Week 3 Predictions for the 2025-2026 NFL Season

After a decent week of making picks in the season openers, I suffered a much worst result in week two. I stayed above .500 but barely picked nine of the 16 games correctly. The biggest news coming out of last week’s game were the quarterback injuries and there were a handful, some of them serious.

Down goes Joe Burrow…again. With a history of season ending injuries, the Bengals’ star quarterback has been diagnosed with “turf toe” and is out for at least three months. That’s a huge damper to Cincinnati’s hopes for a playoff season. Joining Burrow on the quarterback injury list is J.J. McCarthy and Jayden Daniels. All three teams will be heavily affected by these losses.

Before I make another attempt at predicting the winners, my reactions to last week’s results are below.

Week 2 Knee-Jerks

Green Bay 27 / Washington 18: It appears that just the appearance of Micah Parsons on the field no matter what he does has made the Green Bay Packers Super Bowl favorites from the NFC. They are now 2-0 and look playoff ready. Unfortunately for the Commanders, Jayden Daniels injured a knee and his status for week three is currently questionable. His inability to play will severely alter Washington’s chances going forward.

Baltimore 41 / Cleveland 17: The Ravens opening week loss came against a strong Buffalo team. Then came the Browns. Cleveland is heading once again for another long and losing season. This is an embarrassing loss for them and like a broken record their quarterback situation is in question.

Cincinnati 31 / Jacksonville 27: The biggest loss of the day in the NFL was not the Jags losing this game or Cleveland getting blown out but rather Joe Burrow suffering a turf toe injury and now out for three months. One man is not supposed to make up a team’s success but, in this case, the Bengals season may be over just after it has begun. Burrow is said to be out for at least three months. Keep in mind this injury caused the retirement of Hall of Fame linebacker Jack Lambert.

Dallas 40 / New York Giants 37: Are the Giants this good or did Dallas just have a bad day at the office defensively? Russell Wilson came back from a sub-par opening day to light up the Cowboys’ secondary to the tune of 450 yards passing with three touchdown tosses. Dallas defensively allowed New York to put up 505 yards of total offense. Add their own total of 478 yards and the two teams nearly reached 1,000 for the day.

Detroit 52 / Chicago 21: Ouch and ouch again. So much for the Bears turning things around and Caleb Williams finally coming into his own. The Ben Johnson era took an early punch in the nose. Williams completed only 19 of 30 pass attempts for 207 yards and while he threw two touchdown passes, he was picked off once and sacked four times. But the Bears’ defense? Their secondary allowed Jared Goff to throw five touchdown strikes, failed to pick off any of his passes and sacked him none. 511 total yards of offense surrendered by the Chicago ‘D does not make a playoff team.

New England 33 / Miami 27: While the Dolphins played better after an opening day loss, they still dropped to 0-2 and this closer game came against an upstart Patriots team. There were no eye popping stats on either side, but Tua Tagovailoa was sacked five times. Given his history of concussions, this does not bode well.

San Francisco 26 / New Orleans 21: Two games into the NFL season and the hottest topic is injured quarterbacks. Such is the case in this game where Brock Purdy was sidelined by injury thus Mac Jones stepped in and simply threw three touchdown passes while finishing with 279 yards. The Niners spread the ball around on the ground and in the air and just outplayed the Saints on the road to win their first two games.

Buffalo 30 / New York Jets 10: Justin Fields started his second game with the Jets and failed to make it to the finish line after a concussion injury put him into that protocol. Before he left the game his passer rating was a horrific 39.5. Fields threw just 11 passes completing only three. After he and Breece Harper gashed the Steelers defense a week before, the entire Jets team fell down facing the Bills. This left Jets fans wondering if they still have a quarterback quandary with their team and are they headed for another losing campaign.

Seattle 31 / Pittsburgh 17: This is not the home opener for the 2025 season Steelers Nation had hoped for. Rookie Caleb Johnson made the dumbest mistake of the day which was repeated on every football outlet for the rest of the day and again on football Monday. Johnson muffed a kickoff and then later admitted he was unsure of kickoff rules. After missing the ball and it making contact on the kickoff, it was a live ball which Johnson failed to go retrieve and in fact started heading to the Steelers bench while the Seahawks chased it down and fell on the ball in the end zone giving them a touchdown. This turned the momentum of the game in Seattle’s favor when the difference in the score was just three points. Another key play in the game was an interception of Aaron Rodgers as the Steelers were in the red zone when it appeared Calvin Austin ran the wrong route causing a tip ball by Pat Freiermuth to be intercepted by Seattle.

Los Angeles Rams 33 / Tennessee 19: Matt Stafford’s back issue is apparently a non-issue after a 298 yard passing day with two touchdown strikes. Davante Adams is settling in well with the Rams after a six catch 106 yards receiving performance. The #1 rookie in the league Cam Ward is still learning having a middle-of-the-road day.

Arizona 27 / Carolina 22: One team moves to 0-2 and the other 2-0. The undefeated team are the Cardinals. Bryce Young threw the ball 55 times, which by most standards is too much. He completed 35 of those however and finished the day with 328 yards passing, one of this best pro days to date. His stats included three passes for touchdowns. Arizona did just enough to win, and old man Calais Campbell had a sack with time running out on the game clock to preserve the victory for the Cards.

Indianapolis 29 / Denver 28: In a game the Broncos should have won, a penalty became the difference when on a 60-yard field goal attempt by the Colts’ Spencer Shrader was missed, Denver’s Dondrea Tillman drew a penalty flag for leverage on the attempt giving Shrader a second chance from 15 yards closer and he nailed it to win the game. Incredibly through two games due to new quarterback Daniels Jones’ efficiency, Indianapolis has yet to use their punter through eight quarters.

Philadelphia 20 / Kansas City 17: Once week two concluded in the NFL, all the talk was about Philadelphia’s “tush push” which was used to perfection to ice this victory for the Eagles. In a rematch of last season’s Super Bowl, the Chiefs are now 0-2 and in unfamiliar territory. There is a debate among many on whether the owners made a mistake not voting for elimination of Philadelphia’s use of the tush push. While I never had much of a problem with the play because of its effectiveness, I now have some reservations about its use because it does take away from the integrity of the sport due to its lack of any real design and basically boils down to the impossibility of stopping so much weight moving forward. What I don’t understand is why more teams are not trying to mirror the play given its invincibility.

Atlanta 22 / Minnesota 6: Another quarterback bites the dust. J.J. McCarthy suffered an ankle injury in this game and is now out 2-4 weeks. After missing his entire rookie season in 2024, another injury does not bode well for his future. Injury prone? Possible. McCarthy did make it through the entire game, but his numbers were sub-par. His quarterback rating was about as bad as Justin Fields on the day with a mark of 37.5. On the other side, Michael Penix Jr.’s numbers were not much better, but his offense was helped by Bijan Robinson’s 143 yards rushing.

Tampa Bay 20 / Houston 19: Baker Mayfield through the first two games is not lighting it up like he did in his first two seasons as a Buccaneer, but he and the Bucs squeezed out this narrow victory. This is supposed to be the year C.J. Stroud establishes himself as one of the top quarterbacks in the league but so far, he has failed on doing that.

Los Angeles Chargers 20 / Las Vegas 9: Every year early in the season the Chargers seem like one of the teams to look out for. Now at 2-0 and looking good, that’s where they are again. Old man Pete Carroll in his return to the NFL has now split his first two games.

Week 3 Picks