VITO'S VIEWS

Last year, the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals all didn’t make the AFC title game, ending a streak in which one or two of them made it to the AFC title game six years in a row.

Going into Week 3, all three of them are 2-0 and all three are favored to make it to a 3-0 start.

Kansas City is a heavy favorite to rout Miami, Buffalo is favored to beat the Chargers and Cincinnati is favored in a division game against the Steelers.

The fourth 2-0 AFC team, the Raiders, plays at New Orleans, but they are unlikely to be a contender even if they win. Since they are in a division with the Chiefs and Broncos, their best hope is to be a wild card team.

The weekend started Thursday night with Atlanta upsetting Green Bay as the Falcons showed what a difference it makes for them to have Michael Penix Jr. back in the lineup.

With Penix at quarterback and Bijan Robinson carrying the running game, the Falcons are suddenly in the division race with the Bucs, Panthers and Saints.

Going into the game, there were complaints about the Falcons having three prime time games in a row. Now they are a team worth watching.

Meanwhile, the Packers at 1-2 are one of the most disappointing teams in the league with five prime time games left on their schedule. The league obviously didn’t expect them to get off to a slow start like this.    

–The Sunday night game pits the Rams at Denver with both teams at 1-1 in what figures to be a good game. The Monday night game features the Eagles at Chicago, who will be without Caleb Williams. He was hurt last week and veteran Case Keenum will make his first start since 2023. While this gives the Eagles the edge, the game may be close because the Eagles have a habit of winning ugly.

–Baltimore plays Dallas in the CBS doubleheader game Sunday afternoon in Brazil and both teams have to be concern about the condition of the field because of all the reports that it is not in good shape. Both teams hope to get out of the game without a major injury.

–One of the best games of the day will be pitting New England at Jacksonville. Both teams were surprise division winners last year and the Patriots made it to the Super Bowl. Both teams are 1-1. But CBS will only show the game in New England and the Jacksonville area.

–Jameis Winston is now the starter for the for the Giants since Jaxson Dart was lost for the year last week. He faces second year quarterback Cam Ward of Tennessee. Winston wants to show he can still be a starting quarterback in the league. Ward is trying to show he has a long term future with the Titans.

After two weeks, there are eight teams – four in each conference – that started off 2-0 and have a 70 percent chance of making the playoffs.

There are eight teams—five in the AFC and three in the NFC that started off 0-2 and have a 25 percent chance of making the playoffs.

The AFC 2-0 teams are the Bills, Bengals, Chiefs and Raiders. The five 0-2 AFC teams are are the Texans, Colts, Chargers, Dolphins and Titans. The four 2-0 NFC teams are the 49ers, Seahawks, Vikings and Eagles. The three 0-2 NFC teams are the Falcons, Bucs and Commanders. The Falcons have primetime games the next three weeks.

–The best of the 1-1 teams is the Rams, who bounced back from the opening game loss to the 49ers in Australia to beat the Giants, 28-6. The Rams were helped when Jaxson Dart went down early and backup Jameis Winston was ineffective. Rams coach Sean McVay said he now doesn’t want to return to Australia after his decision to fly in the day before the game backfired. His players looked like they didn’t want to play in this one.

–Three quarterbacks, Dart, Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels, were hurt in Week 2 after Sam Darnold and Kyler Murray were hurt in Week 1. A sixth team, the Falcons, didn’t have their top two quarterbacks, Michael Penix Jr. and Tua Tagovailoa ready for the opener. Penix and Murray return this week, but the NFL’s attempt to protect quarterbacks isn’t working too well.

–Joe Burrow took a beating in the win over the Texans and as he was sacked five times and hit a total of 10 times. One of the hits knocked a rib out of place but another hit by Will Anderson popped it back into place, Burrow told Anderson after the game. Who knows if it really did but the Bengals have to do a better job of protecting Burrow because he has a history of being sidelined by injuries.

— The 49ers were the biggest favorite in the elimination pools and they turned out to be a good choice because they routed the Dolphins, 35-13. The Chiefs may be a good pick for Week 3 because they play the Dolphins. The biggest favorite in Week 1, the Chargers, lost to the Cardinals and knocked a lot of players out of the elimination pools.

