leading to their slow start.

Their over/under wins are 9.5. Will they right the ship to get beyond it?

The Browns Need to Find an Offense

Apart from a dreadful second half against the Ravens, the Browns’ defense has been superlative against two big-time offenses in the Bengals and the Packers. They should have beaten Cincinnati in Week 1. In Week 3, they scored 10 points in the final three minutes to beat Green Bay.

They held Jordan Love to 183 yards passing and sacked him 5 times. Josh Jacobs was limited to 30 yards on 16 carries. He added 44 yards on 5 catches. The Packers’ wide receiving corps was muted.

Cleveland is being carried by its defense under well-regarded defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz.

While the Packers’ defense is one of the league’s best, the Bengals’ defense is not. At what point do the Browns look at quarterback Joe Flacco and say that his status as a stationary target deprives them of a weapon they have in either Dillon Gabriel or Shedeur Sanders: Both can move from the pocket.

Flacco leads the league in passing attempts with 126. He’s got 2 TD passes and 4 picks. His passer rating is 65.9. It’s simply not good enough. The Browns took Shedeur, whom they didn’t want, in the fifth round, two rounds after they took Gabriel, whom they did want.

Head coach Kevin Stefanski is in danger of being fired and has a team that may be better than their projections because of Schwartz’s defense, an excellent secondary led by Denzel Ward, and a wrecking machine pass rusher, Myles Garrett.

This isn’t advocating that they go to Shedeur, because they’re not going to unless the owner tells them to. But if they want Gabriel to be the QB of the future, maybe the future is now. They won’t do it after a win, but it’s something to consider for the greater good and to maximize that defense.

Did Caleb Turn the Corner or Will He Regress Again?

Caleb Williams can bounce from frustrating and aggravating to brilliant, making clear why he was viewed as such a transcendental player even at USC. The Bears lost their first two games of the 2025 season under new head coach Ben Johnson. Williams was maddeningly inconsistent amid growing pronouncements that he’s a bust.

Then, in Week 3 against the Cowboys, he painted a masterpiece, completing 19 of 28 passes for 298 yards, 4 TDs, and no picks.

It needs to be put in context that it was against the Cowboys, who, in Week 2, were shredded by the Giants. Still, he could just as easily have missed those receivers, flung that ball all over the place, and looked around like he was desperately searching for answers as to why the NFL isn’t as easy as it was for him at USC.

For Williams, it can revert to the same struggles and questions at a moment’s notice. But this game was evidence that he can do it.

NFL Sunday Week 3 Takeaways

The NFL Sunday Week 3 takeaways show that the Chiefs, Browns, and Bears still have questions to answer, but there are clear answers. How they respond will be determined in the coming weeks.

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