NFC NORTH

DETROIT

Imagine – the Lions matching Packers fans cheer for cheer at Lambeau Field.

Imagine – the Lions with a 4-game win streak over Green Bay.

You don’t need to imagine it.

Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com:

Thousands of Lions fans packed Lambeau Field on Thursday night to see their team beat the Packers, and afterward quarterback Jared Goff said it was a real road-field advantage.

Goff praised Lions fans for making noise and sticking around late in the win, cheering them as they walked off the field as Packers fans hit the exits.

“They’re the best. They’re the best,” Goff said of Lions fans. “They showed out tonight, like they did the Sunday night game last year. That’s a feeling unlike any other, when you’re walking off the field and they’re cheering like that, on the road. Especially when you think about from where we’ve come. It’s a pretty good feeling, and we’ve got to keep winning for them.”

The 3-1 Lions, who also had a loud contingent of fans on the road in their win over the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium in Week One, have given their fans more reason for optimism than fans of the franchise have had in decades. They’re the clear favorites to win the NFC North and give Detroit its first home playoff game since 1994. That would be a great gift to a fan base that has stuck by its team through some awfully tough times.

More numbers on the Detroit ascendancy from Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com:

Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff wasn’t overly excited after exiting Lambeau Field with a 34-20 win over the Green Bay Packers on Thursday night.

“It’s what we expect to do,” he said. “We have a good team.”

But having confidence in the Lions franchise, after witnessing years of defeat, is still taking some time for people to adjust to. Goff isn’t one of those people, and neither are his teammates.

“Send us anywhere and we’ll be ready,” said Goff, who passed for 201 yards with a touchdown and interception. “And that’s the way we’re built.”

Through Week 4, the Lions are 3-1, with two of those wins coming on iconic stages: Lambeau and Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium in the season opener.

Goff is 5-1 in his career against the Packers. Now in his third season in Detroit, he has led the Lions to six consecutive victories against NFC North division opponents, tying their longest streak in the Super Bowl Era (1995 and 1983).

“We have that confidence,” he said. “Like I said, send us anywhere. Line us up against anyone, and we feel like we can go in there and beat them, and that’s a good feeling to have. Is it always gonna happen? I don’t know, but we feel like we can. We have that confidence in ourselves, in our coaches and each other. We’re working together really well right now.”

From 1971-2014, the Lions were 5-27-1 at Lambeau Field, including the playoffs, but with their latest victory, the Lions are 5-4 at Lambeau Field since 2015.

When asked if the Lions are now the team to beat in the North, Packers quarterback Jordan Love said, “Yeah, for sure.”

“Credit to them, they played really good tonight,” Love said. “I think it was us and them going into this game, but obviously we haven’t played the Vikings yet. But every time we play a North opponent, it’s a huge game going forward to the end of the year. But yeah, it’s a game that we’ll be looking forward to next time we play them. Gotta go just be better, go win.”

GREEN BAY

A disastrous night for the Packers, as they yield the homefield advantage, then are outscored 27-3 in the first half.  Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com on Coach Matt LaFleur’s angst after the game:

Packers coach Matt LaFleur was not in a cheery mood after Thursday night’s 34-20 loss to the Lions.

Asked what caused the Packers’ struggles in the first half, LaFleur suggested that just about everything went wrong, and he didn’t appreciate the question.

“We sucked,” LaFleur said. “We got our ass kicked. If I knew, it wouldn’t have happened. That’s a BS question.”

As LaFleur got more questions about what went wrong, his answer didn’t change.

“They whooped us. They manhandled us. Again, if I knew the answer to that, it wouldn’t have happened,” LaFleur said.

The Lions led 27-3 at halftime, and LaFleur called that “humiliating.”

“Give Detroit a lot of credit. They came in and whooped us pretty good,” LaFleur said. “They manhandled us, really, in every phase.”

The 2-2 Packers are now a game behind the Lions in the NFC North, and they’ll have some time to regroup with an extra-long work week before their next game on Monday, October 9, against the Raiders.

NFC EAST

DALLAS

Jori Epstein of YahooSports.com has an area where the Cowboys seem to miss RB EZEKIEL ELLIOTT.

Thanks to boosts from their defense and special teams, the Dallas Cowboys have outscored their 2023 opponents 86-38.

Yet coming off their first loss of the season – a surprising upset after they were favored by double digits against the Arizona Cardinals – the Cowboys’ top offensive concern is clear: red-zone production.

Sample sizes are tricky three weeks in, and this one is no different. The Cowboys are very good at getting to the red zone, tying the Chiefs with a league-best 18 trips (half the league has fewer than 10). Success once there, however, has proven trickier. The Cowboys rank 27th in red-zone success rate, converting on just 40% (six of 15) touchdowns.

That number is worse over the past two weeks, when 11 opportunities have yielded just three touchdowns. It’s a schematic weakness (or room for growth, depending on your perspective) that Dallas is well aware of and one the team says it will harp on this week in practice.

“We’ve been down there ample times to execute it,” team owner and general manager Jerry Jones said Wednesday on Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan. “When you get in that red zone, that’s the defensive time. They have the edge. They have the shorter field.