–The Jaguars had their nine-game regular season win streak snapped when they lost to the Broncos, a team they beat late last season. But they are still in good position to win the division because the other three teams are 0-2. They play the 1-1 Patriots on Sunday and are favored by three. The Patriots beat the Steelers, 20-3, in Week 2 but their offense didn’t look that good. Coach Mike Vrabel was in no mood to answer questions about their offense, saying he wasn’t going to let reporters to ruin the victory. Sounded like a Patriots coach, but at least he didn’t say “We’re on to Jacksonville.”

–After the Bears routed the Panthers in the opener, 59-37, coach Ben Johnson said he wanted to set a scoring record this year. But his team got only nine points in a 9-3 loss to the Vikings and Williams got hurt. He is supposed to be an offensive guru but maybe his offense isn’t as good as he thought it was. Or it couldn’t handle Brian Flores blitzing defense.

The second week of the season would seem to be too early for critical games, but the 16 teams that lost their openers have huge incentive to avoid an 0-2 start.

Teams that start 0-2 have only a 25 percent chance of making the playoffs. A team that starts 2-0 has a 70 percent chance.

–Three games match teams that lost their openers – Panthers at Falcons, Browns at Buccaneers and Commanders at Cowboys — so the losers start off 0-2. The Titans, who host the Eagles, and the Dolphins, who are at the 49ers, are big underdogs and figure to start off 0-2. San Francisco is the most popular pick in the elimination pools.

–The Bills became the first team to start off 2-0 when they beat the Lions on Thursday night.

–There are two other primetime games with the Colts at the Chiefs on Sunday night and the Giants at the Rams on Monday night. The Rams are trying to bounce back from their embarrassing game against the 49ers in Australia.

–Fox has the doubleheader game and more than half the country will see Washington at Dallas with Seattle at Arizona and Miami at San Francisco dividing up the West Coast audience, although the Dolphins, of course, will be shown in Miami.

–The best late game may be the Jaguars at the Broncos, but it is a CBS game that will be shown mainly in the western part of the country. The Jaguars bring a nine-game regular season win streak that includes a win at Denver late last year into the game, while Denver is trying to avoid an 0-2 start after losing to the Chiefs last week.

–The best early game may be the Bengals at the Texans with Joe Burrow going against the Houston defense that was shredded by Josh Allen last week.

–After losing the Super Bowl last year, the Patriots also play a big game hosting the Steelers as they try to avoid an 0-2 start. CBS is putting its top crew of Jim Nantz and J.J. Watt on the game.

A season after going 6-11 and losing Patrick Mahomes late in the year with a ACL injury, the Chiefs finally decided it was time to give Mahomes a running game. And their signing of Kenneth Walker III was a master stroke.

Last year’s Super Bowl MVP  ran 23 times for 173 yards to beat the Broncos, 31-10. Now Mahomes doesn’t have to carry the team, even though he made a remarkable comeback to be ready for the opener.

Instead of waiting for the swelling to go down, Mahomes had surgery immediately and got a fast start to his rehab. He even ran the ball seven times. It wasn’t a vintage Mahomes performance, but he was good enough.

Since there isn’t a dominant team in the AFC, the Chiefs are back in the Super Bowl conversation and Mahomes has a shot at becoming just the sixth quarterback in history to win four Super Bowls in a decade along with Sid Luckman, Otto Graham, Bart Starr, Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana. And it would give him a 4-2 record in six Super Bowls (Tom Brady was also 4-2 after his first six and went 3-1 in his last four).

Of course, the Chiefs will have plenty of competition with Buffalo, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Houston and the winner of this week’s Jacksonville-Denver game all looking good enough to be super.

More observations on the first weekend of the season:

–The big losers were the Rams, Patriots, Chargers (who lost as the biggest favorite against the Cardinals and knocked countless players out of their elimination pools), Cowboys, Packers and Colts. All were expected to be contenders but if any of them lose this weekend, they fall to 0-2, and teams with 0-2 starts historically make the playoffs only 25 percent of the time.

