14 Thoughts from Sunday's Week 4 Games
Who had Ken Dorsey out-scheming Vic Fangio? What a game by the Bills offense. We’ve talked about how their offseason additions indicated a desire to use bigger personnel and run the ball more, and that’s very much been the formula over the last two weeks. On Sunday, we saw the impact this had on the passing game. The Dolphins defense was off balance all afternoon and Josh Allen picked them apart with ease as a result. He finished the game with a perfect passer rating, completing 21 of 25 passes for 320 yards and 4 touchdowns. He also added a rushing touchdown. The Bills defense did a pretty good job as well, didn’t they? The AFC East is back to being Buffalo’s after a 3-week hiatus.
Bryce Young is still adjusting to life in the NFL. He holds the ball like he did at Alabama, only without the same level of protection and with better athletes chasing him. He’ll learn, but so far the way he played in college hasn’t translated to the NFL.
C.J. Stroud, on the other hand, has been outstanding. He’s completing 62.3% of his passes for 303 yards per game with 6 TDs, 0 INTs, and a 100.7 passer rating. The Texans have now racked up back-to-back impressive wins against the Jaguars and Steelers.
It’s starting to feel like we’ve already seen Mac Jones’ ceiling. He’s a quarterback who isn’t physically gifted as a passer or a runner, so he has to be precise in everything he does and avoid mistakes. That has not been the case for much of his career and it really hasn’t been the case so far this season. Against the Cowboys, it reached catastrophic levels. The Patriots are 1-3 to start the year for the third straight season. But it seems like there’s less hope this year than in the past two. Mac Jones’ lack of growth is a key reason why.
Someone on the Jets must have read Nick’s post from Friday where he said Saleh and Hackett should let Zach Wilson cut it loose. He looked like a different quarterback on Sunday night against the Chiefs. Decisive and more confident. Despite his critical fumbled snap late in the 4th quarter, the Jets should feel much better about the quarterback position after last night.
The Bears…oh the Bears. If the NFL Draft was held today, they’d have both the first and second overall picks. More and more, you get the sense they’ll be moving on from Justin Fields after this season unless something changes drastically.
The same issues we saw with Desmond Ridder in his 4 starts last season are still issues this year. He wants to throw to his first read and doesn’t consistently get to his second or third receivers. The Jaguars were keying on that and attacking wherever his eyes went right after the snap. It led to two interceptions that the Falcons never recovered from.
The Ravens took advantage of Deshaun Watson’s absence to hold the Browns to just 2.6 yards per play and regain control of the AFC North.
The Rams almost blew a 23-0 lead but ended up finishing the job on a Puka Nacua touchdown reception in overtime. Non-controversial opinion: Matthew Stafford has always been better than Jared Goff. Controversial opinion that shouldn’t be controversial at all: He still is.
The Buccaneers have moved on from Tom Brady and they haven’t missed a beat. They’re 3-1, largely on the strength of that defense that was so instrumental in their Super Bowl run. On Sunday, they went into New Orleans and convincingly beat the Saints, their main competition in the division.
The Eagles have won ugly every week this season. That either means there are issues that are going to jump up and bite them at some point, or that they are really good and can win with their B game.
The Bengals’ first 4 games of 2023 don’t have the feel of just being a slow start that they’ll recover from any minute now. Burrow’s calf is clearly an issue that isn’t going away and his play has suffered as a result of it. Their next 4 games are at Arizona (no pushover), vs Seattle, at San Francisco, vs Buffalo. This season could spiral out of control if Burrow doesn’t get it together soon.
You’d think that if Brandon Staley is so dedicated to going for it on 4th down in his own territory with the game on the line that his team would either have some better play designs or be really good at executing in those situations. They have been neither. Against the Raiders, L.A. almost gave away another winnable game before the defense came up with another big turnover on the goalline. As good as Justin Herbert is, can anyone imagine this team winning more than 1 playoff game with Staley’s game management?
The 49ers keep rolling, and Christian McCaffrey is the key cog in the machine. His 4 touchdowns helped the 49ers beat a pesky Cardinals team. A showdown with Dallas in Week 5 awaits.