On an NFL Sunday featuring seven games among teams in the same division, three of last year’s division champs — the Cincinnati Bengals, Indianapolis Colts, and Chicago Bears — grabbed hold of first place by beating their toughest rivals.

After Cincinnati’s 28–20 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers, it appears that Pittsburgh will have to follow the same path as last year — making the playoffs as a wild card and getting hot in January — if it is going to defend its Super Bowl title.

The game was a big one for Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer, who faced the Steelers only nine months after suffering a serious knee injury against them in last year’s playoffs. Palmer didn’t play well, fumbling three times and throwing two interceptions, but his team won in large part because Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger played even worse.

Roethlisberger was on top of the football world after leading the Steelers to the championship last year, but he has had nothing but trouble since then. He was injured in a motorcycle crash during the off-season, he missed the first game of the season because of an emergency appendectomy, and after yesterday’s three-interception game he has five picks and no touchdowns this season.

Roethlisberger is too good a player to be in any danger of losing his job, but many will question whether Steelers coach Bill Cowher rushed him onto the field too soon after the appendectomy. Roethlisberger says he’s healthy and the team doctors agree, but he looked uncomfortable yesterday, throwing mostly short, safe passes and struggling even with those.

But Roethlisberger was far from Pittsburgh’s only problem. Two Steelers, punt returner Ricardo Colclough and running back Verron Haynes, lost fumbles in the fourth quarter. After both fumbles Palmer needed only one play to hit receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the end zone for touchdown passes that took the Bengals from a 17–14 deficit to a 28–17 lead in a span of 54 seconds.

Palmer’s touchdown passes were impressive, but he struggled throughout the day with Pittsburgh’s pass rush. Pittsburgh defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau loves to disguise his blitzes to keep the opposing quarterback from knowing where the rush will come from, and that’s exactly what he did yesterday. Palmer was sacked by both of Pittsburgh’s defensive ends (Aaron Smith and Brett Keisel), an inside linebacker (Larry Foote), an outside linebacker (Clark Haggans) and a cornerback (Deshea Townsend). He was also hit several times just after getting his passes away.

With that pass rush, the Steelers still play Super Bowl-caliber defense. But until Roethlisberger is back to 100%, Pittsburgh won’t look like a Super Bowl team.

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Halfway through the first quarter, the Jacksonville Jaguars seemed to have the Colts right where they wanted them. Jacksonville received the opening kickoff and embarked on an 11-play, 78-yard touchdown drive, and did it by using the Colts’ strength — their pass rush — against them. Jacksonville ran on nine of the 11 plays, often running draws directly at pass-rushing defensive end Dwight Freeney.

But the Colts’ defense adjusted and started keying on the run, and Jacksonville quarterback Byron Leftwich couldn’t take advantage. Leftwich had a miserable game, completing 16 of 28 passes for just 107 yards, with a touchdown and two interceptions. Leftwich’s bad game overshadowed the emergence of rookie running back Maurice Jones-Drew, who had 13 carries for 103 yards and four catches for 32 yards.The Colts could have taken Jones-Drew in the first round of this year’s draft, but they chose LSU running back Joseph Addai instead, leaving him for Jacksonville to snatch in the second round. After yesterday’s game, the Colts might wish they could have that pick back. Addai made little impact, with three carries for 15 yards and three catches for 13 yards, while Jones-Drew looked like the second-best player on the field.

The best player on the field was of course, Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, whose numbers — 14 of 31 for 219 yards with one touchdown — don’t fully convey how well he controlled the game. Manning never turned the ball over against a Jacksonville defense that dominated Roethlisberger on Monday Night Football last week and dominated Dallas quarterback Drew Bledsoe in Week 1. He also never looked rattled despite dropped passes by his usually dependable receivers, Reggie Wayne and Marvin Harrison.The Colts are 3–0 and in first place, and it’s hard to imagine them anywhere else as long as they have Manning at the helm.

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Last year the Chicago Bears gave free agent wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad a $12 million signing bonus and made him the focal point of their offense. He had a mediocre season with 750 receiving yards, and many in Chicago have questioned whether the Bears would ever get their money’s worth. But three games into this season Muhammad looks as though he’s worth every penny, and his nine-catch, 118-yard day against the Minnesota Vikings led the Bears to a 3–0 start yesterday.

Bears offensive coordinator Ron Turner, who ran an incredibly cautious offense last year when rookie quarterback Kyle Orton led the team, has opened things up this season now that four-year veteran quarterback Rex Grossman is finally healthy. The Bears’ opponents, still thinking of Chicago as the conservative team of last year, are keying against the run, and Turner is having Grossman use play action passes to exploit those defenses.The play action opened things up not only for Muhammad, but also for receivers Bernard Berrian (six catches for 70 yards) and Rashied Davis (three catches for 48 yards and a 24-yard touchdown late in the fourth quarter).

Chicago still wins first and foremost with its defense, and that defense kept the Vikings’ offense out of the end zone yesterday. But if its offense continues to play like it did against the Vikings, the Bears won’t just be as good as they were as NFC North champions in 2005, they’ll be better — maybe even good enough to face the Bengals or the Colts in the Super Bowl.

Mr. Smith is a writer for FootballOutsiders.com.