–Josh Allen again looked like a strong early MVP contender by shredding the Texans defense for 36 points but he needed a dropped interception just before his game-winning touchdown pass to win it because the Bills gave up 31 points. Buffalo has to play better defense if Allen is to finally get to a Super Bowl.

–Both Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow got off to good starts as the Ravens beat the Colts, 41-23, and the Bengals edged the Bucs, 33-27.

–The Saints looked competitive as they came back from a 21-0 deficit to barely lose to the Lions, 31-30, on a missed two-point conversation at the end of the game. Lions coach Dan Campbell doesn’t like to play conservative even with a big lead. The Cardinals also looked competitive by upsetting the Chargers, 26-14.

–The Vikings lost Kyler Murray early with a concussion but Carson Wentz came off the bench to lead Minnesota to a 39-22 win over the Packers.

–Bears coach Ben Johnson seems to have forgotten he is not the offensive coordinator. He said he wants to win the scoring title and the Bears took a step in that direction by beating the Panthers, 59-37, but they don’t give trophies for scoring titles. The defense has to improve.

–The worst teams in the league appear to be the Browns, Titans and Dolphins. Tennessee and Miami don’t have enough talent, while for some reason new Cleveland coach Todd Monken is starting Deshaun Watson at quarterback even though Watson isn’t even good enough to be a backup.

The defending champion Seahawks barely escaped with a victory and the Rams, a preseason favorite to win the Super Bowl, were routed in their prime time openers.

The first week of the season is often unpredictable because the league has done away with two-a-days in training camp and the starters don’t play much much in the preseason. But nobody expected the Seahawks to barely edge the Patriots, 13-10, after dominating them in the Super Bowl last February, and the 49ers weren’t expected to rout the Rams, 27-7. This raised questions about whether the Seahawks and Rams may not be as good as advertised or whether this was just a first game that will be meaningless in the long run.

The Seahawks did lose quarterback Sam Darnold with a hip injury on the first series, although Drew Lock was an adequate replacement. Darnold may miss only one game. But it was the sloppy play that was concerning. Seattle lost one touchdown to an illegal shift, lost possibly another to a delay penalty, kept a Patriots drive alive by pushing a player out of bounds on third down, and handed the Patriots a field goal with a roughing-the-kicker penalty.

But the Seahawks survived because New England lost receiver A.J. Brown with a high ankle sprain and did nothing after he left, plus Drake Maye threw a costly interception on each of the Patriots’ last three possessions. It remains to be seen if the Seahawks will start playing like a team trying to repeat going forward. They have to stop making bad mistakes.

Meanwhile, the Rams also didn’t look like the team they are supposed to be. It didn’t help that Los Angeles waited until the day before the game to arrive in Australia, while the 49ers arrived a week early to adjust to the time zone.

Rams coach Sean McVay said timing of his team’s arrival wasn’t a factor in their loss, but it certainly didn’t help. Other factors were that quarterback Matthew Stafford didn’t play well and was stopped at the goal line on a quarterback sneak in the second half, then the deflated Rams gave up a 99-yard touchdown drive.

The quarterback sneak probably wasn’t the best play call by McVay. Even worse was that Myles Garrett was shut out in his debut (no tackles, sacks or pressures). He admitted he still is recovering was a knee injury and said it wasn’t the best version of himself. The Rams were supposed to be a Super Bowl favorite because of the trade for Garrett and Aaron Donald coming out of retirement after a two year absence. But Donald didn’t play. If Garrett and Donald aren’t both dominant, the Rams have problems.

The disappointing openings by the Seahawks and Rams could have a lot of ramifications if they don’t live up to expectations. Both teams have a lot of prime-time games, and it won’t help the TV ratings if they aren’t prime-time teams.    

The NFL will have a new look when it kicks off the 2026 season this week, starting with moving the opening game featuring  the Super Bowl defending champions from Thursday to Wednesday night.

That’s because the Rams and 49ers will play in Australia on Thursday night, which means the league will have four primetime games in the first six days of the season, plus the Eagles at Commanders in the doubleheader game late Sunday afternoon. And only one of them (Rams-49ers) will be streaming on Netflix, so if you have cable TV, you don’t have to pay extra for any of the other games.

