Three weeks into the 2026 NFL season, a few contenders have already stumbled, a few pretenders have already been exposed, and a 38-year-old journeyman quarterback has kept one team afloat while its franchise passer heals.
With NFL Week 4 approaching, here are five developments from the opening stretch that could shape how the next stage of the season plays out.
The Seahawks carried a 12-game winning streak, the longest active run in the league, into Week 3 — and left Washington without it.
The Commanders, playing without injured starter Jayden Daniels, rode a Marcus Mariota-led comeback and a late Kain Medrano pick-six off Sam Darnold to a stunning 33-31 win, even though Seattle out-gained them 437-258 and out-first-downed them 28-17.
Darnold still threw for 379 yards and four touchdowns, so this wasn’t a case of Seattle’s offense breaking down. The Seahawks-Commanders upset showed how quickly even the league’s hottest team can lose when the turnover battle turns against it.
Seattle enters Week 4 at 2-1, still a clear contender, but no longer appearing invincible.
The Texans are 0-3 for the second consecutive season under DeMeco Ryans, and their Week 3 loss actually complicates the easy narrative rather than confirming it.
Indianapolis beat Houston 19-17 on a last-second field goal despite Houston’s defense forcing three Colts turnovers — Daniel Jones lost two fumbles and Indianapolis turned it over on downs once.
The problem was squarely on the other side of the ball: without injured receiver Nico Collins, C.J. Stroud managed just 167 yards passing while absorbing three sacks, and the offense couldn’t turn Houston’s own takeaways into points.
Three weeks in, the defense has held up its end more often than not. It’s the offense that has to find answers before this becomes a lost season rather than a slow start.
Chicago’s Week 1 headline was Caleb Williams throwing for four touchdowns in a 59-point demolition of Carolina, the franchise’s highest output since 1980. The real Week 3 story, though, belongs to someone else.
Williams suffered a Grade 2 hamstring strain in Chicago’s ugly 9-3 loss to Minnesota in Week 2 and is expected to miss three to four weeks
With backup Tyson Bagent still working through concussion protocol, third-string veteran Case Keenum — who hadn’t started a regular-season game since 2023 — stepped in and led the Bears to a 27-7 upset of Philadelphia on Monday night.
Chicago sits at 2-1, and how well Keenum and the offense hold things together over the next few weeks will determine whether that record survives until Williams is healthy again.
Aaron Rodgers has given Pittsburgh a different offense than the one it had at the start of the season, throwing for 292 yards and three touchdowns in a 30-27 Week 3 win over Cincinnati that snapped the Bengals’ revamped defense’s streak of not allowing a passing touchdown.
Patrick Mahomes, meanwhile, has answered offseason questions about whether age was catching up to him with wins over Denver in Week 1 and Miami in Week 3, even if the Dolphins game was tighter than the final score suggested.
Neither is the same story — Rodgers is proving he still has enough left to elevate a new team, Mahomes is proving last year’s dip wasn’t permanent — but both have Weeks 1-3 records that look considerably better than the questions surrounding them in August.
Beyond Keenum in Chicago, several other fill-in and second-chance quarterbacks have already shaped the season’s early storylines.
Mariota’s relief performance for an injured Jayden Daniels helped Washington beat the NFL’s hottest team. Michael Penix Jr. delivered his best start of the season in Atlanta’s 35-14 win over Green Bay, scoring 27 unanswered points at one stage after a slow start.
In Indianapolis, Daniel Jones — a former high first-round pick whose career in New York had largely stalled — has quietly helped the Colts to their first win of the season.
None of these storylines were the headline going into September. Three weeks later, they’re as relevant to how the league looks as anything the presumptive contenders have done.
Each of these threads gets an immediate test. Seattle hosts the Chargers looking to show the Commanders loss was a blip rather than a crack.
Houston hosts Dallas still needing its offense — not its defense — to show up, with Collins’ return status worth watching. Chicago hosts the Jets and Geno Smith’s own hot start, with Keenum again under center as the Bears try to stay afloat.
Rodgers gets Cleveland on Thursday night, while Mahomes and the Chiefs travel to face the Raiders. And Washington heads to London to face Indianapolis, pitting two of this season’s most unexpected early storylines — Mariota’s relief act and Jones’ bounce-back — against each other directly.
Three weeks haven’t answered every question, but they’ve changed the assumptions around several teams. Week 4 is the first real chance to see which of these trends are real and which were just small-sample noise.
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