My good friend @andrewssports taught me long ago that baseball is like salad, but football is like soup. It is harder to separate the ingredients after it’s cooked. NFL referees were home cooking in WK3. In seven games, the officials favored home teams by 5 or more points per my formula for quantifying penalties. In Dallas, Ron Torbett and his crew favored the Cowboys by more than 12 points, but Baltimore still hung on to win, 28-25. In Atlanta, Brad Rogers and his crew favored the Falcons by almost 6 points. They awarded four first downs by penalty to Atlanta and none to Kansas City. But Rogers’ crew failed to award the Falcons a fifth first down when Chiefs’ safety Bryan Cook interfered with Atlanta tight end Kyle Pitts in the Kansas City end zone on fourth down with about four minutes to play. Quarterback Kirk Cousins underthrew Pitts and Rogers’ crew refused to bail him out. Falcons’ backers should not scream too loudly. If Atlanta head coach Raheem Morris had opted for a field goal, his much better designed team would have only needed another short field goal at the end of regulation to win. The no-call was in error. Officials probably flag a player like Cook for DPI at least 80% of the time on a play like that. But Morris had already put his team a more difficult position by not sacrificing points to reduce variance as a better designed team usually should. No matter what Morris decided, the Falcons’ defense was going to have to stop Patrick Mahomes. Ex-GM Bill Polian ranted against Morris’ decision on Sirius XM NFL Radio on Tuesday morning. “This is probability, not reality,” Polian said of Morris’ decision to leave the 3 points on the field. That is not the way I would put it, but I share Polian’s sentiment.

Cleveland quarterback Deshaun Watson is now the undisputed driver of the struggle bus. With Carolina’s benching of Bryce Young and Chicago’s Caleb Williams showing signs of life in the second half against Indianapolis, Watson’s encounter with embattled New York Giants’ quarterback Daniel Jones turned into a … uh, shootout? Jones turned in a solid 24-34-236-0 and threw a pair of TD passes to terrific rookie WR Malik Nabers in the Giants 21-15 upset. Watson was dreadful taking six sacks. For the second time in three games the Browns’ player productivity (1.82) was below the NFL Mendoza Line (2.00) for productivity. For the season, Cleveland’s average player productivity is 1.69. They are lucky to have even one win.

Tennessee is 0-3 after absorbing a 30-14 pounding from Green Bay. The Titans are a horrific -7 turnovers, and their quarterbacks are losing over 1-yard per attempt when they try to pass. Even if they do not turn the ball over or go backwards, their player productivity (2.29) has been barely above the Mendoza Line. Head Coach Brian Callahan brought in his dad, Bill, to fix the offensive line. It has not gone well even though Pro Football Focus grades rookie tackle JC Latham as the best rookie pass blocker in the league. And the quarterback play has been downright dreadful. After Carolina’s shocking upset of Las Vegas, only Tennessee, Jacksonville, and Cincinnati remain winless.

Congrats to Carolina’s Dave Canales on his first win as an NFL head coach, a 36-22 upset of the Raiders in Las Vegas. On the South Point Studio’s Football Frenzy show on YouTube, host co-host @VinnybyTheBook noted the Panthers have had four head coaches in five years. “The Steelers haven’t had four head coaches since I was born, and I’m 68 years old,” @andrewssports fired back. Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin, the longest-tenured coach in the NFL (17 years), also won, 20-10 over the LA Chargers. When it comes to the NFL, always remember to consider both the short and the long of it.