Grades for Jets and Patriots after New York’s blowout win, plus ranking each of the nine undefeated teams

Welcome to the Friday edition of the Pick Six newsletter. 

If you watched all of last night’s game, I would like to apologize on behalf of the Patriots, who apparently forgot how to play football. Maybe they didn’t completely forget, but they definitely forgot how to throw the ball, because they only totaled 61 yards through the air. The good news for everyone who watched the game is that Aaron Rodgers looks to be officially back. Sure, he’s already played two games this season, but he looked mostly average in those games. Last night, he looked like a four-time MVP who might actually be able to help the Jets get to the playoffs for the first time since 2010. 

In today’s newsletter, we’ll be handing out grades for both the Jets and the Patriots, plus we’ll be making some Week 3 picks and we’ll be RANKING KICKERS, because there’s no more exciting way to go into the weekend than ranking kickers. 

As always, here’s your daily reminder to tell all your friends to sign up for the newsletter. To get them signed up, all you have to do is click here. 

1. Jets blow out Patriots: Grades and notes from New York’s big win

The Jets’ home opener went a lot better this year than it did last year for Aaron Rodgers. In 2023, Rodgers only lasted four snaps before tearing his Achilles, but this year he showed that he’s fully over that injury by leading the Jets to a dominant 24-3 win over the Patriots. 

Here are our grades from last night’s game: 

JETS GRADE: A

It took three weeks, but Aaron Rodgers finally looked fully comfortable on the field and if we learned one thing from Thursday’s game, it’s that a fully comfortable Aaron Rodgers is a dangerous Aaron Rodgers. The Jets QB diced up the Patriots defense by completing 27 fo 35 passes to eight different receivers. Not only did Rodgers throw for 287 yards and two touchdowns, but he showed off his mobility with three runs for 18 yards. Rodgers was in total command of a Jets offense that piled up 400 yards, and if this is a sign of things to come, there’s no reason this team can’t compete for a playoff spot. Rodgers was so good that he overshadowed a nearly perfect performance by a Jets defense that totaled seven sacks — with two of those coming from Will McDonald — while also surrendering just 139 yards. This was a dominant win by a Jets team that suddenly feels dangerous.  

Jets notes

• Aaron Rodgers finally throws a TD pass to a first-round pick. Aaron Rodgers has been in the NFL since 2005 and he’s thrown nearly 500 touchdown passes in his career, but before Thursday night he had NEVER thrown a TD to a receiver who was drafted in the first round. That drought finally came to an end when he hit Garrett Wilson for a 2-yard score during the third quarter against the Patriots. 
• Jets end their Patriots curse. The win by the Jets marked the first time since 2015 that they’ve beaten New England at home. It also marked the first time in 15 years that the Jets have beaten the Patriots in two straight games.  

PATRIOTS GRADE: D-

The Patriots were expected to be one of the worst teams in the NFL this year and after playing two surprisingly good games to start the season, the bad Patriots finally showed up. Playing behind a battered offensive line that was missing multiple starters, Jacoby Brissett never really had any time to throw and Rhamondre Stevenson never really had any room to run. If you can’t throw the ball or run the ball, it’s hard to win in the NFL. Brissett was sacked five times and Stevenson ran for just 23 yards on a night where New England only had 139 total yards. The Patriots defense also struggled, but that’s what happens when your offense can’t move the ball and you get stuck on the field for more than 40 minutes. The only silver lining for Patriots fans is that they finally got to see the debut of Drake Maye. 

Patriots notes

• Patriots can’t pass or score. The Patriots passing offense officially hit rock bottom on Thursday night. New England’s passing total was just 61 yards and the Pats now have just 306 passing yards through three games, which is the team’s lowest total through three weeks since 1991. The Patriots also didn’t score a touchdown on Thursday night, which marks the sixth time since the start of the 2023 season that they’ve gone an entire game without a TD. That’s the most the NFL, edging out the Giants and Panthers, who have both gone five games without a TD in that period.  
• Drake Maye makes his debut. It wasn’t flashy, but the rookie quarterback saw his first action of the season in this game. Maye was only on the field for one possession that ended with him going 4 of 8 for 22 yards. Of course, we might see more of Maye in the future, because after the game, Jerod Mayo wouldn’t commit to starting Jacoby Brissett going forward. That being said, he had a slightly different tune on Friday morning when he was asked about the QB situation, “Jacoby is our quarterback until I say he’s not the quarterback,” Mayo said. So there you go. 

