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The good, bad, and ugly from Week 3 in the NFL season

You know that feeling you get after splurging on an expensive shirt for a night out on the town? You want to go GQ. You must impress that special lady. Make sure she notices you this time, for the first time. Then, on the way to the club, a friend spills ketchup all over your shirt. There’s no reprieve. Seltzer water won’t fix this now permanent scar on your plans for the night.

The Houston Texans had this near exact same feeling at Gillette Stadium in New England on Thursday. They pulled up to the stadium with a shiny 2-0 record and $72 million quarterback under center. Sixty minutes later, and the Texans left the field with ketchup all over their faces following a 27-0 shellacking at the hands of the New England Patriots.

Brock Osweiler wasn’t the friend that spilled the ketchup. No, he was the shirt. Instead, the one responsible for this mishap was general manager Rick Smith who believed Osweiler could be the savior after seven career starts. The quarterback responded by putting up a dud of a performance in the shutout loss, tallying less than 200 yards on 41 passes with this one absurdly horrendous interception.

And so begins the bad from NFL’s Week 3 action.

– We would be remiss not to mention just how poorly Blaine Gabbert played in the San Francisco 49ers’ blowout loss to the Seahawks up in Seattle. By bad, we’re sitting here wondering whether the 49ers would have been better off without a quarterback in the game. At the very least, we can share in Michael Bennett’s opinion that Gabbert isn’t the 49ers’ quarterback that should be under center.

Despite not getting sacked a single time and only finding himself hit once, Gabbert completed 14-of-25 passes for 119 yards without a touchdown. How a quarterback that didn’t feel pressure throughout the game puts a stat line akin to this is just mind-boggling. Through three games, Gabbert is now averaging 5.5 yards per attempt and just a hair over 10 yards per completion. It’s bad. It’s Jacksonville Jaguars Blaine Gabbert bad. It’s so bad that one has to think Chip Kelly lost the function in his brain when he said the team didn’t consider pulling Gabbert on Sunday.

- Cam Newton was sacked eight times on Sunday. He threw three interceptions, and the Carolina Panthers either punted or turned the ball over on their final 10 possessions. Needless to say, the team couldn’t hold off a hard-charging Minnesota Vikings squad in what ended up being a 22-10 loss. How bad was it for Newton and Co. after putting up the first 10 points in the game? Including penalty yards, the Panthers put up 153 yards on their final 60 plays. Yes, that’s an average of 2.6 yards per play. But hey, at least Cam was styling in the post-game presser. Maybe.

- For the first time in his career, Arizona Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer threw four interceptions without accounting for a single touchdown. It came in a humiliating 33-18 loss to the Buffalo Bills, a team that just allowed Ryan Fitzpatrick to put up 374 yards without an interception the week prior. Some of the throws were so bad that they brought back memories of his failed Oakland Raiders days.

Remember those days? That’s when Matt Schaub was leading a team to the playoffs. Yes, THAT long ago. Yes, THIS Matt Schaub. It’s quite possible that Palmer’s disastrous performance in the NFC Championship game this past January isn’t quite out of his head. How he could perform at such a horrific level against a bad Bills defense is beyond us. But here we are, the Arizona Cardinals are 1-2 and tied with San Francisco in last place in the NFC West, one game behind the Los Angeles freaking Rams.

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

It’s not unreasonable to believe that George Carlin was one of the greatest philosophers of the modern times. This specific quote transitions into the ugly from Week 3 of the NFL season. 

- Odell Beckham Jr. did not play smart football Sunday against rival Josh Norman. He might have put up good numbers, but there was definitely something Carlin-esque to what we saw from him in D.C.

Okay, we’re now wondering aloud whether Roger Goodell is going to fine the net for unsportsmanlike conduct. Maybe and excessive blow to the head. By the way, was OBJ ever put through the concussion protocol? Come on, there’s no reason to act like a spoiled eight-year old that’s forced to eat In-N-Out instead of filet mignon. Did this play a role in the New York Giants’ unfortunate loss to Washington? Probably not. But it sure does speak to a maturity level that doesn’t quite match up to a receiver that’s in his third NFL season. OBJ better get his act straight, or he’s likely to face a suspension here in the not-so-distant future.

“Today, they (the officials) came up before the game and said, ‘If you do anything we’re throwing you out of the game.’ That was before the game. There was no, ‘You get a warning.’ There wasn’t any of that. You’ve just got to be on your best behavior. Unfortunately, this is what we’ve come to,” Beckham Jr. said after the game, via Fox Sports. “It’s not really football any more as much as it is all of the other things that play into it.”

Does that include losing your mind on a kicker's net, throwing a temper tantrum on the sideline and being pulled to the side by an assistant and told to take a timeout? It’s time for this dude to grow up, and quick.

