The quarterback picture is already tilting hard three weeks into the 2026 season, and Week 3 only sharpened the contrast. Some passers are surging, some are spiraling, and a few are doing enough to change the conversation around their teams entirely.
Drake Maye is one of the clearest early losers.
The Patriots’ young quarterback has stumbled badly out of the gate, and his Week 3 outing against the Jacksonville Jaguars was another rough one to digest. Maye went 14-for-25 for 199 yards with no touchdowns and two interceptions, and he also lost a fumble on a play that stood out for all the wrong reasons when the ball slipped out of his hand as he was winding up to throw.
It’s been that kind of start. The Patriots are sitting on one win, and even that feels like it’s been hanging by a thread. Maye’s mistakes keep piling up on top of each other, and right now it looks like the game is speeding up on him.
On the other end of the spectrum, Deshaun Watson is making people rethink what the Browns might be.
After Week 1, the conversation around Cleveland was heading toward a quarterback change. Two wins later, Watson has pushed that talk in a very different direction. Over the last two games, both Browns victories, he has completed 40 of 60 passes for a 66.7 percent rate, thrown four touchdowns without an interception, and piled up 382 passing yards along with 67 rushing yards.
That’s a sharp turnaround for a team that hasn’t had a winning record since the 2023 season. It also raises the possibility that Watson and Todd Monken may have found something that actually works.
Jordan Love lands on the loser side after a frustrating Thursday night in Green Bay.
The Packers fell at home to the Atlanta Falcons, and Love took the brunt of an ugly offensive environment. Through three games, he has already been sacked eight times, and the pressure has been relentless enough that it’s hard to separate his play from the protection in front of him.
Still, Love didn’t help himself against Atlanta. He completed just 52.4 percent of his passes, and even when he had time, the accuracy wasn’t where it needed to be. The line deserves plenty of blame, but Love wasn’t clean enough to escape this week without landing in the loss column.
Then there’s Kirk Cousins, who has the Raiders rolling.
Cousins has been excellent running Klint Kubiak’s offense, and Las Vegas is 3-0 because of it. He’s thrown three touchdown passes in each of the Raiders’ first three games, and his latest boost came with Brock Bowers stepping into the role of primary target for the first time.
That connection was a problem for defenses right away. Bowers caught 10 passes for 116 yards and a touchdown, and he and Cousins looked completely in sync. Cousins also closed the 2025 season strong with the Falcons, winning four straight starts to finish the year, and now he’s carried that momentum into Las Vegas.
After three games, the Raiders have every reason to like where this is headed. Some people are waiting for the other shoe to drop, but Cousins is playing well enough to make this start feel real.
In Other News...
Falcons Fans Already Have A Coaching Debate They Didnt Expect
The first month of the season has already given Falcons fans something to chew on beyond the usual quarterback chatter: a coaching comparison they probably did not expect this soon. Atlanta brought in Kevin Stefanski to lead the way, and while the Falcons are 1-2, they did at least give themselves a timely lift with a primetime win over the Green Bay Packers. It is early, but the results are already inviting a conversation about how the new era in Atlanta is taking shape.
Elsewhere, Klint Kubiak has his new team rolling in Las Vegas, where the Raiders are 3-0 after a recent win over the New Orleans Saints. The parallel is hard for Atlanta fans to miss, since both hires were meant to steer their franchises in a new direction, and one of those directions is off to a much hotter start. For now, the Falcons can lean on the fact that Stefanski has already delivered a big-stage win, but the broader debate around the two coaching moves is only getting started. [Read more 🡒]
Falcons Enter Saints Showdown With Something They Have Been Missing
The Falcons head into Monday night with a little momentum and a much-needed sense of life after their 35-14 road win over the Green Bay Packers. Michael Penix Jr. was back at quarterback, and Atlanta got strong outings from Bijan Robinson and Drake London, a combination that gave the offense a cleaner, more balanced look than it had shown earlier in the season.
Now comes a division matchup with New Orleans, and both teams arrive at 1-2 needing a reset more than a spotlight. The Saints are coming off a 35-27 loss to the Raiders, even with Chris Olave, Juwan Johnson and Tyler Shough providing some offense, so this one feels like an early chance for Atlanta to build on its best performance and see whether the pieces that clicked last week can hold up in a bigger spot. [Read more 🡒]
Falcons Suddenly Have A Real NFC South Chance Again
After stumbling out of the gate at 0-2, the Falcons steadied themselves with a significant win over the Packers, a result that quickly changed the feel around the NFC South race. It helped that the rest of the division also went the wrong way, with the Saints, Panthers and Buccaneers all losing their recent games, turning a rough opening stretch into something much more manageable for Atlanta.
Now the standings have tightened into a three-way tie at the top, and the season suddenly looks a lot different than it did a week ago. The next meeting with the Saints looms as the kind of divisional game that can swing the picture again, giving the Falcons a real chance to move from early trouble to a legitimate chase for first place. [Read more 🡒]