Did National Weekend Day come early this year?
You’ll certainly feel like you’ve been stuck in NFL action all day Sunday. In fact, tight ends accounted for 20 of the touchdowns scored in Sunday’s 13 games, which was the most touchdowns scored by a league-wide tight end in a single day in NFL history.
Unfortunately, for all the close games they scored over the weekend, only one of them could be our Week 3 all-star team. As we pick our best players from each position and the team’s best offensive line performance over the weekend, here are our Week 3 stars.
For all the talk about injured 49ers receivers, Brock Purdy has been amazing to open the season. He has nine touchdown passes against one interception for a league-best 133.1 passer rating, 17 points higher than anyone else. He threw for 279 yards and four touchdowns without a touchdown as the 49ers held off the Cardinals to improve to 3-0. Mike Evans is injured right now, so there is even less talent to throw to.
It wasn’t a big week for the quarterbacks, though. Marcus Mariota (three touchdown passes, no picks) was probably the next best option, filling in for Jayden Daniels and leading the Washington Commanders to an upset win over the Seattle Seahawks.
Those were seemingly the top two picks in every fantasy football draft, and this week was a reminder why. Jahmyr Gibbs and Bijan Robinson had big games with 25-plus touches each.
Gibbs rushed 20 times for 99 yards and two touchdowns while catching seven passes for 65 and another score in the Detroit Lions’ win over the New York Jets. That came after Robinson had a big game Thursday, rushing for 194 yards on 29 carries and two touchdowns to help the Atlanta Falcons stun the Green Bay Packers on the road.
Kenneth Walker III nearly landed on this list for the third straight week, rushing for two touchdowns in the Kansas City Chiefs’ win over the Miami Dolphins. Derrick Henry also rushed for two touchdowns this weekend, helping the Baltimore Ravens beat the Dallas Cowboys in Brazil as he nearly earned his second All-Star Week nod of the season.
No defiant tone evident here, as there was in the quarterback. Jaxon Smith-Njigba actually missed, so his 10 catches for 128 yards and two scores could be vulnerable, but the biggest yardage plays were of the zero-TD variety. This marks the third straight game Smith-Njigba has recorded at least 120 receiving yards.
And it’s wild to have two Falcons on this team, but Drake London had 194 receiving yards in Thursday’s game against the Packers, clicking with Michael Penix Jr. in the third-year quarterback’s first start of the season. So even without a score, London gets the nod over Cincinnati Bengals standout Tee Higgins (six catches for 90 yards and a touchdown in a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers).
As we mentioned earlier, it was a monster day for tight ends across the league, with a record 20 catches at the position. The Las Vegas Raiders-New Orleans Saints game had six tight ends!
But we’ll give the nod to George Kittle, who had six catches for 82 and two scores. It was tempting to look to Cleveland Browns second-year standout Harold Fannin (51 yards, two touchdowns in a win over the Carolina Panthers) or the healthy return of Raiders star Brock Bowers, who was 10 for 116 and a score as Las Vegas improved to 3-0. Still, it was a proud week of tight ends everywhere.
Let’s say we really considered going 12 personnel here and doubling the tight ends instead of the receivers.
OL: Jacksonville Jaguars
There were actually quite a few zero-sack performances from the offensive lines this week, as we could have easily gone to the Ravens, 49ers, Chiefs or Falcons that way.
For complete dominance, we’ll go with the Jacksonville Jaguars and their starting five (left to right) of Anton Harrison, Emmanuel Pregnon, Robert Hainsey, Ezra Cleveland and Cole Van Lanen, controlling the line in a 35-6 rout of the New England Patriots. The Jaguars rushed for 137 yards on 30 carries and Trevor Lawrence had just one sack on 30 returns. Jacksonville has the second-best point differential in the league at plus-46 behind only San Francisco, and its line has been a solid part of that.
Greg Rousseau continues to put up big numbers every week, with two more sacks to give him a league-leading six on the season. He also had four tackles for loss and three QB hits in the Buffalo Bills’ win over the Los Angeles Chargers, so he leads the position here.
There were also plenty of convincing plays by defensive linemen and edge rushers on missed tackles. Cincinnati Bengals defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, Houston Texans running back Will Anderson Jr. and New Orleans Saints Chase Young all had multi-sack days, with Anderson leading that group with 2.5 sacks.
But we’ll go with Mason Graham, who now has four sacks in three games after totaling 0.5 sacks as a rookie. He had two sacks in the Browns’ win over the Carolina Panthers. That defense is a surprising part of Cleveland’s 2-1 start, showing they can generate pressure without Myles Garrett.
The Raiders continue to prove their success with each win, and Nakobe Dean was all over them on Sunday. He had 12 tackles, a tackle for loss and a forced fumble, with that fumble serving as the game-tying seal in their win over the Saints.
You can make a case for 49ers star Fred Warner racking up 17 tackles in the San Francisco win, but 12 of those came on gains of 5 yards or more. Also considered: Vikings linebacker Eric Wilson, who had 10 tackles and 1.5 sacks as a key part of Minnesota’s six-sack day.
Talanoa Hufanga is the runaway winner here. He had the game-sealing interception in the end zone after a pick-six in the final five minutes to put the Denver Broncos ahead. Doing so against the Los Angeles Rams and Matthew Stafford is no easy task, and if the Broncos are able to return to the top of the AFC West, this is the kind of comeback win that will be remembered, with Hufanga at the center of this wild finish.
Minnesota won with its defense in Tampa on Sunday, but Price’s 86-yard touchdown on a punt return gave the Vikings an early 10-0 lead and helped put the Bucs in an early hole. Special teams had been a strong suit for the Bucs in their first two games, but Price’s scoring was ultimately the difference in a hard-fought, six-point final margin of victory.
