Here we are. All but two teams will have finished up the first quarter of the season by the time Tuesday comes calling. As most head coaches would like us to believe, this is when a lot of squads figure out where they are heading into the remainder of the campaign. Most simply like to look at the schedule and break it down into four quarters.
In this, we have learned a heck of a lot about all 32 teams around the league. Sunday’s slate of action was no different. From late-game losses for some perennial cellar-dwellers to anemic offensive performance for the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers, a lot of things took shape on Sunday.
Here are your top 10 takeaways from Sunday’s Week 4 NFL action.
It’s just not clicking in Philadelphia right now
That whole general managing thing. Well, it’s not looking great for Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly. After dropping a close game to the Washington Redskins on Sunday, Kelly’s squad will head into Week 5 in the NFC East cellar. This was unimaginable just a few short weeks ago.
Sam Bradford was able to get the passing game rolling in the second half, throwing three touchdowns after halftime. The bad news here is that Philadelphia found itself in a major hole after being shutout in the first two quarters. In fact, Philadelphia put up just 92 first-half yards.
More troublesome than Philadelphia’s offense is the fact that its defense allowed Kirk Cousins to lead Washington on a 15-play, 90-yard touchdown-scoring drive to win the game late in the fourth quarter. This is magnified by the fact that Philadelphia’s offense picked it up to the tune of 228 yards in the second half.
It just seems that Kelly can’t get all three areas of the team to perform at a high level at the same time. If that continues, the Eagles current positioning at the bottom of the NFC East could continue all season.
Perennial bottom feeders find new ways to lose
One thing is clear here. The Cleveland Browns, Oakland Raiders and Jacksonville Jaguars are all much more competitive than we have seen in previous seasons. Unfortunately, all three lost close outings Sunday.
For the Browns, the difficulty of overcoming that hump came in the form of an offsides penalty against Tramon Williams as San Diego Chargers kicker Josh Lambo missed a potential game-winning field goal in the final seconds. Lining up five yards closer, the rookie nailed a 34-yard attempt to give San Diego a 30-27 win.
In Chicago, the Raiders went conservative on their final drive of the game. Derek Carr did lead his team to an 11-play, 68-yard drive that culminated in a go-ahead field goal with just over two minutes remaining.
Unfortunately, the Raiders were simply going for a field goal once they got into Sebastian Janikowski’s range. You don’t need to be an NFL expert to understand this isn’t a winning formula.
Jay Cutler proceeded to lead Chicago down the field for a game-winning field goal, giving the Bears their first win of the season and snapping Oakland’s rare winning streak.
Oakland is a pretty darn good football team. It just seems that Jack Del Rio, in his first season as the team’s head coach, doesn’t have the necessary talent to get over that hump and compete for a playoff spot. Playing conservative with the game on the line won’t help.
Jacksonville had an opportunity to send an Andrew Luck-less Indianapolis Colts team to a 1-3 record on the season. Unfortunately for head coach Gus Bradley and Co., rookie Jason Myers missed two game-winning field goal attempts in overtime — one of 53 and the other from 48 yards out.
Like clockwork, Colts backup quarterback Matt Hasselbeck led Indy to the game-winning field goal on the possession directly following Myers’ final miss.
It’s one thing to be competitive. It’s a completely different thing to actually overcome the final hurdle and win those close games. These three teams proved that they just aren’t there yet.
The “St. Louis Jekyll and Hyde’s”
Courtesy of USA Today Sports: It’s been years since Fisher has sniffed the playoffs.
Beat the Seattle Seahawks. Lose two consecutive games, one to the Washington Redskins. Then, go into Arizona and beat a previously undefeated Cardinals team. This type of inconsistency has been a major issue for the St. Louis Rams under Jeff Fisher.
Remember the little blurb we wrote following the Rams Week 1 win over Seattle? It went a little something like this. St. Louis found a way to defeat Seattle and the Denver Broncos while losing to Kansas City and the Arizona Cardinals, all in a one-month span last season. Overall, the Rams are 4-4 against the NFC West and 4-8 against the rest of the NFL since the start of the 2014 campaign.