Here’s a look at the highlights of the first weekend:

–The Seahawks will host the Patriots on Wednesday night on NBC in a Super Bowl rematch. Unfortunately, the Patriots were overmatched in the Super Bowl and not much has changed. The Seahawks dominated them in the Super Bowl, even though Sam Darnold didn’t have one of his best games, and they figure to win this one. The only real question is if the Patriots can keep it close.

–The Rams-49ers have contrasting philosophies for the game in Australia. The 49ers departed on Sept. 2 to get used to the jet lag. The Rams will leave the day before the game and barely spend 24 hours in Australia. It worked for them last year when they routed Jacksonville in London, leaving the day before the game although they spent the week practicing in Baltimore so it wasn’t that long of a trip. The Rams are favored, but it remains to be seen if the strategy works again.

–The Sunday night game will feature the Cowboys at the Giants. John Harbaugh will make his debut as the Giants head coach, but this is a tough matchup for New York.

–The Monday night game (Broncos at the Chiefs) is an intriguing one with both quarterbacks, Bo Nix and Patrick Mahomes, coming off injuries. The Chiefs hope to bounce back from last year’s losing season in an important division game. The Broncos made the playoffs last year but lost to New England when Nix was out.

–The Eagles are hosting the Commanders in the Fox late game on national TV, and the Eagles figure to have the edge at home in a division game.

–One of the best games this weekend isn’t on prime time. It’s the Bills at Texasin the 1 p.m. CBS game. Both teams finished second in their divisions and both figure to be strong Super Bowl contenders so it is an important game for both teams.

–In the elimination pools, the Chargers are at home against the Cardinals, the Jaguars are at home against the Browns and the Lions are at home against the Saints as the three biggest favorites, although the first weekend is also very unpredictable because most teams don’t play their starters much in the preseason.

The Jaguars-Browns opener isn’t exactly one of the premier games the first weekend of the upcoming season.

The Jaguars are a 7.5-point favorite and, as a small-market team, they don’t usually get a lot of TV coverage even though they finished last year at 13-4 and won their final regular season games before losing to Buffalo in the playoffs. And Cleveland is, well, Cleveland. A team going nowhere for years and one that traded its best player in the offseason, Myles Garrett.

But the game became more interesting when new coach Todd Monken named Deshaun Watson the Opening Day starter, even though he completed just 5 of 12 passes for 35 yards and one pick in four drives in the second preseason game against Buffalo and was booed relentless by the Cleveland fans. His postgame press conference didn’t help matters.

“I think the whole world knows it has nothing to do about the performance,” Watson said, even though the performance wasn’t good.

What he was referring to is that the Cleveland fans are upset that the Browns gave up three first-round picks to Houston and then gave Watson a record $320 million guaranteed contract, even though he served an 11-game suspension by the league, paid a $5 million fine and completed a treatment program because of his off-field issues relating to visits to massage parlors in Houston.

Watson continued to say the boos were “personal” and “disrespectful,” and that only annoyed the fans even more. But Monken still named him the starter over second-year quarterback Shedeur Sanders. Watson has also been plagued with injuries and gone 9-10 in 19 games with Cleveland.

Watson later apologized for his comments, saying he “let his emotions get the best of me.”

And Monken can’t cut Watson because it would leave the Browns with $86.2 million in “dead money” next year. With the first two games on the road at Jacksonville and Tampa Bay (when Watson will face Baker Mayfield, who was traded by the Browns to make room for him), Monken might as well find out if Watson can still play. He can always switch to Sanders if Watson struggles.

That’s why there will be a lot of focus on Watson in the opener against the Jaguars. He is not expected to win the game, but at least show he can keep the Browns competitive. Either way, this is likely Watson’s last year in Cleveland. The next question is whether any team will want him next year once Cleeland unloads him.

So Watson has a lot at stake this year as he tries to show he has something left in the tank.

For the last four years a quarterback has been selected with the first pick in the draft.

