NFL Fallout Week 9: Packers Prove They’re Contenders; Chiefs More Dangerous Than Ever

In Week 3, the Green Bay Packers were embarrassed at home by the Atlanta Falcons in a nationally televised Thursday night game. Quarterback Jordan Love looked like the only thing going right for the Packers. Head coach Matt LaFleur looked like a long shot to survive the contract extension he had just signed. Six weeks later, everything has changed. Now, Green Bay is the team nobody wants to play. The Packers proved that again on Sunday by dismantling the Patriots, 45-27, in New England. It was the Pack’s fifth win in six games and improved their record to 6-3. While they remained in last place in the arduous NFC North heading into Sunday night, they’re demonstrating why they’re one of the most dangerous teams in the NFC. That’s mostly, but not solely, because of Love, who is starting to look like a real MVP contender. He torched the Patriots for 372 yards and three touchdowns while completing 79.3% of his passes (23 of 29) — his fourth time over 70% in the past six games. But there is so much more to the Packers. For years, they had struggled to get consistent play out of an injury-prone, underperforming receiving corps. But this year they look like they have two No. 1s. In fact, Christian Watson (7-171-1 on Sunday) and Matthew Golden (10-164-1) are the best 1-2 receiving punch in football. With 102 catches for 1,662 yards and 12 touchdowns on the season, they’re even more productive than the Bengals’ dynamic duo of Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. What makes the Packers really dangerous, though, is the way they’re starting to play on defense, which figured to be a struggle after last year’s coordinator Jeff Hafley left for Miami and with All-Pro linebacker Micah Parsons still on injured reserve. But they’ve turned it into a strength. They’ve smothered teams on the ground over the past five weeks, giving up an average of just 84.8 rushing yards, including 94 in New England. And they’ve held five of their nine opponents under 300 passing yards this year. The Packers also boast the most turnover-happy defense in football. After picking off Drake Maye four times and forcing a Rhamondre Stevenson fumble, they’ve increased their league-leading total to 19. Their 26 sacks, after four more against the Patriots, put them among the league leaders in that category too. And now Parsons is about to come back. Green Bay is not perfect, of course. Its running game is pathetic, and not even Josh Jacobs’ return has helped. With Jacobs missing most of Week 9 with a broken finger, the club ran for a season-high 129 yards on Sunday, but that just boosted its league-worst average to 68.2 yards. The Packers’ passing game is becoming nearly unstoppable, though. And the defense is strong enough to help them overcome any other flaws. They’re already clearly better than the Vikings, who beat Green Bay way back in Week 1 but have been essentially operating without a quarterback. And the Packers probably should have beaten the Lions two weeks ago, and maybe would have if it weren’t for a couple of questionable calls. And while it’s too early to say they’re better than either the Chicago Bears or the San Francisco 49ers, they’re playing as they belong in that tier. That’s remarkable, considering where the Packers were back in Week 3, with only an overtime win over the Jets to show for their efforts. It just took a while for them to get going. Now, there may be no stopping them. The Kansas City Chiefs might have made the best move of the offseason when they splurged on RB Kenneth Walker III, who did not receive an offer from the Seahawks just weeks after winning Super Bowl MVP. The Chiefs’ move did more than give them a chance to extend their dynasty. It also gave Andy Reid the most dangerous team he’s had in Kansas City. Walker had another big game on Sunday against the Jets, rushing for 102 yards, catching four passes for 41 yards, and scoring three touchdowns in a 35-12 win. It was his fifth 100-yard rushing game and fifth multi-touchdown game in nine games this season. He’s second in the NFL with 872 rushing yards and tied for the current lead with 11 total touchdowns. Reid hasn’t had a running back like this since Kareem Hunt was a rookie in 2017. That was his last 1,000-yard rusher, too, and it was back when Alex Smith was still his starting QB. Since then, Reid has built a dynasty around Patrick Mahomes, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, but he’s never developed a running game to help him balance the Chiefs offense. Until now. It shows in the stats, where the Chiefs are averaging 137.8 rushing yards per game — 22 more than the best rushing seasons of the Reid-Mahomes era. And Walker is equally dangerous as a receiver out of the backfield (26-172), giving KC another way to keep defenses on edge. The ability to consistently run the ball has been missing for years in Kansas City, and it’ll be huge when the weather turns. In the postseason, it’ll also help the Chiefs slow down juggernaut offenses such as the Bills’ or grind out tough wins against teams such as the Broncos. There’s a long way to go, of course, and considering Reid has led KC to five Super Bowls, winning three, it’s hard to say this is his best team yet. But the potential is there, because of Walker. Reid’s never had a Kansas City offense quite like this. Shedeur Sanders may have lost his first start of the season, but he won the right to be the Cleveland