18. Deshaun Watson, Cleveland Browns
Deshaun Watson?
Cleveland is now the winner of two in a row after losing a blowout game in Week 1. In those two games, Watson has tossed three touchdowns against zero interceptions. He had a 121.9 passer rating in Week 2 and a modest-but-good-enough 88.8 passer rating in Week 3 against Carolina.
The Browns are now 2-1 on the season and have not gotten horrendous QB play from their once-franchise player. While Watson’s raw yardage total isn’t sensational, he’s not losing games for the Browns and has them in a solid spot right now.
This could simply be a bit of a honeymoon for the Browns, as this team is still pretty flawed, but we really don’t know what the future holds and are giving Watson a good bit of credit thus far. Once upon a time, Watson was a top-10 QB in this league, but that was years ago now, and with all the major injuries he’s gone through since then, it feels like a zero percent chance that he returns to that form.
But what if he’s average…?
The coming weeks are really going to be huge for Watson, as continuing this not-terrible level of play into the middle of the season could have us asking some wild questions.
17. Aaron Rodgers, Pittsburgh Steelers
Aaron Rodgers and the Pittsburgh Steelers were able to upset the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 3, and the offense looked significantly better than it did across the first two weeks. It will be interesting to see if the Bengals defense is actually still bad, or the Steelers offense is actually good.
Pittsburgh does have limited talent on offense, so I am not sure this unit is going to put up 30 points each week, but Rodgers was a lot better. He flirted with 300 passing yards and added three touchdowns, doing so on just 19 completions.
The Steelers had chunk plays all afternoon and are now 2-1 on the season with a huge divisional victory. In the long-term, though, I am not sure it’s wise to buy into the Steelers, as Rodgers is an incredibly limited player at this stage of his career, and what we saw in Week 3 is probably his legitimate ceiling.
We won’t get too out of hand with Rodgers ranking or even where the Steelers stand in the NFL hierarchy, as this team and QB are still pretty flawed.
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