# Caleb Williams Torches the Cowboys as Blocked Field Goals Define NFL Week 3

By Devin Barrios · Sports · Published Thu, 24 Sep 2026 15:11:41 GMT
Source: The Current Tribune — https://currenttribune.com/article/nfl-week-3-2026-bears-cowboys-caleb-williams-blocked-field-goals

Week 3 of the NFL season turned into one of those Sundays where special teams coordinators earned their paychecks and everybody else just tried to keep up. Blocked field goals decided game after game, Chicago finally looked like the team its front office promised, and Dallas walked away from Soldier Field wondering what exactly just happened to them.

## Bears 31, Cowboys 14: Caleb Williams Arrives

Chicago’s win over Dallas was the marquee matchup of the week, and it wasn’t particularly close by the time the final whistle blew. Caleb Williams threw four touchdown passes, and the Bears built enough of a cushion in the first half that Dallas never had a real answer in the second. It was Chicago’s first win under new offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, and if the rest of the season looks anything like this performance, it’s going to be a very different fall on the North Side than the last few years have delivered.

Running back D’Andre Swift made his presence felt as a complement to Williams’ arm, giving Chicago a balanced attack that Dallas simply didn’t have an answer for. On the other side of the ball, the Bears defense forced multiple turnovers, including a tipped interception that swung momentum firmly in Chicago’s favor. Dallas tried to counterpunch with a flea flicker attempt for a touchdown, which tells you how far behind the game plan the Cowboys felt they were by that point. Making matters worse for Dallas, star receiver CeeDee Lamb appeared to suffer an ankle injury during the game, adding an injury concern on top of a lopsided scoreline.

### What It Means for Both Teams

Dallas drops to 1-2 on the season, a rough start for a roster that came in with real expectations. For Chicago, this is exactly the kind of win a fan base has been waiting years for — a statement performance from a young quarterback in year two, against a marquee opponent, with a new coaching staff getting real results in the box score rather than just in practice reports.

## Field Goal Chaos Defined the Rest of the Slate

If Bears-Cowboys was the headline, the undercard was arguably just as compelling. Special teams play was the story across the entire early slate, with blocked field goals directly deciding the outcome in multiple games.

### Philadelphia Stays Perfect

The Eagles remained undefeated through three weeks, but they needed their special teams unit to bail them out against the Rams. Philadelphia blocked two field goal attempts late in the game to preserve the win, the kind of result that won’t show up dramatically in the box score but absolutely will show up in the standings come January.

### Cleveland Pulls Off the Upset of the Week

The Browns delivered the biggest surprise of Week 3, knocking off Green Bay in a result almost nobody had circled on their calendar. A blocked field goal attempt in the closing moments of the game proved decisive, flipping what looked like a Packers win into a Browns statement victory. For a Cleveland team that’s spent the last few seasons searching for any kind of positive momentum, this is the sort of result that can shift the tone of an entire year.

### Close Games, Everywhere You Looked

Five games across the early Sunday slate came down to a single score, and blocked field goals played a decisive role in three of them. The Jets caught a break when an opponent’s kick got blocked, only for Tampa Bay to answer and take the game anyway, a reminder that a broken play doesn’t always translate into a win even when it goes your way.

Out west, both the 49ers and the Chargers closed out their respective games with walk-off field goals, beating the Cardinals and Broncos in finishes tight enough to keep fans in their seats until the final second. Walk-off kicks and blocked attempts don’t usually cluster into a single week this heavily by coincidence — it’s more likely a sign that kicking units around the league are getting more aggressive with protection schemes and more willing to attack the edge on block attempts, and Week 3 was the week that trend showed up everywhere at once.

## The Bigger Picture Heading Into Week 4

Three weeks in, a few things are starting to come into focus. Philadelphia’s depth and discipline on special teams look like a legitimate advantage rather than a fluke, and an undefeated start built partly on blocked kicks is still an undefeated start. Chicago’s offense, powered by Williams and Ben Johnson’s play-calling, looks like it might finally be the version of this team that was promised when the front office committed to this coaching hire. And Dallas has real problems to sort out fast, with a star receiver banged up and a defense that couldn’t slow down a second-year quarterback having his best game as a pro.

### Teams On Upward Trajectories

Cleveland’s win over Green Bay might end up being a footnote in a long season, or it might be the moment a rebuilding roster started to believe in itself. Those distinctions usually only become clear in hindsight, but upsets like this one tend to matter more for locker room belief than they do for playoff math this early in the year.

## What This Means

Week 3 didn’t just produce good football — it produced a legitimate changing of the guard in at least one marquee matchup, with Caleb Williams and the Bears looking like a genuine threat rather than a rebuilding project still finding its footing. Combine that with a nearly unprecedented cluster of blocked field goals deciding outcomes across the league, and you’ve got a Sunday that reshuffled expectations in multiple divisions at once. Dallas needs answers on defense and needs CeeDee Lamb healthy fast. Chicago needs to prove this wasn’t a one-week mirage. And every special teams coordinator in the league just got a very loud reminder that protection schemes matter as much as the leg doing the kicking.