Fernando Mendoza was the first pick this year and from 2023 to 2025, the first picks were Bryce Young of Carolina, Caleb Willilams of Chicago and Cam Ward of Tennessee. All three started as rookies and struggled at times.

But the Raiders are going a different route with Mendoza. He will start the season on the bench while Kirk Cousins begins the year as the starter.

It can be debated whether it is better to let a rookie sit for a year like Tom Brady did or even three years like Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love did. Or whether it is best for a rookie to be thrown into the fire.

Mendoza has accepted his role as a backup.

“I am just trying to do my part and focus on the next rep and do everything I possibly can  to prepare myself to b the best asset I can be for the team,” he said.

In his preseason debut against the Cardinals, he came in to replace Cousins in the fourth quarter and did well, completing 10 of 16 passes for 97 yards and one touchdown, but struggled in his follow-up against the Texans (including throwing an 80-yard Pick Six).

Mendoza knows he is not competing for a starting job now. The task for him is to learn on the bench and be ready when he gets chance.

These are the best of times for the NFL.

The money keeps rolling in: The Packers, a community-owned team and the only one to issue a public financial report, had a record total revenue of $753 million last year while reporting a net income of $132.5 million. They took in $453.2 million in national revenue before they sold a ticket. They did have a $1.1 million operating loss because of some new contracts along with paying the “dead” money of the contracts of departing players. But with a salary cap, it is almost impossible to lose money in the NFL. And franchise values keep going up. The Seahawks — hardly a marquee franchise despite their recent Super Bowl crown — recently sold for more than $9 billion. And revenue should keep going up because the league still gets the highest ratings of anything on TV.

Despite all that success, in the recent book called Football by Chuck Klosterman, he argues there is no guarantee the NFL will remain on top and noted that in the 1930s, the three top sports were baseball, horse racing and boxing. Obviously, they no longer are.

And Klosterman sees some red flags that could lead to a decline for the NFL. He starts with the fact that far fewer boys are playing high school football and as a result may not grow up to be big NFL fans. And then there is the violence coupled with players getting CTE, ALS and dementia that can turn off some fans.

And Klosterman asks what happens if advertisers decide it is just too expensive to buy advertising during NFL games, especially since there is no definite evidence that TV advertising still works except for introducing new products. If advertisers don’t keep paying, the NFL will have no leverage in future TV negotiations.

As a result, Klosterman argues that there could be a time — unthinkable as it seems at the moment — when “no one cares” about the NFL.

It seems hard to believe this scenario, but the football audience isn’t growing. The Sunday TV ratings haven’t increased since 1989, when the league averaged 19 million viewers. Last year it was at 18.7 million. And the NFL’s ratings are only the best in TV because — in an era of numerous TV channels, streaming and iPhones — no one drama or sitcom gets huge ratings like many did in the past, while the NFL ratings remain steady.

For now, the good times keep rolling for the NFL. Only future generations will know how long those good times last.

The annual Hall of Fame game in Canton is usually more about honoring the new inductees than watching the actual game since the starters rarely play.

But Caroline’s 33-30 victory over Arizona last Friday night turned out to be an exciting game featuring two third-string quarterbacks that was decided on the final play.

Undrafted rookie Haynes King scrambled five yards for the game-winning touchdown. He completed 21 of 34 passes for 180 yards and two touchdowns. Fourth-string quarterback Kedon Slovis threw a one-yard TD pass to Bryson Green with 1:55 left to put Arizona ahead, then King led the game-winning drive.

King said it was a “dream come true” to play in front of so many Hall of Famers. King replaced backup Kenny Pickett in the second quarter and played the rest of the game.  

Carson Beck, the Cardinals’ third-round pick, started and completed 15 of 19 passes for 188 yards and a touchdown. He’s behind Jacoby Brissett and Gardner Minshew on the depth chart, while King is behind Bryce Young and Pickett with the Panthers.

Nobody knows what the future holds for Beck and King. Beck as a third rounder is likely to have a brighter future, while the future for King is uncertain because he wasn’t drafted. But for one night on the Hall of Fame stage, both quarterbacks made the most of their opportunities.