NFL Week 3 season-saving wins: Rams, Broncos, Giants, Panthers - ESPN

I wrote last Monday about how desperately the NFL's 0-2 teams needed a victory in Week 3 to save their seasons. Apparently, most of them were listening. Six 0-2 teams won Sunday, with the Titans as the only holdout of the bunch. In a league in which it doesn't feel like there have been many consistently dominant teams through three weeks, 23 of 32 teams are either 2-1 or 1-2.

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Naturally, with so many upsets and surprising outcomes Sunday, I want to write about several of those unexpected victories and dive into what happened. Not all of them involved an 0-2 team turning things around, but I want to understand what changed or evolved to see five different teams that were underdogs of three points or more pull out wins.

Let's go through those five games. I'll start in Inglewood, California, where the Rams pulled off a dramatic comeback in a matter of minutes:

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49ers-Rams
Broncos-Bucs | Giants-Browns
Packers-Titans | Panthers-Raiders

The epitaphs were being written for the 2024 Rams. Down 24-17 with 4:57 to go, they had just allowed Jordan Mason to convert a second-and-1, giving the 49ers a first down inside rival territory. Another 10 yards would put San Francisco in field goal range to go up by two scores, which would have left L.A. in a nearly hopeless scenario. ESPN's win expectancy model, which had the 49ers north of 75% for the vast majority of the game, peaked on this very play: The Rams had just a 4.5% chance of pulling out a season-saving victory.

From that point forward, just about everything the Rams needed to happen went their way. Kyle Juszczyk was flagged for holding on the next snap, pushing the 49ers behind the sticks. Brock Purdy couldn't find any open