NFL Winners and Losers: Vikings are 3-0, and Brian Flores’ defense might be biggest reason

It’s hard to say the Minnesota Vikings have the best coaching staff in the NFL. Andy Reid still hasn’t retired, after all.

But they’re not far off.

The Vikings moved to 3-0 this season and what they’re doing is remarkable. They were expected to finish last in the NFC North, and they used the 10th overall draft pick on quarterback J.J. McCarthy, who won’t play a snap this season. Without any contribution from their top-10 selection, the Vikings have won three in a row with a couple of high-quality wins. They beat the San Francisco 49ers in Week 2 and then got a 34-7 win over the Houston Texans on Sunday. Both teams are likely to be division champions and Super Bowl contenders by the end of the season.

We’ll see where the Vikings’ path leads them this season, and it also will be interesting to see what becomes of Minnesota defensive coordinator Brian Flores.

Flores’ defense is a huge factor in the Vikings’ start. The 49ers had seven points through three quarters at Minnesota last week. The Texans were shut out in the first half. Houston finally got on the board with 3:56 left in the third quarter, after Minnesota had run out to a 21-0 lead. The Vikings probably don’t have top-five talent on defense but are playing like a top-five unit. That’s coaching.

If Flores was any other defensive coordinator, producing results like this, he’d be one of the top early candidates for a head-coaching job next offseason. But we know it’s a little more complicated than that. Flores had a rocky time with the Miami Dolphins, including new criticism this year over his handling of Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. Flores’ racial discrimination lawsuit against the league will be a story as teams look into perhaps giving him an interview. It would be hard to deny Flores the chance, based on his work with the Vikings. His success in Minnesota is impossible to deny.

The Texans had trouble generating any running game or explosive plays in the passing game. The latter is usually not a problem for C.J. Stroud, who had one of his worst games as a pro. Minnesota plays fast and physical, with consistent pressure and disciplined coverage. The Vikings confused Stroud and made him look tentative, which has been tough to do.

Flores’ defense is doing its job and head coach Kevin O’Connell is getting the most out of his offense. Sam Darnold is playing better than he ever has on a consistent basis in the NFL. It helps to have Justin Jefferson to throw to. But he doesn’t have Jordan Addison or T.J. Hockenson, who have been out with injuries, and it hasn’t mattered. Darnold went out briefly on Sunday after hurting his knee, and when he reentered the game shortly after he got a standing ovation. He has earned that after his play over the first three games.

The Vikings lead the NFC North at a very early stage in the season and have shown two straight weeks that they can beat really good teams. Coaching matters in the NFL.

Here are the rest of the winners and losers from Week 3 of the NFL season:

WINNERS

Baltimore Ravens: Not all 0-2 teams are the same.

The Ravens weren’t happy to be winless after two weeks, but it would have been foolish to give up on them after a tough start. The Ravens will have to figure out why they’re having trouble holding onto leads in the fourth quarter after nearly blowing another game on Sunday, but they held on for a 28-25 win over the Dallas Cowboys. And for three quarters, the Ravens looked great in building a 28-6 lead. Presumably that’s a better representation of what we can expect from Baltimore this season.

Lamar Jackson was efficient and Derrick Henry was his vintage self, breaking tackles on his way to 151 rushing yards. The Ravens’ defense looked good for three quarters before allowing Dallas to get back in the game in the fourth quarter. Unlike last week against the Raiders, it didn’t cost Baltimore a win.

Baltimore didn’t have the start to the season it wanted, but there’s plenty of time for the Ravens to establish themselves as contenders again. The first three quarters offered signs of what might be to come.

Ben Johnson: You don’t see the hook-and-ladder play often, probably because it’s hard to execute. The Detroit Lions looked like they had been practicing it since the summer.