You can check out our full takeaways from the game here. 

2. Ranking the 2-0 teams: Chiefs on top, Steelers might be frauds

After ranking all the 0-2 teams yesterday, we decided that we should probably rank all the 2-0 teams, so that’s exactly what we’re going to do today. So who’s for real and who’s a fraud? Cody Benjamin attempted to answer that question by ranking the NFL’s nine remaining undefeated teams. 

Let’s take a look at Cody’s full ranking of all nine teams: 

1. Chiefs
2. Texans
3. Bills 
4. Saints
5. Buccaneers
6. Vikings
7. Chargers
8. Seahawks
9. Steelers

We’re going to find out really soon just how accurate Cody’s rankings are because the we’re going to have two games on Sunday that will feature a pair of 2-0 teams playing each other (Chargers at Steelers, Texans at Vikings). 

If you want to know why Cody ranked each team where he did, make sure to click here so you can check out his entire story.

3. Ranking the top-10 kickers in the NFL

With kickers getting off to such a hot start this year, we thought it might make sense to rank the top-10 kickers, so we’re going to rank the top-10 kickers. 

With that in mind, let’s check out the top five names on the list: 

1. Harrison Butker (Chiefs)
2. Brandon Aubrey (Cowboys)
3. Chris Boswell (Steelers)
4. Justin Tucker (Ravens)
5. Ka’imi Fairbairn (Texans)

The biggest surprise here is probably the fact that Justin Tucker is no longer the top kicker in the NFL. The Ravens star has unofficially held that title for more than a decade, but he’s now fallen to fourth. A big reason that Tucker has taken a tumble is because he’s hit just 14.3% of his kicks from 50 yards or longer since the start of the 2023 season.

On the other hand, Aubrey has come out of nowhere to become one of the top kickers in the NFL. The Cowboys kicker was nearly perfect last year, which earned him First Team All-Pro, and he’s off to a hot start once again in 2024.  

If you want to check out my full kicker ranking, you can do that here. 

4. NFL Week 3 picks: Chargers stay undefeated, Chiefs lose their first game

Welcome to the part of the newsletter where we hand out some picks, and let me just say, based on what we did last week, you might want to do the opposite of what we pick this week. We have five NFL writers — Pete Prisco, along with Will Brinson, Jordan Dajani, Tyler Sullivan and myself — handing out picks every week and we were ice cold last week, going 1-4. That means we’re now 4-6 both straight-up and against the spread with the picks we’ve featured in this part of the newsletter through the first two weeks. 

If you’re new here, here’s how things work: I’ll give you one Week 3 pick from each writer and then direct you to the rest of their picks for the week. That way, if you like their pick, you’ll be able to click over and check out all of their Week 3 picks, but if you hate their pick, you can ignore the rest of their picks and move on with your life. 

• Pete Prisco — Chargers (+2) 21-17 over Steelers. From Prisco: “The Steelers have the better defense, but the Chargers are better on offense with Justin Herbert. They are playing consecutive road games, but it won’t matter. They win it on the road.” For the rest of Prisco’s Week 3 picks, be sure to click here.
• Tyler Sullivan — Packers (+3) 20-17 over Titans. From Sullivan: “In his last 10 starts dating back to last season, Will Levis has more interceptions than he does touchdowns, and the Packers defense is opportunistic enough to take advantage of any mistake he may make on Sunday. Levis is also 2-8 ATS over his last 10 starts.” For the rest of Sullivan’s Week 3 picks, be sure to click here.
• Will Brinson — Panthers (+5.5) to cover against Raiders. From Brinson: “Bryce Young just got benched, which means the entire team 1) should rally around Andy Dalton and 2) knows that no one’s job is safe. The Raiders are playing well, but I don’t think they’ll run away with this game.” For the rest of Brinson’s Week 3 best bets, be sure to click here.
• Jordan Dajani — Falcons (+3.5) 24-23 over Chiefs. From Dajani: “The Chiefs have the longest active win streak in the NFL dating to last year with eight straight victories. I think that could end in prime time in Atlanta this week. That Cousins game-winning drive in Philly is something that can spark a team, and the Falcons defense played pretty well, too.” For the rest of Dajani’s Week 3 best bets, be sure to click here.
• John Breech — Texans (-2) 24-16 over Vikings. With their win over the 49ers, the Vikings have proven that they can play with anyone in the league. However, they needed a blocked punt, two second-half turnovers and a 97-yard touchdown from Justin Jefferson to beat San Francisco by just six points. They’re likely not going to have that many things go their way this week, so I’m going to have to take the Texans. For the rest of my Week 3 picks, be sure to click here. 

