Blake Bortles was one of the NFL’s unlikely heroes in Week 3

Sunday was one of the most unusual days of NFL football in recent memory. While people were focused on the protests during the national anthem that happened around the league, teams quietly gave us some of the most thrilling, ridiculous games of the season. And we had some surprising performances by under-the-radar players to thank for that.

Blake Bortles — BLAKE BORTLES — looked like a star against the Baltimore Ravens in London. That’s not a typo. And Case Keenum lit up the Buccaneers when he took the field for the Vikings in place of an injured Sam Bradford.

When we all stayed up late for the wild finish between the Rams and 49ers on Thursday Night Football, we thought that Sunday’s matchups probably couldn’t get better than that game. A handful of unlikely heroes made sure that wasn’t the case.

Bortles was nearly flawless, which is not a thing that’s often written about the Jaguars quarterback. He threw for 244 yards and four touchdowns in the 44-7 win over the Ravens, and he might have done more. But with the Jags holding such a commanding lead, the team sent in Chad Henne for mop-up duty.

The Ravens had been opportunistic in Weeks 1 and 2, racking up three forced fumbles and eight interceptions. Against Bortles, who threw 16 picks and had two fumbles last season, the Ravens didn’t force a single turnover.

Bortles obviously didn’t do it alone. The Jaguars defense finally looks like the unit the team has been trying to mold over the past several seasons, and on offense, the 33-year-old Marcedes Lewis had three touchdown catches. Bortles was sacked zero times, and the offensive line deserves credit for giving its quarterback the time and space he needed to make plays.

But you can’t overlook how good Bortles was, or how unexpected that is.

When the Vikings announced that Keenum would get the Week 3 start over an injured Sam Bradford, Vikings fans were less than enthused. But then Keenum played the best game of his career and led Minnesota to a 34-17 win over the Buccaneers.

Keenum completed nearly 76 percent of his passes for 369 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. It was a vast improvement over his Week 2 performance against the Steelers, with 167 yards and no touchdowns.

Strangely, Keenum has owned the Bucs in his career. He has three wins over them and has completed nearly 70 percent of his pass for 793 yards, seven touchdowns, and one interception in those three games.

Keenum had help Sunday, too. The offensive line kept Keenum upright, and Dalvin Cook’s 97 yards on the ground was important. But Keenum stood out in ways that nobody expected. According to reports, Bradford shouldn’t be out for long with a bone bruise. But in case he is, the Vikings have to feel better about Keenum after that performance.

Elliott is a rookie kicker who has been with the Eagles for less than two weeks. He was drafted earlier this year by the Bengals, but he lost the kicking competition to veteran Randy Bullock. When the Eagles put Caleb Sturgis on injured reserve after Week 1, they signed Elliott off the Bengals practice squad.

In just his second game with the Eagles, the pressure was on. Philadelphia had been ahead for most of the game, until the Giants came back to take the lead once they remembered they had Odell Beckham Jr. and should use him.

The Eagles tied it back up and with no time left, they had a chance for the win. Elliott lined up for the longest field-goal attempt this year: a 61-yarder. He had already missed a 52-yard try earlier in the game and had also sent a 30-yard attempt wide left a week before against the Chiefs.

This time, though, he nailed it:

Even better than his redemption? His parents were at the game to watch it happen:

The 61-yarder was the longest field goal in Eagles history and the longest made by a rookie in NFL history. And it gave the Eagles a 27-24 win over an NFC East rival.

The Colts didn’t have much choice but to start Jacoby Brissett in Week 2 against the Cardinals. With Andrew Luck still sidelined and Scott Tolzien throwing two pick-sixes (almost three) in Week 1, it was clear that Brissett was their only real option. But the Colts only traded for Brissett eight days before the season started. He needed time to absorb the offense.

The difference showed in Week 3, when the Colts finally locked up a win against the Cleveland Browns.

“Another week, you get a lot more comfortable, you get to learn from the mistakes that you make, and you get to do it again and try to correct a lot of those things,” Brissett said, via ESPN’s Mike Wells. “It was just a lot more at ease I would say.”

The Browns were favored in the game — the first time that’s happened since 2015 — but Brissett was in control the whole time. He completed 70.8 percent of his passes for 259 yards and one touchdown, hooking up with top receivers T.Y. Hilton and Donte Moncrief nine times. He added two rushing touchdowns and pulled off this spin move on one of them:

Even Tim Hasselbeck, whose brother Matt backed up Andrew Luck for three years, was impressed:

The Colts won, 31-28.

Brissett wasn’t the only player to have a big game in the Colts’ first win of the season. On the other side of the ball, Rashaan Melvin made his presence felt. Mevlin, who has been filling in for injured starting cornerback Vontae Davis, picked off Browns quarterback DeShone Kizer once, and then twice, for Melvin’s first interceptions of his NFL career.

This wasn’t the first time this season Melvin had made a difference. He allowed three catches — and none to Larry Fitzgerald — the week before against the Colts.

But the interceptions were a nice reward for an undrafted guy who has bounced around in his five-year career. They also helped his team in a big way.

His second interception came two plays after teammate Jack Doyle had coughed up the ball to the Browns. Once the Colts got the ball back, they drove down to add a field goal. Those three points ended up being the margin of victory.

In the Packers’ big overtime win over the Bengals, the best receiver on the field wasn’t Jordy Nelson, Davante Adams, or Martellus Bennett. It was Geronimo Allison, who signed with the Packers as an undrafted free agent after the 2016 NFL draft.

Allison went off for 122 yards on just six catches. One of those was a 72-yard bomb in overtime that put the Packers squarely in position to win on a Mason Crosby field goal.

He also had two key catches during the drive that let the Packers tie things up and send the game to overtime. One was a 17-yarder, and the other was an 11-yard reception that converted a third-and-9 and kept the drive alive.

Randall Cobb was sidelined with a chest injury, so Allison was filling in for the No. 3 receiver. His performance makes a case for the Packers to continue to work him into their future offensive plans.