This Sunday, the good version of Fisher’s squad showed up. Seeing his first significant time, rookie running back Todd Gurley put up 146 yards on 19 attempts for a ridiculous 7.7 yards per attempt average. Meanwhile, Nick Foles completed 16-of-24 passes for 171 yards with three touchdowns and no picks.
It was a crisp performance from a Rams squad that won the turnover battle by three. With this team’s defense, and what is quickly becoming a solid running game, there is no reason St. Louis can’t compete for a playoff spot in the NFC. However, it’s going to be all about achieving a level of consistency we haven’t seen thus far under Fisher.
Joe Philbin could be out of a job in Miami
Following yet another humiliating loss, the Miami Dolphins could be on the verge of firing their head coach. Reports out of London indicate that Philbin’s future will be decided within the next couple days, potentially even on Monday. With Miami headed to the bye week sporting a 1-3 record, it’s as good of a time as any to make a coaching change.
The issue with Miami, outside of a three-game losing streak, is that it hasn’t been competitive in each of the past two weeks. Down 27-7 heading into the fourth quarter on Sunday, Miami has now taken a combined 41-point deficit into the final stanza during that two-game span.
Once this happens, the question then becomes whether a coach lost his team. While there haven’t been any reports suggesting this, it remains a real possibility.
Sunday’s hapless performance was highlighted by Miami’s under-performing defense yielding 207 rushing yards to the New York Jets, including 166 from Chris Ivory. At the end of the day, the Dolphins’ London trip was nothing less than disastrous in a 27-14 loss.
If Philbin does lose his job, there doesn’t seem to be any real in-house candidate to replace him. Both coordinators have been criticized to no end during the team’s 1-3 start. This could bode well for Philbin, who might keep his job as a lame duck for the final 12 games. In any event, it will be interesting to see what happens here.
Jameis Winston is a rookie quarterback, imagine that
If you were near the social media world on Sunday, you know full well where we are going with this. Fans and analysts alike seemed to treat Winston’s four-interception performance as a way to call out the young man’s struggles. Though, it seemed like the entire NFL community forgot that he is less than 10 months removed from starting at Florida State.
Showing signs of the same mistakes that plagued him during his last season with the Seminoles, Winston completed 26-of-42 passes for nearly 290 yards with two touchdowns and those four interceptions.
Making a strong early-season play for NFL Defensive Player of the Year, Panthers cornerback Josh Norman intercepted two Winston passes, returning one 46 yards for a score in the first quarter. It’s these types of negative, game-altering plays that Winston needs to avoid moving forward.
It’s also what we have seen from most young quarterbacks during their rookie campaigns. In no way, does it mean Winston doesn’t have a bright future. From here on out, it’s all about progression.
Red zone issues for the Kansas City Chiefs
Four trips into the red zone. Four field goals. Three other scores. All field goals. Yes, Kansas City scored seven times on Sunday and still fell to the Cincinnati Bengals by the score of 36-21. Needless to say, that’s just not going to get it done.
The Chiefs’ offense was good enough outside of the red zone against a solid Bengals defense. Alex Smith completed 31-of-45 passes for 386 yards. Jamaal Charles added 145 total yards on 17 touches. Meanwhile, Jeremy Maclin put up 11 receptions for 148 yards and a score. Heck, Kansas City gained a whopping 461 yards on the afternoon.
For Kansas City, it’s now about finding a way to have actual success in the red zone. With Smith’s inability to find wide receivers near the goal line, this is going to be a major issue. You can only target Charles and Travis Kelce so much. And now at 1-3 on the season, this needs to change in short order.
Atlanta Falcons look nearly unstoppable
After a punt on its initial possession, Atlanta put up two touchdown-scoring drives totaling 18 plays and 125 yards. And after Dan Quinn’s team punted on its fourth possession, the defense returned an Arian Foster fumble 24 yards for another score. Up 21-0, that was pretty much it for the home team in a blowout win over the Houston Texans.
Heck, the Falcons started pulling starters midway through the third quarterback in what ended up being a 48-21 win over Houston. Devonta Freeman, making his mark as the top dog in Atlanta’s backfield, scored three touchdowns for a second consecutive game.
