The First Read: Six burning questions off Week 2; plus, risers/sliders & Week 3's most intriguing game

In The First Read, Jeffri Chadiha provides a snapshot of the hottest stories and trends heading into Week 3 of the 2023 NFL season, including:

• Top risers/sliders from Week 2.
• Sunday’s biggest surprise.
• Most intriguing game in Week 3.
• Way-too-early MVP rankings.

But first, a look at six burning questions moving forward …

A lot of people will tell you that the first week of the NFL season is the perfect time for overreactions. If you follow this league long enough, you will learn that Week 2 offers ample opportunity for exactly the same thing. Some teams that impressed in their openers come back to earth. A select few that disappointed show significant signs of improvement. And then there is the group we’re largely going to focus on today — the ones that flounder out of the gate for two straight weeks and leave us all wondering about their respective destinies.

We’ll start with the simple cliché that is often uttered at this time of year: There’s a lot of football left to be played. We’ll then pivot to the reality that comes with slow starts: They usually kill dreams fast. The real trick is assessing who deserves the benefit of the doubt when two weeks have passed without much success, and who needs to begin preparing for four months of misery. That will be the theme of The First Read coming out of the weekend: Which teams should be panicking and which ones just need a little more patience?

More specifically, we’re exploring interesting questions that are fairly tough to answer at the moment. Here’s what has caught the eye of this particular writer, with my verdict on whether it’s time to freak out or maintain calm.

1) Can Sean Payton really turn around the Denver Broncos? Payton showed up in Denver with all the requisite credentials to excite a fan base that witnessed a train wreck under former head coach Nathaniel Hackett in 2022. The problem is that the Broncos haven’t won a game yet and they’ve blown fourth-quarter leads in each loss. They actually held a commanding lead of 21-3 over Washington on Sunday before ultimately losing, 35-33. So, how does one make sense of this? Generally speaking, the Broncos look like they’re playing better, especially quarterback Russell Wilson. But they also are making the same types of critical mistakes that undermine any team’s chances of winning. The buzz word around Denver when Payton arrived this past offseason was culture. He was going to show a talented team how to win, and it would respond by actually winning. Now Denver has two losses against a pair of teams that didn’t even make the playoffs last year, with a road trip to undefeated Miami coming next. The two games after that — against the Bears and Jets — look winnable, but 0-3 is a major hurdle to clear in a crowded AFC. Verdict: PANIC

2) Can Zach Wilson play well enough to help the New York Jets reach the playoffs? Wilson looked as bad in Sunday’s 30-10 loss to Dallas as most people likely anticipated. He completed just 12 of his 27 passes for 170 yards, with one touchdown and three interceptions. He was running for his life most of the afternoon and honestly had no chance of keeping the Jets in the game. The question is whether this will be a weekly occurrence for New York. Wilson made enough plays in Week 1 emergency duty — when he helped the Jets beat the Bills after starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers sustained a torn Achilles — but that win also had plenty to do with New York forcing four Josh Allen turnovers. The only way the Jets win consistently with Wilson is if their running game and defense dominate. That didn’t happen in Dallas, where Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb lit up the Jets’ secondary, and it doesn’t seem realistic moving forward. Wilson is probably a better player than he was a year ago, after watching Rodgers and turning the page on 2022. It just doesn’t seem that he’s improved enough to help this team end the NFL’s longest active playoff drought. Verdict: PANIC

3) Can Joe Burrow overcome a slow start for the second straight year? We get it: The Bengals have an abundance of confidence and don’t scare easy. That doesn’t mean they have to open every season 0-2. They did it last year and managed to win 12 of their next 14 games on the way to the AFC North crown. Burrow struggled mightily in those first two defeats of 2022, yet turned around his play with a combination of patience and poise. He’ll have to do the same thing this year, although the challenge could be much harder if he really has aggravated the calf strain that sidelined him for nearly all of training camp. We won’t know the severity of that injury until Burrow is thoroughly evaluated, but it’s a scary situation. He threw for a career-low 82 yards in a season-opening loss to Cleveland and didn’t exactly light it up during Sunday’s 27-24 loss to Baltimore, in which he threw for 222 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. The good news for Cincinnati is that the schedule lightens up over the next month, when they’ll see the Rams, Titans, Cardinals and Seahawks. That’s enough of a stretch to give Cincy a chance to create some momentum. Burrow might not be 100 percent healthy during that time, but it’s still just hard to bet against the guy. Verdict: PATIENCE

