Week 4 of the NFL has concluded as we flew through the first month of the season. Teams have started to show their identity and who they’ll be for the rest of the year, which is both good and bad depending on the team.
Ravens' win over Buffalo showed Bills have a fairly low floor, which is OK
Buffalo is in the middle of a retooling era after parting ways with some of their solidified faces during the offseason, but they were still able to get off to a hot start this season. Josh Allen has arguably been the best quarterback in football and as long as he's under center, Buffalo should be considered a potential Super Bowl contender. Simply having Allen on the roster raises the ceiling of this team considerably, and their potential outlook for the season shouldn't really change after losing 35-10 to the Ravens.
However, this retooling phase and semi-youth movement for the Bills, paired with some unfortunate injuries, has given them a floor that’s fairly low as well — which a good team like the Ravens were able to exploit in a big way.
This team needs its good players to play like good players every single week. When Ed Oliver has a down game against a team like the Ravens, the Bills don’t have the depth built out yet where the other players can rally and take down a team with Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry. The Bills are largely starting rookie contract players at linebacker and it showed in their game against Baltimore. On offense, the young receivers struggled to get open against Baltimore’s talented secondary in man coverage, which should probably be expected at this point in their careers.
The good thing is they’re still 3-1 and have shown the ability to absolutely stomp teams, which is difficult in the NFL no matter the opponent. They’re still one of the best teams in the league, this game was just a reminder that building out the next iteration of the roster is a process and their margins are a bit thinner against good teams with some of the injuries they’ve faced already.
A Super Bowl is still possible for the Bills, but it will likely require a Herculean performance from Allen — which he appears to be capable of. Buffalo likely won’t lose by this margin again this season. This game just showed they have a wider range of results than previously shown, but that’s just going to be a part of the growing pains.
Dolphins probably should not be looking this bad with their own offense
It's easy to see why Miami fans are upset with head coach Mike McDaniel. The Dolphins are not scoring any points right now, which is something the fan base has become accustomed to during his time. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is still out following a concussion he suffered a couple weeks ago, but they still have Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle, De'Von Achane and others on the roster to, in theory, be good enough to survive an injury to the quarterback. However, they haven't been able to muster any semblance of offense without Tagovailoa — and truthfully, weren't that good with him in the lineup before his injury.
Let's start with the main note: The quarterback play is flat-out unacceptable. The Dolphins still had Skylar Thompson as their backup for Tagovailoa and that went how it's gone just about every other time Thompson has started a game for the Dolphins: bad. Longtime backup quarterback Tim Boyle also got some playing time in Miami's loss to Seattle, leading the Dolphins to sign quarterback Tyler Huntley to their active roster just a few days before their game against the Titans on Monday. Huntley's quick insertion into the starting lineup resulted in a sub-100-yard passing game in a brutal (and boring) 31-12 loss at home.
On one hand, the Dolphins should not be expected to perform at top levels without their franchise quarterback in the lineup. On the other hand, an offense led by McDaniel, Hill, Waddle and Achane should be performing far better than this, even with quarterback issues. The fact that they can’t do anything is a little alarming and now they’re on a nice little streak of struggling on offense in general. Including their playoff loss against the Chiefs, the Dolphins haven’t scored more than 22 points since Week 15 of last season. Over that stretch, the Dolphins are 2-6, with Tagovailoa playing in a little over five games' worth of action.
They have too much talent to be playing at this level. They should have some way to get in the end zone with their skill players and speed, but they're just capped right now and defenses aren't giving them anything. McDaniel will need to figure out the next evolution of this offense and the players will need to do a better job executing the opportunities that they have. There are open receivers in this offense, but sometimes passes are dropped or the read is missed. Overall, it's just a sloppy operation.
There's been too much good offense under McDaniel to believe the magic is gone forever, but they're in a rut right now. It likely doesn't even have a chance to end until Tagovailoa gets back in the lineup, but no one really knows when that will be at this point. In the meantime, the Dolphins need to figure something out fast if they want to have any chance to turn their season around and compete for a wild-card spot.
Falcons' offense still has a LONG way to go
Somehow, by the grace of external forces, the Falcons are 2-2 on the season following a last-second win over their hated rival, the New Orleans Saints. After a rocky start to the season, featuring a home loss to the Steelers in Week 1, the Falcons have won two out of their last three games and nearly beat the Chiefs in Week 3. The record is about where they would hope to be through four games, leaving them plenty of opportunities to compete for the NFC South crown as the season progresses. However, the actual act of winning many games in the near future seems a bit dubious because they have one big problem that's plagued them for what's going on a season now — the offense is just not good enough.