And while Julio Jones (four receptions, 38 yards) didn’t get going like he did in previous weeks, others stepped up for a Falcons offense that tallied nearly 400 yards of total offense.
At 4-0 on the season, the main thing here has been Atlanta’s improved play on defense in Quinn’s first season as the team’s head coach. The former leader of the Legion of Boom in Seattle, he has this unit playing amazing overall football.
Atlanta may have sacked Texans quarterbacks just once, but it did force (and recover) three fumbles, two of which were returned for touchdowns. If the Falcons can continue to play at this level on defense, they could be a real threat in the NFC moving forward.
San Francisco 49ers are a hot mess on offense
Here’s an interesting stat. In theory, Colin Kaepernick outgained the entire San Francisco offense in what was a horrendous overall performance from the free-falling team under first-year head coach Jim Tomsula.
How does this even happen? Well, it was made possible by the six sacks the Green Bay Packers put up in a less-than-stellar 17-3 win over San Francisco. Add in the fact that Kaepernick represented 57 total rushing yards while losing 41 yards on sacks, and the stat line reads a little something like this:
A total of 217 yards from the quarterback (160 passing, 57 rushing) and 196 total yards from San Francisco’s offense. This is as confusing as it is rare. It’s also downright embarrassing.
For his part, Kaepernick wasn’t free of blame here. He continually struggled making accurate passes — something that had been considered a strength before last week’s four-interception performance against Arizona. He also held on to the ball too long, which played a role in him going down six times.
After putting up just three points in an embarrassing offensive performance on Sunday, San Francisco has tallied a total of 48 points in four games, including 10 over the past two weeks.
We can blame Kaepernick and the other members of the offense until we are blue in the face, but the coaching needs some of the blame as well. Simply put, the play-calling was beyond atrocious in the loss to Green Bay. And if it doesn’t get better, San Francisco could very well find itself on the losing side of the ledger a whole heck of a lot more moving forward this year.
Minnesota Vikings fail to get over that hurdle
Minnesota gave it a good go against an undefeated Broncos team in Denver on Sunday. However, the young team simply didn’t have enough to get over that final hurdle for a signature win this year.
With his team driving for a chance to win, second-year quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, facing pressure — pretty much like he had all game — fumbled the game away during a play that saw him go down for a seventh time on the afternoon.
And despite a stellar all-around performance from Bridgewater, it’s this one play that most will point to. He’s a darn good young football player, but just doesn’t seem to be there yet. Overall, the former first-round pick completed 27-of-41 passes for 269 yards with a touchdown and that costly fumble.
At 2-2, Minnesota still has a golden opportunity to emerge from a group of NFC contenders and earn a playoff spot. However, it’s going to need to get back to the basics on offense.
There is absolutely no reason Adrian Peterson should be attempting just 15 rushes in a close game. As good as Teddy might be moving forward, the Vikings’ identity this season has to start and end with Peterson.
Injuries continue to ravage Dallas Cowboys in second consecutive loss
Never mind that Drew Brees threw a walk-off touchdown — the 400th touchdown strike in his career — to lead the New Orleans Saints to an overtime win over an injury-plagued Cowboys team. Outside of New Orleans actually finding a way to save its season, the Cowboys continue to find themselves ravaged by injuries.
Dunbar’s injury looked really bad, which is why we will refrain from showing it here. Coming into Sunday’s game as the league’s leader in receptions among running backs, this could be a significant blow to a Cowboys offense that’s without both Tony Romo and Dez Bryant for the foreseeable future.
One of the top inside linebackers in the game, Lee simply can’t stay healthy. And in reality, it’s going to start hurting the team’s defense. In fact, New Orleans targeted Lee’s replacement, rookie Damien Wilson, in the game-winning touchdown to C.J. Spiller.
With so many injuries to this squad, it’s hard to imagine the Cowboys being able to remain afloat until both Romo and Bryant return. With games coming up against the New England Patriots, New York Giants and Seattle Seahawks, it doesn’t get any easier over the next month.