Patrick Mahomes caught fire NBA Jam-style and is the winner of NFL Week 2

Week 1 of the NFL season began with the Packers and Bears grinding their way through a swamp and ended, for East Coasters at least, with the Texans and Saints giving the world a Game of the Year contender on Monday night. Week 2 carried that momentum into a Thursday night NFC South showdown that wasn’t especially well played, but still managed to deliver a win for the Buccaneers that literally none of us at SB Nation saw coming.

That set the tone for an uneven, but occasionally exciting, second Sunday in 2019. The Packers sprinted out to a 21-0 lead against the Vikings to look like NFC North favorites, then held on for dear life as Kirk Cousins backed his way into 16 straight points before crumbling into dust. The Bills improved to 2-0 by dispatching the Giants, with Josh Allen looking more than competent in victory.

And the Dolphins gave up more yards on pick-sixes (picks-six?) than they gained in their first three quarters against the Patriots, 123-37.

But while Green Bay, Buffalo, and New England were victorious in box scores, this week’s slate of winners extends beyond the final score. So who won the week? It wasn’t:

The 2017 Pittsburgh Steelers offense, who made it to the AFC title game:

QB: Ben Roethlisberger
RB1: Le’Veon Bell
RB2: James Conner
WR1: Antonio Brown
WR2: JuJu Smith-Schuster

The 2019 Pittsburgh Steelers offense in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s home loss to the Seahawks:

QB: Mason Rudolph
RB1: Jaylen Samuels
RB2: Benny Snell
WR1: JuJu Smith-Schuster
WR2: James Washington

That 2017 offense gained 5.8 yards per play and 378 per game. Against the Seahawks, who were last seen allowing Andy Dalton to throw for a league-high 413 yards in Week 1, the 2019 version gained 261 yards — a 5.1 per-play average. Bell and Brown are both gone, and it’s not yet clear how much time Roethlisberger or Conner will miss. If their replacements can’t stand up soon, ‘19 could mark the second-straight season Pittsburgh watches the playoffs from home.

Rodgers’ forearms were naked in his opening night slog over the Bears, just like they’d been throughout a storied 15-year NFL career. He didn’t need to look up the plays coming in through his headset, he’d memorized Mike McCarthy’s uncomplicated playbook by heart.

But 2019, after McCarthy’s ouster, was different. Rodgers made headlines at practice leading up to Week 2 when he was caught sporting a playbook cheat sheet above his non-throwing list. This made it easy to translate first-year head coach Matt LaFleur’s calls into on-field action, and it got moved into his gameday wardrobe. Despite this being an extremely freshman football move, its impact was significant.

He marched his first two drives down the Vikings’ throats for a pair of Packer touchdowns, throwing for 119 yards and two scores in the process. This wasn’t sustainable — Minnesota’s stout defense adjusted in time to limit his impact — but for 16 minutes Sunday, Rodgers looked like the man who’d won two regular season MVPs. More importantly, that fleeting explosion and Green Bay’s upgraded defense were enough to push the Packers to 2-0 on the season with a pair of important wins over division rivals.

Gillan is already a legend for having an absolutely insane journey from Scottish Highlands rugby player to unlikely scholarship specialist at Arkansas Pine-Bluff to, now, Cleveland Browns punter. The well-traveled specialist only needed one NFL game (and a 46.6 yards-per-punt average) before getting his own official shirt.

Gillan, the son of an armed forces member, will be donating his proceeds from sales of the shirt to the Wounded Warriors Project. This guy, and his shirt, rules.

Oh, and he also put five of his six punts against the Jets inside their 20 yard line and was named the AFC’s special teams player of the week.

The Browns called a running play with 3:43 remaining in the third quarter of their Monday Night Football showdown against the Jets. They walked away with the fourth-longest passing play in franchise history.

Mayfield saw a massive gap in New York’s coverage with the Jets’ high safety a full 19 yards behind the snap. He gave Odell Beckham Jr. a nod, threw the ball into that void, and then watched as he outraced every defender — including a baffled Marcus Maye, who turned to chase Beckham without looking at where he was going, for some reason — en route to an 89-yard touchdown. With one adjustment, Cleveland’s 85 percent chance of winning pushed well into the 90s.

But Mayfield didn’t make the final cut of the team’s spot-on cold tub Friends credits recreation, so maybe he’s also one of this week’s losers.

