Week 3 Frauds

I guess he meant "team to beat" literally.

This was the best Super Bowl window year for the Bengals before their cap situation gets tight and they start 0-3. 

Bengals fans have shown up for two home games. To watch the Patriots come in and get their only win and the Commanders led by a rookie QB torch the hell out of them. Maybe instead of trying to rename other team's stadiums, they should just focus on their own. 

Bengals can go 8-6 rest of the way and would still miss the playoffs. 

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It only took 3 weeks before people starting asking if the Bears should have kept Justin Fields. 

A month ago after seeing Caleb in the preseason, people were saying can you believe anybody thought the Bears should keep Justin Fields. 

Here's the thing: QBs and Coaches both matter a lot. 

When you have the best combos like Brady/Belichick or Mahomes/Reid it can be tough to isolate who's more deserving of the credit, but ultimately it doesn't really matter. You just want to keep them both together for as long as possible. 

When you have bad/struggling/mid combos it is also tough to isolate the problem. When Andy Dalton comes in and outperforms Bryce Young by a country mile, it makes it easier to label Young as a bust. When Kevin O'Connell can get huge wins out of Sam Darnold (previously famous for seeing ghosts) it's pretty easy to see that KOC should get his flowers. 

When you had three years of Justin Fields on the Bears and he produced highlight reel plays but not enough consistency or winning to lock him up long term...who do you blame? The Bears blamed Fields and traded him for not much in return. They replaced him with Caleb who hasn't impressed so far. Meanwhile, Fields is 3-0 on the Steelers. 

Here's the reality as I see it. If Caleb Williams had gone to the Chiefs or 49ers or Packers or Vikings or Texans or Dolphins (or probably another 6-10 good/decent teams with good coaches) he'd be lighting it up already. LaFleur schemed up two nice wins with Malik Willis. 

We already know what Justin Fields on the Bears looks like. Back in January, I had him in the same tier as Jordan Love and here's what I wrote about him in the preseason:

Does it feel good to be right? Yes, of course, 100%. 

But the point is that the question of should the Bears have stuck with Fields or gone with Caleb, overlooks the elephant in the room. The Bears are bad because they're the Bears. It starts with the coaching staff. Drafting Caleb Williams and pairing him with Matt Eberflus is like buying a Ferrari F1 car and hiring Matt Eberflus to be your driver.

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Let's end with the Chiefs. KC is on a 9 game winning streak and has done everything they need to do to position themselves for a potential bye or at least wining the division. 

It hasn't looked pretty.

If you flip a couple plays they could be 0-3. (Guess who else that applies to? Basically every team in the league.) 

I do recognize the point that the Saints and Vikings have had some big wins, and every Chiefs win is a squeaker, but to quote Malik Willis: "All wins count the same."

And for people to be freaking out saying that KC doesn't look complete yet, relax. I think they've earned a bit of patience. First of all, they're 3-0 so what are we really talking about. And second, it's September. You don't want to peak too soon. I think it's juuuuuust fine to grind out some close games, live in those clutch moments, and ideally round into shape in December and January.