4) Will the Chicago Bears’ defense show any signs of improvement? Chicago’s D should be grateful for quarterback Justin Fields. We spend so much time dissecting his potential for improvement that the discussion around the other side of the football rarely receives the necessary attention. The Bears were abysmal on defense last season. They’re not much better right now. No disrespect to Tampa Bay quarterback Baker Mayfield, but there aren’t many teams he should be lighting up at this stage of his journeyman career. The 0-2 Bears apparently are one of those squads, as they allowed him to throw for 317 yards on 26-of-34 passing. That was one week after Green Bay’s Jordan Love tossed three touchdown passes against them. Here are two stats to remember about Chicago’s defense after two weeks: It has allowed opponents to convert 17 of 31 third-down opportunities and has yet to force a turnover. It’s hard to win games when you can’t get off the field or take away the football. Verdict: PANIC

5) Is there any reason to be hopeful in New England? The Patriots have the same problem that faced them when this season began: They have a defense that is talented enough to keep them in games and an offense that is limited enough to prevent them from winning those contests. The Eagles and Dolphins both built big leads against the Patriots — Philadelphia led 16-0, while Miami went up 17-3 — and New England rallied to make the games interesting at the end. That’s not a recipe for success; it’s merely a representative sampling of mediocrity. Sunday night’s 24-17 Dolphins defeat reinforced the major problem facing the Patriots, which is that they compete in a brutal division, and Miami and Buffalo are significantly better. This is now the first time Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has started a season 0-2 since 2001. Unfortunately for him, there isn’t a young quarterback like Tom Brady waiting to blossom and help turn things around in a hurry. Verdict: PANIC

6) Will the Browns offense survive the loss of Nick Chubb? The Browns went from riding high in a season-opening blowout of Cincinnati to losing their best offensive player in a Monday night loss to Pittsburgh. Backup running back Jerome Ford, who finished with 106 yards on 16 carries, was impressive after Chubb left the game with a brutal knee injury, but the bigger concern was how inconsistently quarterback Deshaun Watson ran the offense following that tragic occurrence. The Browns had no answers for a Steelers pass rush that racked up six sacks. Watson only completed 22 of 40 passes for 236 yards while also throwing a pick-six and losing two fumbles. The Browns offensive line was already dealing with the loss of right tackle Jack Conklin. The absence of Chubb could be more crippling if Watson can’t steady his play. They gave him $230 million in guaranteed money to be a savior. It’s time to prove he was worth the investment. Verdict: PATIENCE

THREE UP

THREE DOWN

SUNDAY’S BIGGEST SURPRISE

Sam Howell shows flashes of being The Guy. The Commanders have been searching for a quarterback for a few years now. Howell is starting to look like the guy who finally can ease all that pain. He found himself down, 21-3, in Denver and played well enough — throwing for 299 yards and two touchdowns — to help Washington pull out a 35-33 win. There weren’t a ton of people who would’ve picked Howell to be an early surprise. Right now, he’s blossoming under the tutelage of offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy and leading a team that is 2-0.

MOST INTRIGUING GAME OF WEEK 3

SCOUT’S READ

One question answered by an unnamed front office source.

Do the Dallas Cowboys have the best defense in the league or have they just beaten up on lesser offenses?

ANONYMOUS NFC SCOUT: “It’s too early to say who’s the best because injuries will factor into this at some point. That’s going to impact quality of play and depth — and then you’ll really see how teams adapt schemes and personnel. They obviously have really good talent, but there are other teams that have individual units that are better. They’ve got the home-run hitter in Micah Parsons, but there are other defenses that will consistently hit doubles week in and week out. You still don’t know how they’ll weather playing a loaded offense. I even think the addition of (cornerback) Stephon Gilmore is a little overrated. He brings experience and he’s seen almost everything at this point, but he’s also older and can’t run like he used to. They’ve got to be careful with his matchups in man coverage because teams will smell blood in the water if they have speed to his side. Teams haven’t been afraid to challenge him in recent years because even No. 2 [receivers] with afterburners can separate.”

MVP WATCH

A simple ranking of the top five candidates, which will be updated weekly, depending on performance. Here is how it stands heading into Week 3 (with FanDuel odds as of 8 a.m. ET on Sept. 18):

EXTRA POINT

My slowly evolving Super Bowl pick, which also will be updated each week, depending on performances: 49ers over Bills.

Previous picks …

• Week 1: 49ers over Dolphins

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