Johnson, the Lions’ offensive coordinator, got tricky for a huge play in the final minute of the first half. Amon-Ra St. Brown caught a short in-breaking route and flipped it to Jahmyr Gibbs running the other way. Gibbs scored a touchdown to give the Lions a 20-7 lead. That touchdown ended up being huge during a low-scoring second half, as the Lions held on for a 20-13 win.

The biggest news of the Lions’ offseason wasn’t a player acquisition but when Johnson decided to stop interviewing for head-coaching jobs and stay with the Lions.

Sunday wasn’t the biggest day the offense has had — the Lions holding down an explosive Cardinals offense was the bigger key to the win — but Detroit had the perfect call for the one big play it needed most to win.

Dallas Goedert: After a crushing loss on Monday night to the Atlanta Falcons, the Philadelphia Eagles were looking at a 1-2 start if they lost in Week 3 at a hot New Orleans Saints team. And they went into it without A.J. Brown for the second straight game.

Dallas Goedert was the Eagles’ surprise hero. He had 10 catches for 170 yards, both career highs, including a massive 61-yard gain on third-and-16 in the final two minutes to set up Saquon Barkley’s go-ahead touchdown. The Eagles got an interception to seal the 15-12 win.

Barkley had two touchdowns, Jalen Hurts had 311 yards passing, the Eagles’ defense cooled off the hot Saints but Goedert was the star of the win. While the loss to the Falcons still stings, being 2-1 isn’t so bad.

Matt LaFleur, again: The Tennessee Titans gave up on Malik Willis less than a month ago. They traded him to the Green Bay Packers for a seventh-round draft pick on Aug. 27. Nobody blinked at the move as Willis had not played well in his regular-season appearances.

That’s what made Sunday so sweet for Willis and impressive for LaFleur. The Packers won their second straight game with Willis replacing Jordan Love and helping to beat his former team 30-14. While Willis was playing a calm, controlled game, Titans quarterback Will Levis was throwing his team out of yet another game, practically handing Jaire Alexander a pick-6 in the first half. Willis completed 13 of 19 passes for 202 yards and continues to look way better than he did with the Titans.

Love seems close to a return from a knee injury, perhaps as soon as next week, and it’s remarkable that Green Bay went 2-0 without him. There are a few coaches having a great start to the season, and LaFleur is definitely on the very early NFL Coach of the Year candidate list.

Bo Nix and Sean Payton: Payton hadn’t had a win in September as Denver Broncos head coach, going 0-5 over his first two seasons with the team. Nix had a brutal first two games as an NFL quarterback.

Both got some redemption Sunday. The Broncos’ defense played very well, Nix looked a lot more comfortable and Denver got a big 26-7 road upset against a Tampa Bay Buccaneers team that looked very good during a 2-0 start to the season.

Baker Mayfield was off to a hot start but Denver flustered him all game. Denver allowed almost none of the big plays that Tampa Bay had been getting the first two games. Nix looked like the more confident quarterback of the two, getting the ball downfield more than he had in his first two starts and rarely making a mistake. He completed 25 of 36 passes for 216 yards and was sharp throughout.

It was a good step forward for the Broncos and their rookie quarterback, and Payton can know he won’t go 0-for-September again.

LOSERS

Bryce Young: If the Carolina Panthers looked like the same hopeless mess with 36-year-old Andy Dalton replacing Young at quarterback, maybe we could give Young a pass for his struggles.

The opposite happened.

Dalton, in his first start since Young was benched, had the Panthers’ offense rolling in a 36-22 win over the Las Vegas Raiders. Dalton has had a good career but he’s deep into the backup phase of it. And he looked miles better than the first overall pick of last year’s draft. Dalton had 319 yards. The Panthers looked like an NFL offense after not looking like one for two weeks under Young.

Perhaps Sunday was just a team rallying around its backup quarterback for a game and it will revert to its previous level, which was not good. But after one game the only reasonable takeaway is that Young was Carolina’s biggest problem. That’s not good for his future outlook.

San Francisco’s defense: The 49ers had a lot of injury issues on offense coming into Sunday’s game. The defense had to be the unit to rally.