- Someone should probably tell Tennessee Titans guard Taylor Lewan that he’s not a human rocket ship destined for some far off star. He unlikely doesn’t realize this, either because he’s still a bit woozy from this play or somehow missed that day in class.

That’s a dumb play. That’s a dangerous play. That’s the pure definition of targeting. And we wouldn’t be surprised to see Lewan suspended and/or fined for this.  

- Staying in Nashville, where the Titans lost to the Oakland Raiders on Sunday, future Hall of Fame receiver Andre Johnson was blanked by the wort secondary in football. That’s right, he did not catch a single pass. Well, that’s unless you count the potential game winner he hauled in after pushing off on Raiders defensive back Travis Carrie.

Sure, receivers get away with offensive pass interference all the time. It rarely happens when you extend your arms and throw the defender completely out of the way right in front of an official. Good job Titans, you went full Mularkey on Sunday.  

- That whole holdout thing isn’t looking too great for New York Jets quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick following a six-interception performance in an humiliating 24-3 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. Six interceptions. That’s six more than Carson Wentz, Dak Prescott, Cody Kessler and Jacoby Brissett – all rookies –  have combined for this season. And boy were they bad. Like, did Fitzpatrick actually graduate from an Ivy League school bad.

One has to wonder where Fitzpatrick values himself after this mind-numbingly bad performance. Is he still with the $15-plus million he was said to be demanding? Are those six interceptions worth top-end backup money? We want answers, Fitzmagic. Okay, maybe we can help the Jets’ quarterback understand his value. Those six interceptions you put up in one game … yeah, these. That’s the same amount of picks Tyrod Taylor threw for the Buffalo Bills in 380 pass attempts last season. We must say, that’s quite an accomplishment.

Don’t talk crap to Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Steve Smith. It won’t end well, either on the football field or on social media.

This is something Jacksonville Jaguars rookie Jalen Ramsey learned first hand on Sunday. After Ramsey threw some rather interesting shade Smith’s way, the future Hall of Famer responded in kind, as you can see above. The shade Ramsey threw at the Ravens’ receiver, you might ask?

Well, way to respect your elders, Mr. Ramsey. In any event, Baltimore had the last laugh against a hapless Jaguars team, winning 19-17. For his part, Smith caught a game-high eight passes for 87 yards. Maybe next time a rookie wants to talk crap to Smith, he should ask this Twitter user how it ends. So begins the good during Week 3 of the NFL season, because why not start it with Smith himself?  

- Aaron Rodgers should get pissed in late September each season. It happened last year when Green Bay started out slowly. He responded by putting up of five touchdowns in Week 3 of the 2015 campaign. Now, one year later, Rodgers was back to his old tricks. Maybe it was a self-help chat in the mirror or a meeting with Tony Robbins. Heck, maybe Rodgers and head coach Mike McCarthy took part in a couple’s retreat during the week.

Either way, Rodgers took his frustration out on the Detroit Lions big time on Sunday. He threw four first-half touchdowns en route to helping the Packers put up 31 points at the intermission. That’s just 10 less points than Green Bay tallied in the first eight quarters of the season. Poor Matthew Stafford and Co., always the Packers’ punching bag at Lambeau.  

- Carson Wentz and Dak Prescott. Here are two rookie quarterbacks defying what conventional wisdom had previously told us about rookie quarterbacks. One a small-school product from North Dakota, the other a mid-round pick from Mississippi State. Combined, the two have now outplayed their veteran counterparts in the NFC East big time through three games.

Wentz’s performance came against what had been a stout Pittsburgh Steelers defense in a 34-3 blowout win for his Philadelphia Eagles. All said, he completed 22-of-31 passes for 301 yards with two touchdowns and zero picks.

Meanwhile, Prescott continues to fill in admirably for the hobbled Tony Romo in Big D. The Cowboys’ rookie completed 19-of-24 passes for 248 yards and a score while adding  36 yards and a touchdown on the ground. Needless to say, Dallas took care of a lifeless Chicago Bears team by the score of 31-17.  

- Once a quarterback, always a quarterback? Whatever Terrelle Pryor is, it’s something darn special. Here’s a guy that pretty much played every position outside of water boy Sunday against the Miami Dolphins. While it didn’t result in a win for his Cleveland Browns, it really was a sight to behold. Pryor completed 3-of-5 passes for 35 yards while splitting quarterback reps with rookie Cody Kessler. He also added four rushes for 21 yards and a touchdown.

Cool stuff, right? Wrong.

The best part? Pryor caught eight passes for 144 yards on 14 targets. Oh, he also played safety on a Hail Mary late in the first half. Here’s a dude that was out of the league and without a position just over a year ago. His attempt at quarterbacking in Oakland failed. His previous attempt to play receiver in Seattle also failed. Cleveland might very well be a wasteland for quarterbacks, but Pryor himself is doing something right.

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