For more Week 3 NFL picks, you can check out out our CBSSports.com picks page here.

5. NFL bold predictions for Week 3

After giving you some bold predictions for Week 2 last Friday, we thought we’d do the same thing again this week. Garrett Podell came up with five bold predictions for Week 3 and he’s got some pretty wild ones that just might hit. Last week, Garrett predicted that the Buccaneers would upset the Lions AND that the Packers would shock the Colts even with Malik Willis at quarterback. 

Here’s a look at his predictions for Week 3:  

• 1. Andy Dalton leads Panthers to an upset over the Raiders. “This week, the Panthers face a hard-nosed Raiders defense built in the image of head coach Antonio Pierce, a Super Bowl-winning inside linebacker with the Giants. They have allowed only 17.2 points per game since Pierce took over prior to Week 9 last season, and that is the second-fewest in the NFL in that span. However, the Panthers are going to beat them. Why? Simply because of the upgrade their offense will receive going from one of the worst statistical quarterbacks in NFL history to 36-year-old, steady veteran Andy Dalton, a three-time Pro Bowler in his hey day with the Cincinnati Bengals. Dalton is quietly the Bengals’ all-time leader in passing touchdowns with 204 from 2011 to 2019. He will be making his second start as a Panther, and he threw for 361 yards in his sole start with Carolina in Week 3 at the Seahawks last season. … The upgrade from Young to Dalton will shock the Raiders as the Panthers win their first game of the season.”
• 2. Vikings upset Texans. “Since his rookie year in 2023, C.J. Stroud has been elite at throwing the football deep downfield ranking third in the league in yards per pass attempt (8.1), and second in air yards per pass attempt (8.8). Stroud’s 43 completions of 25 or more yards since entering the NFL last year are tied for the second-most in football. In order to make deep throws, you need time to throw. That’s evidence by Stroud’s 3.03 seconds average time to throw, the ninth-longest in the NFL. He has been sacked seven times in 2024 as a result, tied for the sixth-most in the NFL. That’s not ideal as he and the 2-0 Texans hit the road to play the 2-0 Vikings, the NFL’s early leader in sacks (11), quarterback hits (19) and co-league leader in quarterback pressures (36) this season. Their 11 sacks are the most through two games in team history, and they are up 6.6% in their quarterback pressure rate from last year (32.1%) to this year (38.7%), the third-largest increase in pressure rate in the NFL.”
• 3. Quentin Johnston tops his rookie year TD total in Week 3. “As a rookie, Johnston only had two receiving touchdowns the entire year as he struggled to find a role in former offensive coordinator Kellen Moore’s offense. The 2024 season has already been a massive improvement since he had two receiving touchdowns last week at the Panthers. On Sunday, he catches his third touchdown of 2024 for a career-high in a season against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the second-best scoring defense in 2024.”

Garrett made a total of five bold predictions for Week 3 and you check out all of them here. 

6. Extra points: Derek Carr gets hit with hefty fine

It’s been a busy 24 hours in the NFL, and since it’s nearly impossible to keep track of everything that happened, I went ahead and put together a roundup for you.

• Derek Carr fined $14,000 for TD celebration. The NFL does not like it when you grab your crotch during a TD celebration and Carr found that out the hard way this week. After scoring against the Cowboys in Week 2, he pulled off a Michael Jackson crotch-grabbing celebration and the NFL responded by fining him $14,000. If you want to see video of his celebration, you can check that out here. 
• Dan Campbell forced to sell his house. The Lions coach was forced to sell his house after fans in Detroit figured out where he lives. Apparently, fans were harassing the Campbells after big losses, including Detroit’s NFC title game loss to the 49ers. You can get the full details of the story here. 
• Tee Higgins finally practicing for Bengals. The Bengals could finally be at full strength on offense. Higgins practiced on Thursday and it’s looking like there’s a chance that he could make his regular-season debut on Monday night against the Commanders. 
• Bryce Young responds to benching. The Panthers QB met with media on Wednesday and he spent most of that meeting answering questions about his benching. “Not something I was necessarily expecting,” Young said. “Obviously, not something that was great to hear.” You can check out his full comments here. 
• George Kittle banged up. The 49ers will already be missing Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel this week, and now, they might also be forced to play without Kittle. The tight end didn’t practice Thursday due to a hamstring injury and there’s a chance that he could miss Sunday’s game against the Rams.