The Chargers and Colts are 3-0. Which strong start is sustainable?
In this week’s NFL primer, assessing the staying power of the Chargers and Colts; five games to watch, including Micah Parsons’s return to Dallas; the Vikings go abroad; and Tom Brady defends himself (sort of).
Chargers and Colts level up
The list of AFC teams off to 3-0 starts includes one of the conference’s usual suspects as a top contender, the Buffalo Bills. But it also includes two teams, the Los Angeles Chargers and Indianapolis Colts, whose early-season prosperity is less customary.
No one should be surprised, however, if both end up reaching the playoffs or if the Chargers, in particular, remain in the Super Bowl conversation as the season progresses.
The Chargers have a two-game lead in the AFC West and have opened with three straight victories over their division rivals. Their opening triumph over the Kansas City Chiefs in Brazil was followed by wins at Las Vegas in Week 2 and then at home Sunday over the Denver Broncos. Quarterback Justin Herbert leads the league in passing yards, and the Chargers are thriving even while losing key players such as left tackle Rashawn Slater, tailback Najee Harris and pass rusher Khalil Mack to injuries. Only Mack is expected to return this season.
It all speaks to the prowess of Coach Jim Harbaugh, who returned to the NFL last season and led the Chargers to a playoff appearance. The franchise has won 14 of its 20 regular season games under Harbaugh after he inherited a team that went 5-12 in 2023.
Harbaugh’s methods are unorthodox. His style is unsettling to some. He faces a show-cause order and a full-season suspension if he ever chooses to return to college athletics, based on the NCAA’s recently imposed penalties on the Michigan football program that Harbaugh coached to a national championship. But he wins wherever he goes. He took the San Francisco 49ers to three straight NFC title games and a Super Bowl appearance over four seasons between 2011 and 2014.
“I think some people in the NFL may have forgotten just how good he is,” a front-office executive with an AFC team said this week. “He’ll probably wear out his welcome soon enough. But as long as he’s there, that will be a team to reckon with.”
The Chargers visit the winless New York Giants on Sunday. Giants rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart makes his first NFL start.
The Colts also are on the road Sunday. And their opponent is formidable - they face the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium.
The Colts’ start may be a bit more suspect, given that two of their victories have come against the lowly Miami Dolphins and Tennessee Titans. But the AFC South is far from imposing, and it’s not difficult to envision the Colts having sufficient staying power to win the division and host an opening-round playoff game as the daughters of late owner Jim Irsay guide the franchise following his death in May.
Many regarded this as a now-or-never season for Coach Shane Steichen and General Manager Chris Ballard. The Colts last reached the playoffs in the 2020 season. They last managed a postseason triumph in the 2018 season. They have had a revolving door at quarterback since Andrew Luck’s retirement just before the 2019 season.
But Daniel Jones, picked by Steichen as the starter over Anthony Richardson just before the season, is the NFL’s third-rated passer. The Colts have not committed a turnover and have punted just once in three games. Tailback Jonathan Taylor is the NFL’s rushing leader, and the Colts are ranked seventh in total defense.
“I’m not convinced the quarterback can keep it going,” the AFC team executive said. “But the team around him is good enough to be a playoff team.”
Five games to watch this weekend
Eagles at Buccaneers, Sunday at 10 a.m.: Two of the NFC’s three unbeaten teams square off.
Chargers at Giants, Sunday at 10 a.m.: It’s Dart time for the Giants.
Colts at Rams, Sunday at 1:05 p.m.: The Rams seek to rebound from their improbable defeat to the Eagles, in which they had two field goal attempts blocked in crunch time.
Ravens at Chiefs, Sunday at 1:25 p.m.: The Chiefs just got into the win column, but the schedule remains challenging. One of these would-be Super Bowl contenders will drop to 1-3.
Packers at Cowboys, Sunday at 5:20 p.m.: Micah Parsons returns to Dallas with the Packers coming off a confounding loss in Cleveland.
Future of the tush push
There surely will be further discussion among the NFL’s rulemakers and the league’s health and safety leaders during the offseason about the tush push and whether it should remain legal. There may or may not be another proposal to ban it and another vote among the team owners. But at this point, at least six months ahead of any such vote, it’s impossible to know.
Last week’s revelation that the NFL’s officiating department said in its weekly officials’ training tape that the Philadelphia Eagles false-started on the tush push during their Week 2 game against the Chiefs - and the accompanying instruction for officials to call the play “tight” going forward - prompted a round of speculation about the future of the play.
But if there is to be another vote next offseason on the legality of the tush push, it would take place at the annual league meeting in March or at the owners meeting in May. The offseason rule-change deliberations involving the league and its competition committee do not begin in earnest until the weeks leading up to the March meeting. Teams can propose whatever they would like.
The Green Bay Packers proposed last offseason to ban the tush push. The initial proposal would have prohibited teammates from pushing the player who took the snap. After that was tabled at the meeting ending in April, the proposal was modified to prohibit pushing the ballcarrier anywhere on the field. The proposed ban fell two votes shy at the May meeting of the 24 needed for ratification.
NFL and competition committee leaders have acknowledged since the May vote that there is likely to be further consideration of the issue this offseason. But whether that conversation leads to another proposal and another vote of the owners remains to be seen.
Despite the league’s directive about officials calling false starts tighter on the push play, the Eagles appeared to move early - and avoided a penalty - again during their dramatic win over the Rams in Philadelphia.
Vikings take to the (international) road
The second of the NFL’s seven international games this season comes Sunday when the Minnesota Vikings face the Pittsburgh Steelers in Dublin. The Vikings will become the first NFL team to play overseas games in different countries in consecutive weeks when they face the Cleveland Browns the following Sunday in London.
“We’re really confident in the plan that we have in place and the work that we’ve done with the Vikings leading up to it,” Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s executive vice president of club business, international and league events, said during a video news conference this week. “But it’s really about learning as we continue to grow and potentially grow the number of games even further in the future.”
The NFL could play as many as 16 international games annually if the league and the NFL Players Association agree to an 18-game season. Speculation persists about the possibility of a future Super Bowl being played overseas, but O’Reilly said, “We’re clearly focused in the near term on Super Bowls in the U.S., given the great demand and the great impact of those Super Bowls in the U.S. and the great number of both interested and fantastic Super Bowl cities.”
The league also could consider staging a draft or a Pro Bowl at an international venue.
“I think we explore all of those things,” O’Reilly said. “There’s nothing imminent in terms of an international event for one of those right now. But we look at all of that.”
No ‘conflict,’ Brady says
Tom Brady addressed the renewed scrutiny over his dual roles as Raiders part-owner and lead analyst on Fox’s NFL game broadcasts in his newsletter Wednesday.
“I love football,” he wrote. “At its core it is a game of principles. And with all the success it has given me, I feel I have a moral and ethical duty to the sport; which is why the point where my roles in it intersect is not actually a point of conflict, despite what the paranoid and distrustful might believe.”
Broadcast deals could be renegotiated
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told CNBC the league could seek to begin renegotiating its broadcasting deals as soon as next year.
“I think our partners would want to sit down and talk to us at any time, and we continue to dialogue with them,” he told the network. “I like that opportunity. Obviously it’s not going to happen this year. But it could happen as early as next year.”
The NFL completed a set of broadcasting deals, worth more than $110 billion in rights fees over 11 years, in 2021. Those deals contain opt-out clauses, and many in the sport previously said they expect the league to seek to rework those deals before the end of the decade while also attempting to negotiate an 18-game regular season with the NFLPA.