Dorsett came into the Patriots’ 2019 preseason as the team’s No. 2 receiver, behind only Julian Edelman. Then New England got Josh Gordon back from his indefinite suspension and signed Antonio Brown, leaving the former first-round pick’s place in the lineup in question.

Over the past two weeks, he’s answered that question. He belongs somewhere near the top of Tom Brady’s wishlist. Here he is replacing Rob Gronkowski as Brady’s safety blanket on third-and-long.

And here he is catching an ambulance pass and showing off the wherewithal to avoid getting destroyed by the Dolphins secondary after stretching out:

Dorsett only had three catches for 39 yards on a day where no Patriot had more than 60 receiving yards. He’s not a guy who’ll get Pro Bowl consideration, but he makes the New England passing offense considerably more dangerous by doing so many little things right.

Jackson’s appeared in this feature three times in six weeks. He’s very good. In Sunday’s win over the Cardinals he threw for 274 yards and ran for 120 more.

That’s one hell of a throw for a running back.

Kupp missed half of 2018 with a torn ACL. I’m no doctor, but I believe he’s back to full strength.

Kupp only had two catches against the Saints’ versatile secondary, but he made the second one count. While the original call of a touchdown was overturned, the third-year wideout’s big gain effectively put away a Saints team that struggled without Drew Brees.

Jones earned a three-year, $66 million contract extension during the preseason. That’s a higher annual salary than any other wideout has ever known, and he’s absolutely worth it.

Jones hit 20 miles per hour while turning fourth down into Sunday Night Football’s game-winning points. He finished his day with 104 yards and a pair of touchdowns. More importantly, he bailed on Matt Ryan on a night where the former MVP nearly sunk Atlanta with a handful of dumb mistakes.

Bowles’ tenure in New York ended with three straight losing seasons, but the former Jets head coach and current Buccaneers defensive coordinator showcased his gridiron acumen by shutting down the Panthers on Thursday night. Tampa Bay held Cam Newton to 25 completions on 51 pass attempts and limited Christian McCaffrey to 37 rushing yards on 21 carries in its first victory of 2019.

No stop was more important than the Bucs’ final one. Bruce Arians’ last-minute brain fart and back-to-back timeouts led to a delay of game penalty that turned Carolina’s last gasp fourth-and-2 attempt to 4th-and-0.5, but Bowles’ unit was up to the task.

How’s Bowles doing it? He’s turning his team’s developing players into stars. Shaquil Barrett played the game of his life, setting career highs with three sacks and four QB hits. Vita Vea was a mountain in the middle, making four stops and proving immovable for a shaky Carolina offensive line. Vernon Hargreaves was everywhere those two weren’t and some places they were, shutting down the Panthers with a dozen tackles and a pass defensed.

If the Bucs’ defense can play like this every week, they’ll never be out of a game.

*No, not you, intrepid Tampa fan. You knew all along and I was wrong to ever doubt you.

Vrabel knows a little something about getting into the end zone despite not being a skill player. He accounted for 10 receptions in 14 NFL seasons as a linebacker — all of which ended in touchdowns. On Sunday, his Titans snuck reserve tackle David Quessenberry through the line and into the end zone to catch a one-yard strike from Marcus Mariota.

That’s great. You know what’s even better? The fact Quessenberry BEAT CANCER to get here. He fought off non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma from 2014 to 2016, then bounced around the Texans and Titans practice squads before finally getting his moment to shine in Nashville Sunday.

I’m as shocked as you are.

Eddy Pineiro was perfect on the day, kicking three field goals and adding an extra point. And that’s how the Bears won a game where their quarterback threw for 4.4 yards per attempt.

The Raiders made the world briefly question the Chiefs’ dominance by taking a 10-0 lead early in the first quarter Sunday. Any comeback Kansas City could make would have to come without the team’s lead wideout Tyreek Hill and a suspect tailback rotation. And then Patrick Mahomes unleashed this second quarter:

19 passes, 286 yards, four touchdowns.

Mahomes uncorked scoring plays of 44, 42, 27, and 35 yards to Demarcus Robinson (twice), Mecole Hardman, and Travis Kelce. His last six passes of the first half ALL went for 22 yards or more. This was very nearly history.

That was all the Chiefs needed. Those 28 points were all they scored in an 18-point win.