With the NFL now into the third week of the 2024 season, many analysts are wondering: Where has the passing game gone?
Passing touchdowns are down, passing yardage is down, and that has led to some wondering if the two-high coverages that have grown in fashion are eliminating the passing game … and need to be eliminated themselves.
To that, we say: Run the football again.
Putting that aside, an early scan through the third week of the NFL season has shown us something else.
Some ugly turnovers.
For example …
Will Levis has already delivered some head-scratching turnovers this season. First was a Week 1 Pick-Six that led to his mid-play “surrender cobra,” perhaps the first true meme of the 2024 NFL season. Then came a Week 2 turnover that had everyone — including his head coach — wondering what he was thinking.
This Pick-Six he threw early Sunday to the Green Bay Packers might not have been as bad as those, but it was not exactly great!
Jalen Hurts delivered a pair of turnovers for the Philadelphia Eagles in their game against the New Orleans Saints, perhaps the biggest surprise early this season. First was this end zone interception:
Then came this disastrous fumble, shortly after the Eagles crossed the 50-yard line and into Saints’ territory:
Sunday’s game between the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears featured two of the league’s youngest talents at quarterback, Anthony Richardson and Caleb Williams.
Both of them threw some head-scratching interceptions.
First was this from Richardson, on a 3rd-and-goal play early in the second quarter:
But then Williams, on Chicago’s ensuing possession, did this:
The games in the early window have yet to hit halftime, but we are already seeing some ugly football here in Week 3.
And maybe some Cover 2 as well.
Updates:
And we are back in the second half of the early-window games, however, Richardson is picking up right where he left off in the first half
That … was a missed throw that brought out the boo birds at Lucas Oil Stadium.