It didn’t happen that way. Against a banged-up Los Angeles Rams offense that didn’t have Puka Nacua or Cooper Kupp and has had multiple injuries on the offensive line, the 49ers blew a 24-14 fourth quarter lead and lost 27-24 to the Rams. The 49ers are a shocking 1-2 to start the season.

You can’t blame the offense. While the 49ers couldn’t put the game away in the fourth quarter without Deebo Samuel Sr., Christian McCaffrey or George Kittle, they got three touchdowns from receiver Jauan Jennings and 292 yards passing from Brock Purdy. That should have been enough to knock off a decimated Rams team. Give Matthew Stafford and the Rams credit for the comeback, but San Francisco’s defense should bear the brunt of the team’s second straight loss.

Miami Dolphins without Tua: The Dolphins will have to reconsider their options at quarterback again after seeing the offense struggle badly against the Seattle Seahawks. The problem is, none of the quarterbacks who are available are going to solve the problem.

Life is going to be hard without Tua Tagovailoa, who is out with a concussion and could be for a while. Skylar Thompson didn’t do much with his opportunity in a 24-3 loss in Seattle. In one telling moment, the Seahawks rushed just one player on the final play of the first half and Thompson held the ball before throwing short, like there was any downside to heaving it to the end zone. Thompson eventually exited the game after some hard hits and was replaced by Tim Boyle, who isn’t likely to be the savior either.

Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle will probably be wasted talents in the offense without Tagovailoa, and Miami isn’t good enough on defense to grind out wins. The Dolphins depend on the offense to be one of the NFL’s best, and that isn’t going to happen with their quarterback out.

Anthony Richardson and Caleb Williams: Late in the third quarter of the Chicago Bears-Indianapolis Colts game, the combined passer rating of the two young quarterbacks was less than 100.

Both quarterbacks are touted prospects and high draft picks but they are off to slow starts this season. Richardson completed just 10 passes and threw two awful interceptions to continue his poor start to this season. Meanwhile, Williams had a breakthrough with 363 yards, but threw two costly interceptions and had a fumble as well. Richardson’s Colts were good enough to overcome Richardson’s rough day and win 21-16.

Williams’ third turnover practically ended the Bears’ comeback chances. He was strip-sacked by fellow first-round rookie Laiatu Latu in the fourth quarter in Bears territory.

Both quarterbacks have the talent to develop into very good quarterbacks but it was rough on them Sunday, and early this season. At least Richardson got out of it with a win.

Justin Herbert: The Los Angeles Chargers quarterback said he suffered a high ankle sprain in Week 2, and that should have raised some alarms. It’s a tough injury to play through and almost impossible to not have your performance impacted by it.

Herbert left Sunday’s game early with what appeared to be an aggravation of his high ankle sprain. He was replaced by Taylor Heinicke, who did little as the Pittsburgh Steelers pulled away for a 20-10 win.

The Chargers are 2-1 on the season but should have some concerns. Herbert, who left the stadium in a walking boot, won’t be healthy for a while and if the Chargers continue to play him he’ll be at risk of setting himself back. It won’t be an easy situation to manage for head coach Jim Harbaugh.

Deshaun Watson and the Browns: Cleveland got off to a great start on Sunday against the New York Giants. It recovered a fumble on the opening kickoff, and Watson hit Amari Cooper on the first play for a 7-0 lead. Then that was about it.

The Browns ended the first half with 41 yards of offense and 24 of it came on the first play. They still had a shot to win it in the final minutes after a missed field goal by New York, and Watson could have been the hero. But the Browns went four-and-out with Watson throwing incomplete on the final three downs. The Giants had a surprising 21-15 win.

The Browns should be better than 1-2, and losing at home to the Giants is tough to swallow. Watson wasn’t horrendous on Sunday but he wasn’t great either. And when he had a chance to redeem himself, the Browns didn’t move the ball at all.