Packers Steal One Late in New York, Improve to 2-0 With 21-20 Win
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The Green Bay Packers’ rebuilding plan continues to encounter an inconvenient problem.
They keep winning football games.
Green Bay escaped MetLife Stadium with a 21-20 victory over the Jets, improving to 2-0 despite an offense that spent most of Sunday providing compelling evidence that, yes, this was supposed to be a rebuilding year.
The Packers scored just one offensive touchdown all afternoon. Fortunately, they saved it for the only moment when nothing else would do.
Trailing late, Malik Willis found Ray Davis on a Texas route with 16 seconds remaining, and Davis finished the play for the go-ahead touchdown. After an afternoon of stalled drives and frustration, Green Bay's offense finally produced when its defense could no longer bail it out.
That defense was the reason the opportunity existed at all. Green Bay kept New York within striking distance throughout the game, continuing the early-season trend established in the Week 1 win over Minnesota. Maliek Collins provided one of the biggest plays in the second quarter, recording a safety as the Packers repeatedly prevented the Jets from creating separation.
For a team that spent the offseason trading away veterans and accumulating a staggering collection of 2027 draft capital, the formula is becoming unexpectedly functional: play defense, let Willis create just enough offense, and hang around until something happens.
Against Minnesota, that produced a seven-point win.
Against New York, it produced a game-winning touchdown with 16 seconds left.
Somewhere, a Packers fan who spent August convincing himself that a 4-13 season would be “good for the long-term health of the organization” is staring at the standings in disgust.
Green Bay is 2-0.
The three 3GML teams built to chase a championship all opened the season with losses.
And the league's designated tanker apparently forgot to tank.
Texans Fall to 0-2 in Overtime, Dorsey Fired After 22-19 Loss to Bengals
HOUSTON — Two weeks into a season that began with Super Bowl expectations, the Houston Texans are already changing the people responsible for fixing the offense.
Cincinnati defeated Houston 22-19 in overtime Sunday, dropping the Texans to 0-2 after another uneven performance from quarterback Drake Maye. Hours later, offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey was relieved of his duties, with Dino Babers named interim offensive coordinator.
The move followed rumors of a heated postgame argument between Dorsey and head coach Frank Ross, whose first full season as Houston's head coach has begun with consecutive home losses.
Maye finished 21 of 39 for 286 yards, no touchdowns and one interception, and the numbers only tell part of the story. At times through the season's first two games, the young quarterback has looked uncertain and out of rhythm, reopening a question Houston thought it was moving beyond during last season's late surge: Exactly what is Maye's long-term trajectory?
Houston couldn't turn to its running game for relief. Kenneth Walker III carried 13 times for just 22 yards, leaving the Texans without the balance normally available to an offense trying to settle down a struggling quarterback.
That put another enormous burden on a defense that has spent much of the young season waiting for the offense to meet it halfway.
Riq Woolen was the standout, producing an interception, a forced fumble and 12 tackles in a performance that repeatedly gave Houston opportunities to seize control. The Texans remained alive into overtime, but once again couldn't turn enough of those opportunities into points.
The frustration apparently boiled over afterward. Reports circulated of a heated exchange between Ross and Dorsey before the organization announced Dorsey's dismissal later Sunday evening. Babers now inherits an offense that has scored 26 points in two games despite a roster constructed to contend immediately.
It's a remarkably quick escalation for Ross. His interim run last season was built around simplifying Houston's identity and getting more from the talent already on the roster. That performance earned him the permanent job.
Two games into Year 1, he's already made his first major staff change.
And unlike Green Bay, Houston doesn't have the luxury of calling any of this part of the plan.
The Texans were built to win now.
Instead, they're 0-2 at home, their quarterback is searching for answers, and their offensive coordinator didn't make it through September.
49ers Obliterate Dolphins 66-13 as Love, Warren Run Wild
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Whatever concerns followed the San Francisco 49ers home from Australia lasted approximately one week.
San Francisco responded to its season-opening loss with an emphatic 66-13 destruction of Miami, piling up 566 yards of offense in a game so thoroughly decided that Jordan Love spent the entire fourth quarter watching from the sideline.
Love was essentially flawless before getting the rest of the afternoon off. He threw for 302 yards and three touchdowns, finishing with a perfect 158.3 passer rating as Miami found no answer for Kyle Shanahan's offense.
And when Love finally left, things didn't get much better for the Dolphins.
Backup Spencer Rattler attempted only two passes and threw a touchdown on one of them, because apparently the 49ers weren't interested in letting quarterback substitutions interfere with the scoring.
The passing game wasn't even Miami's biggest problem. Jaylen Warren rushed 24 times for 152 yards and three touchdowns, looking every bit like the back who ran for more than 1,700 yards last season. After San Francisco managed only 57 rushing yards in its Super Bowl loss, Warren's performance was a reminder of what this offense looks like when its ground game is functioning alongside Love.
Even the defense contributed to the scoring frenzy. Drue Tranquill returned a fumble for a touchdown, giving him another impact performance after recording 12 tackles in Week 1.
By the fourth quarter, the competitive portion of the afternoon had long since ended. Love was done. The backups were playing. Rattler was throwing touchdowns.
More importantly, the 49ers are 1-1, and the ugly opener suddenly looks much less alarming.
Raiders Outgun Chargers 42-37, Leaving Defending Champs at 0-2
LOS ANGELES — Matthew Stafford spent Sunday afternoon simultaneously trying to save the Chargers and trying to bury them.
In the end, the interceptions won.
The defending 3GML champions fell 42-37 to the Raiders, dropping their first two games of the season at home and introducing a phrase nobody in Los Angeles wanted to hear this early:
Super Bowl hangover?
Stafford produced one of the strangest quarterback lines of the young season, throwing for 370 yards and five touchdowns as Los Angeles repeatedly fought its way back into the game. But the veteran also threw three interceptions, and the Raiders turned those mistakes into short fields that proved devastating in a five-point game.
It was the full Matthew Stafford experience condensed into four quarters. He would make a throw that reminded everyone why GM BD pushed his chips into the middle of the table to acquire him last season. Then he'd give Las Vegas possession in a situation that left the Chargers defense wondering when exactly it was supposed to catch its breath.
Unlike the 33-10 loss to Arizona in Week 1, offense wasn't the problem in any conventional sense. Los Angeles scored 37 points. Stafford threw five touchdowns.
And they still lost.
That's what should concern Bobby Slowik. The formula that carried Los Angeles through last year's postseason was more than Stafford making plays. It was complementary football: an elite defense, Christian McCaffrey controlling games and a veteran quarterback who went an entire postseason without throwing an interception.
Through two weeks, that version of the Chargers hasn't shown up.
Calling it a Super Bowl hangover after two games may be premature.
But 0-2, with both losses coming at home, is enough to start checking the medicine cabinet.
