ARLINGTON, Texas — Just when you think Week 1 is the wildest week of the NFL season for overreactions, Week 2 swaggers in and invites you to hold its beer.

There were 10 games in the early window Sunday, and it’s fair to say they didn’t all go exactly the way we thought they would. The Raiders winning in Baltimore to drop the Ravens to 0-2? The Bucs holding the Lions to 10 points and winning in Detroit?? Sam Darnold and the Vikings taking down the 49ers???

And then there was the game I covered this weekend, in which the new-look Saints offense made egg salad out of the Cowboys’ defense. The Saints scored touchdowns on each of their first six possessions and rolled the Cowboys 44-19 in front of a surprising number of loud and excited New Orleans fans in Dallas’ home stadium. It was one thing when the Saints put up 47 points in Week 1 against Carolina — nobody is expecting the Panthers to put up much of a fight at this point. But when you follow it up by going on the road and putting up 44 on Micah Parsons & Co., you have our attention.

And so we begin Week 2 overreactions — where we judge a few potential takeaways from the weekend’s games as legitimate or irrational — with the very impressive-looking 2-0 Saints.

Jump to:
Are the Saints the best team in the NFC?
Will the Panthers draft another first-round QB?
Can Darnold bring the Vikings to the playoffs?
Would trading for Russ make sense for Miami?
Are the Bengals still the Chiefs’ biggest threat?

The Saints are the best team in the NFC

Just as everyone predicted, the NFC’s 2-0 teams are the Vikings, Buccaneers, Seahawks and Saints. The Bears can join the club on Sunday night with a win against Houston, just as the Eagles can do with a Monday Night victory over Atlanta — in which case Philadelphia would certainly have a claim to this title. But none of those other teams have been as completely dominant in both weeks so far as the Saints, who have scored on 16 of their 21 drives and scored touchdowns on 11 of them. And by the way, they also looked pretty darn good on defense against Dak Prescott’s bunch Sunday.

New offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak is using motion more the Saints ever have, and the players have bought in — they looked way too fast and way too creative for the Cowboys in this game. Their protection schemes worked beautifully against Parsons, who after the game said it felt like he was fighting his way through a “maze” at times. It helped quarterback Derek Carr finish with a 99.4 Total QBR, his best in any game in his NFL career. It was total domination by a big underdog, and the Saints headed home to New Orleans on Sunday night feeling awfully good about themselves.

Verdict: OVERREACTION

Yeah, this is too easy. I’m willing to admit I was way, way, way wrong about a Saints offense I thought would struggle due to offensive line issues. But no matter how impressive these two weeks have been, I am not willing to say New Orleans is the best team in the NFC yet.

The Saints have my attention and my respect, but over the course of a four-month regular season, I’m still figuring teams like the 49ers, Lions and Eagles have a chance to come out ahead. Heck, I’m not sure the 2-0 Buccaneers won’t end up ahead of the Saints in the NFC South division, let alone the conference. You have to think at some point an opposing defense will figure something out and hold them under 40 points. Get back to me this time next week if they’ve managed to beat Philadelphia.

The Panthers will draft a QB at No. 1 overall for the second time in three years

The opposite of the way the Saints have started the season is the way the Panthers have kicked off the 2024 campaign. New coach Dave Canales was supposed to fix quarterback Bryce Young, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft. And he may yet — but not yet. In two ugly losses so far this season, Young has completed 31 of 56 passes (55%) for 245 yards (total, not per game), zero touchdown passes and three interceptions. He’s also 5-for-15 throwing more than 10 yards downfield. He does have a rushing touchdown, but it’s the only TD his team has scored so far. After losing 26-3 to the Chargers Sunday, the Panthers have been outscored 73-13, and it hasn’t felt that close.

Carolina had the worst record in the league last season, but it didn’t have the top pick because it had traded that selection to the Bears the year before for the right to move up to select Young over C.J. Stroud. I need to stop writing this paragraph now because every sentence seems to be making the situation worse.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

We haven’t even talked about the Panthers’ defense, which lost its best player last week when defensive tackle Derrick Brown went down with a knee injury. This team actually could stay non-competitive all season for the second year in a row. At this point, it feels like the best Carolina can hope is that it gets to the end of the season having seen some improvement and some reason to feel good about Young moving forward.

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Joey Bosa brings down Bryce Young for an 8-yard loss

Joey Bosa sacks Bryce Young as the Panthers are forced to punt.

But that feels like a long way up from a very deep pit. And if the Panthers don’t get there, then yeah, selecting Young’s replacement in next year’s draft — Georgia’s Carson Beck? Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders? Texas’ Quinn Ewers? Someone else? — is very much on the table. It would absolutely have to be in consideration.

Sam Darnold will lead the Vikings to the playoffs

All right, let’s get back to the happier stories. The Vikings beat the 49ers to improve to 2-0 thanks to a fantastic game by Darnold, who ironically was the 49ers’ backup quarterback last season and probably owes some thanks to Kyle Shanahan and the San Francisco coaching staff for helping him improve to this point. Darnold has completed 72% of his passes so far and has four touchdown passes against two interceptions. He even ran for 32 yards Sunday. Per ESPN Research, it was the first time Darnold had consecutive games with multiple passing touchdowns since Weeks 14-15 of the 2019 season.

Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell has taken the work Shanahan did with Darnold last year and built on it, and he believes he has Darnold — still just 27 years old! — in the best situation he has ever been in and that his talent will help him thrive in it.

Verdict: OVERREACTION

All kudos to O’Connell, who was planning to open the season with Darnold as the starter even before first-round pick J.J. McCarthy got hurt in the preseason. The Vikings felt like they had Darnold in a place where he was trusting his feet and not trying to do too much in an offense built around the idea of consistently getting receivers open and stacking first downs. And so far, it looks like they were right. But they have a long way to go with a still-young quarterback who has never had sustained success.

The Vikings’ upcoming schedule is an absolute gauntlet — vs. Texans, at Packers, vs. Jets (in London) and vs. Lions. They finish the season with games against the Seahawks, Packers and Lions. The receiving corps, thin to begin with, is already suffering injuries, with Jordan Addison (right ankle) missing Sunday’s game and Justin Jefferson leaving it early with a quad injury. Tight end T.J. Hockenson is still likely a few weeks away from returning from last year’s season-ending injury.

I do think Darnold and the Vikings will continue to play well; the coaching will make sure of that. But there’s just too much working against them for me to predict them as a playoff team, even after the 2-0 start.

Booted out of Denver after two lousy seasons, Wilson signed a minimum-salary contract with the Steelers this offseason and still hasn’t played for them. He injured a calf muscle on the first day of training camp, re-injured it a few days before the opener and has watched as Justin Fields and the defense have led the Steelers to a 2-0 start with road wins in Atlanta and Denver. Fields has only thrown one touchdown pass, but he is completing 69.8% of his throws.

Meanwhile, as everyone unfortunately saw Thursday night, Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffered another concussion, and the Dolphins do not know how long they will be without him. The Dolphins are a team built to win now, and if Tagovailoa has to miss significant time while he recovers, they need to be exploring all possible options. If the Steelers like what Fields is doing — and again, they’re 2-0 with him as the starter — maybe they’d entertain a call from the Dolphins about Wilson?

Verdict: OVERREACTION

One interesting side note here is that Wilson actually has a no-trade clause in that minimum-salary deal with the Steelers. So even if it came to this, he’d have to approve the deal. Now I have no idea why someone wouldn’t want to go play quarterback for Mike McDaniel and throw it to Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, but who knows? Point is, there’s a lot working against this idea.

Would the Steelers even want to do it? Sure, they’re 2-0, but it’s not like Fields is lighting up the scoreboard. Per ESPN Research, he’s only averaging 6.1 air yards per attempt this season. Maybe Pittsburgh still thinks a healthy Wilson is the better choice, when and if he’s finally healthy. And after the way he played the past two years in Denver, are we sure a banged-up 35-year-old Wilson would even be Miami’s top choice if it decided to trade for a veteran QB?

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Justin Fields throws a dart to Darnell Washington for a TD

Justin Fields throws a 5-yard dart to Darnell Washington into the end zone for a Steelers touchdown.

Plus, we don’t even know for a fact how much time Tagovailoa will have to miss. This feels like one of those assertions that assumes a level of Wilson’s game that’s no longer in evidence. I guess if it comes to that, maybe the Dolphins take a shot. Or maybe they do if the Steelers cut him. But it’s early for that, and I’m guessing the Dolphins will look elsewhere for solutions if in fact they end up needing one.

Even after another brutal loss in Kansas City, the Bengals remain the Chiefs’ biggest threat

Time was, the Joe Burrow Bengals had the Chiefs’ number. They beat them late in the 2021 season, then again in that season’s AFC Championship Game in Kansas City. They beat them in the 2022 regular season. They felt so good about it that they were calling the Chiefs’ home stadium “Burrowhead Stadium” ahead of the 2022 AFC Championship Game. But they lost that game in heartbreaking fashion. They lost again to the Chiefs late last season with Burrow injured and Jake Browning at QB. And they lost yet another heartbreaker Sunday, as the Ghost of Bengals Past reared its head as a late-game pass interference penalty put the Chiefs in range of the game-winning field goal.

The Bengals are 0-2, as it feels like they always are, and dealing with a Tee Higgins hamstring injury and a dissatisfied-with-his-contract Ja’Marr Chase. They are also seemingly losing a defensive tackle to injury every other play. The 2-0 Chiefs are in considerably better shape right now than the Bengals, and you wouldn’t think they’d have any reason to worry about Burrow and Co. anymore.

Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

And yet, even with all of that said, the Chiefs still needed that late PI penalty to win by 1 point at home. Since the Bengals drafted Burrow in 2020, they’ve played the Chiefs six times, each team has won three, and the average margin of victory in those games is 3.5 points. Take out the Browning game, and that drops to 2.6 points. In fact, Patrick Mahomes vs. Burrow is the first starting QB matchup since 1950 with five straight matchups decided by 3 or fewer points, per ESPN Research.

The Chiefs don’t need to fear anyone. They deserve every benefit of the doubt. They should be favored in every playoff game and the Super Bowl, and no one would be surprised if they became the first team ever to win three Super Bowls in a row. But given the history — and how tough, close and nasty the games between these teams always are — I would bet that if you gave Andy Reid and Mahomes truth serum and asked them which team they’d least want to see in the postseason, they’d still say Cincinnati.

Let’s just all hope the Bengals get their act together and we get to see this matchup again in January … because it is always fun to watch.