Browns’ starting quarterback the rest of the way. At least he should have, after the way he played in the Browns’ 23-22 overtime loss to the Saints. He was 19 for 31 for 297 yards with two long touchdown passes, and he ran for 28 yards. He was also brilliant in overtime, going 6 for 8 for 72 yards and hitting tight end Harold Fannin with a last-minute touchdown pass, before he just missed a two-point conversion pass that would have won the game. Rookie WR KC Concepcion called Sanders “a game-changer,” and that’s what he was. He took an offense that had been maddeningly and frustratingly low-scoring and inefficient under Deshaun Watson and turned it into a big-play machine. Sanders’ two completions of at least 60 yards doubled the amount Watson had in the first eight games of the season. And his four completions of 30 or more yards were half as many as Watson had in those eight starts. Those big plays have been missing from coach Todd Monken’s attack, and he needs to see if Sanders can keep it going. Watson was fading anyway. The Browns had averaged just 14.6 points in the four games before he missed Sunday with a concussion. The Browns still lost, but Sanders gave the offense the kickstart it needs if they’re going to have any shot at keeping up with the Steelers and Bengals in the AFC North. And even if they can’t, the Browns need to take a good look at Sanders and how he runs this team before they get to the 2027 NFL Draft. He’s shown flashes that he can be their quarterback of the future. He’s at the very least the quarterback they need right now. I was told by multiple NFL sources this past week that the Los Angeles Chargers aren’t even engaging teams in trade talks. They are showing no inclination to deal their most expendable players. And they are telling teams they are generally happy with their core. So here’s my question for them: Are they out of their minds? If any team should be willing to sell pretty much anything that’s not cemented to the foundation of their stadium, it’s the still-winless, horribly inept Chargers, who fell to 0-8 on Sunday with a 44-22 loss to the Houston Texans. If you’re scoring at home — and why would anybody be? — they’ve topped 20 points just twice this season now. And thanks to two garbage-time touchdowns on Sunday, they’ve now scored 37 points over their past three games. That’s less than both the Packers and the 49ers scored on Sunday alone, by the way. Yet the Chargers don’t seem willing to trade 35-year-old edge rusher Khalil Mack, disappointing former first-round WR Quentin Johnston or struggling cornerback Donte Jackson — all of whom will be free agents in March and have some value on the market, those sources told me. The Chargers have given every indication that they plan to do nothing at all. And that’s just nuts. At this point, general manager Joe Hortiz should be trading every asset he has for whatever picks he can get. And he should listen to offers for everyone, even if he gets calls about quarterback Justin Herbert. Especially, perhaps, if he gets calls about Herbert. No one on his roster should be safe. If they really do stand pat at the trading deadline, though, that’s just malpractice. The Chargers look like they’re years away from being competitive at this point. They’re much closer to a mass firing and a total rebuild. They’re way too awful to spend the next few days sitting on their hands. They should know they have plenty of work to do and get it started now. No team has been pursuing Indianapolis Colts RB Jonathan Taylor more strongly than the New York Giants, but that pursuit has eased up over the last week. According to FOX Sports’ Jay Glazer, the Giants pulled their offer of a second- and fifth-round pick after it was rejected. An NFL source told me they would still be interested only if the asking price came down. They shouldn’t be, though, because unless that price comes way down, Taylor isn’t worth it for the Giants. They’re good enough to win the flawed NFC East without him. And Taylor isn’t enough to help them on a long postseason run. The Giants have too many other issues for that, starting with an offensive line that was atrocious on Sunday in their 19-11 win in Philadelphia. They couldn’t get anything out of running back Devin Singletary, who amazingly gained just 31 yards on 21 carries. The way he was constantly hit in the backfield, it’s even more absurd to think Taylor would’ve gotten much more. New York would be better off spending future draft capital on a defensive tackle that can boost its defense, or some interior line help that will power the running game no matter who is back there while also helping keep its quarterbacks from getting drilled. Even with that, though, the Giants are probably still a year away at least from being good enough to do much more than win a bad division. They’d be smarter to keep their draft picks and continue to build. That doesn’t seem to be what John Harbaugh wants to do, though. He seems intent on going for it in his first year with the team. That’s noble and certainly will be appreciated by everyone who has suffered through a decade of mostly losing in New York. But the Giants still have to be smart about this, and spending a second-round pick and then some on a 27-year-old running back wouldn’t be wise. The Giants aren’t one piece away from a run at a championship. That makes Taylor a luxury they just can’t afford. In NFL Fallout, Ralph Vacchiano breaks down the impact of the biggest events every Sunday.