After hiring Rams quarterback coach Zac Robinson as offensive coordinat and signing veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins in the offseason, the Falcons were hoping to get off to a fast start. Cousins wasn’t going to have the training wheels that a younger quarterback would need, so this thing was supposed to start looking like a functional offense right away. They’ve been any but that through four games, failing to score an offensive touchdown on Sunday and failing to eclipse more than 21 points this season without the help of defensive or special teams.
There isn’t any one singular problem that’s bogging down the Falcons, it’s the sum of a handful of issues. Cousins is still getting comfortable coming off of a torn Achilles he suffered last year, the skill players have been inconsistent, Robinson hasn’t figured out the best way to deploy his personnel, and the offensive line has been banged up. In the Falcons’ latest game against the Saints, the Falcons’ offense generated -2.41 points of expected value through the air, according to TruMedia. They did run the ball well, particularly on carries by backup running back Tyler Allgeier, but as a whole the offense sputtered.
Simply put, too many resources have been put into this offense for it to be performing at this level. They even received pretty strong pass protection in this last game, but still couldn’t get anything going through the air. There’s still enough here for the offense to turn around rather quickly, but they actually have to start putting together consistent drives and getting into the end zone.
Luckily, the Falcons do still have the services of Bijan Robinson and Allegeier in the backfield, who appear to be their most consistent performers. As good as those guys are, just leaning on them to get through the season and make the playoffs for the first time since 2017 is a plan that features a razor-thin margin for error. This passing game needs to start performing up to the investments made on that unit. They’re leaving too much meat on the bone.
Jets and the Broncos played the saddest game ever
What was that? Seriously, what happened in this game? How? The Jets and Broncos just played the saddest game of the new NFL season, taking turns just flat out wasting offensive possessions during a rainy day at Metlife Stadium.
The Broncos were able to pull out a win by the score of 10-9, but this is one of those games where both offenses should feel bad about the performances they produced. Not only did the teams combine to average just 3.4 yards per play on the day, they also went a combined 7 of 31 on third down. When your third down conversion rate is starting to look like a tour date, it’s time to look in the mirror and make sure that doesn’t happen again.
The Broncos won the game, but their offense was just futile throughout the afternoon. Rookie quarterback Bo Nix continued his spree of startlingly low numbers in the passing game, somehow finishing the game with just 60 yards passing on 25 attempts — 2.4 yards per attempt. That’s pretty bad, man. Like so bad it doesn’t need to be explained. Nix should continue to be able to start for the Broncos through the rest of the season, but he’s going to need to show the ability to push the ball down the field at some point before people start taking his long term future seriously.
Nix went into halftime with -7 yards. Less than zero. He finished the game with 60 yards which means he increased his production by over 950% in the second half! Wide receiver Courtland Sutton finished the game with 60 receiving yards, making him the only Broncos player to leave the game with more than three.
Nix found himself in rare company for this game, but for all the wrong reasons. According to Stathead, Nix had the ninth game since the 1970s merger where a quarterback threw for 60 yards or less on 25 attempts. Funnily enough, former Falcons quarterback Kim McQuilken did it twice in back-to-back seasons in 1975 and 1976, combining for seven interceptions and 87 yards in those two games. It’s worth noting that of those nine games, Nix was the only quarterback to win a game with these numbers (it’s obvious why) — which brings us to the Jets.
The Jets kind of looked more functional than the Broncos did on offense, but they were still just awful throughout this game. Aaron Rodgers threw for just 225 yards on 42 attempts and was sacked five times for a loss of 41 total yards. Breece Hall had four yards on 10 carries and lost carries to rookie running back Braelon Allen. This team finally has the quarterback they’ve been waiting a year for under center and just produced a putrid performance that brings into question what’s next for them as the season progresses.
Offensive coordinator Nate Hackett hasn't been able to give the Jets and edge on the field from a schematic perspective, leading star wide receiver Garrett Wilson to clamor for a more creative play-calling process. "I don't think we do a lot of different stuff to be honest," Wilson said on the "Bart & Hahn" show. "I watch football on Sundays and I see a lot of teams mix it up and stuff like that. I don't think we do that. I think we know our identity. It's just about going out and executing it or figuring out if it's going to work. I don't think we're trying a lot of different things."
Wilson also said his route tree has been more limited than in years past, potentially hampering his production. Pair that with Rodgers and Saleh having a cold war over the use of complex cadences and boom — a recipe for a flaccid offense.
The Jets at least can talk themselves into the idea that this gets better throughout the season because they still have enough talent to be a quality offense. The Broncos, well, they’re done if they keep playing in a horizontal style of offense. But that’s been a concern all season and it still looks the same. I wrote way too many words on this game. Sorry.
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