“Do we have the players to get the ball in there? Unquestionably, we have the players. Can we execute better? You can imagine what a focus point it is for our team.

“While that is something to note, it’s not a long-range concern.”

Will it become one?

If the Cowboys struggled in the red zone against the New York Jets and Cardinals, expect them to face still steeper challenges the next two weeks against Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots defense and the San Francisco 49ers.

Against the Patriots, the Cowboys will also meet a clear reminder of why they’ve fallen so quickly in the red zone: the loss of running back Ezekiel Elliott.

The Cowboys rank dead last in rushing yards over expectation in the red zone the past two weeks, per Next Gen Stats. The New Orleans Saints (minus-10), Green Bay Packers (minus-13) and Detroit Lions (minus-16) also have struggled but none as much as the Cowboys’ minus-27.

Dallas released Elliott in March. The Patriots signed him in training camp. The Cowboys will likely welcome their 2016 fourth overall pick to his seven-year home with a tribute, with Jones saying, “I don’t want to blow a surprise, and that’s a good enough answer for you.”

Elliott drew critiques in recent years as his efficiency waned with age. After averaging at least 4 yards per carry – and three times at least 4.5 yards per carry across a season – Elliott managed just 3.8 yards per carry last season. Outside voices clamored for running back Tony Pollard to get more opportunities, with his explosiveness evident and his ability to run between the tackles underrated.

But Elliott’s production was also underrated. Touchdowns are worth six points, no matter from how far out they arrive, and Elliott collected 12 touchdowns each of the past two seasons. All 24 came in the red zone. Tight end Dalton Schultz, whom Dallas let walk in free agency this offseason, contributed 11 more red-zone touchdowns across those two seasons.

The Cowboys ranked first in red-zone efficiency last season, converting on a whopping 71.43% of attempts. The prior year, they ranked sixth, with a 63.08% success rate.

Is the loss of Zeke the reason the Cowboys are slipping in the red zone?

Jones, often quick to counter criticism for personnel moves, dismissed Elliott’s absence as a limiting factor in the red zone.

“Zeke’s unique physicalness is always nice to have, to be trite about it,” Jones said. “We think about ‘physical’ on short yardage and probably should. But I do not think that physicalness from the running back is contributing to us not getting in the end zone.”

The issue might be less about the Cowboys’ running back room and more about their usage of receivers in the red zone. Through three games, Pollard is averaging 104 yards from scrimmage and has touched the ball a league-high 74 times. He has scored two touchdowns, while running back Rico Dowdle added another. The Cowboys also have two touchdowns from tight ends, one each from Jake Ferguson and rookie Luke Schoonmaker.

Their receivers, meanwhile, have not scored through three weeks.

That, more than general running back production, is where the Cowboys need to get creative. Head coach Mike McCarthy is calling plays for the first time in his four Dallas seasons. He needs to power his precise West Coast principles to scheme open star receiver CeeDee Lamb or big-bodied Michael Gallup or speedy receiver Brandin Cooks.

Even factoring in the extra opportunities the Cowboys have had in the red zone, their passer rating (72.7) ranks 25th the past two games, per Next Gen Stats.

The Cowboys need more from quarterback Dak Prescott, whose red-zone performance against the Cardinals included a costly interception with 3:05 to play. Prescott knows he also needs to use his legs more in the red zone, a tactic that has generated 26 touchdowns in his career. Make defenses respect his escapability, and they’ll need to lighten coverage on his targets.

That’s what the Cowboys will look for this week against the Patriots. That’s what Jones will look for from McCarthy, about whose playcalls he has been overwhelmingly positive – yet Jones stopped short of saying that he’s happy with what he has seen through three weeks.

“I want to see more to use the word ‘happy,’” he said. “But let me be real clear: I think that what we’re trying to do is really doable.

“I am very pleased with the prospects of going from here and what our potential is to correct some of the negatives you saw out there.”

AFC NORTH

CINCINNATI

QB JOE BURROW admits to consulting with QB AARON RODGERS on his ailing calf.  Rodgers, as we know, has medical knowledge both conventional and unconventional.  Ben Baby of ESPN.com:

Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow and New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers have built a connection on a shared experience.

Calf injuries.

On Tuesday, Rodgers revealed on “The Pat McAfee Show” that he reached out to Burrow after the Bengals’ quarterback played through a right calf injury in the team’s 19-16 win over the Los Angeles Rams.

Burrow said the two connected last week as he wanted to use Rodgers as a resource given his own injury history.

“He’s dealt with calf issues his whole career and wanted to use him as a resource and get his thoughts, what he might have done,” said Burrow, who added that he considered what Rodgers said. “He’s been through it, done that. And he was great about it.”

Cincinnati held a walk-through on Wednesday following its game against the Rams on “Monday Night Football.” Burrow, who aggravated the preexisting calf injury during the Week 2 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, cleared a workout the morning of the game that gave him and the team confidence he could play on the calf. That night, Burrow threw 49 passes and helped the Bengals secure their first win of the season.

In his interview with McAfee, Rodgers praised Burrow’s toughness and described the difficulty of playing with the calf injury.

“For him to tough it out, I don’t think that people realize how much pain and limited mobility he was in,” Rodgers said. “But for him to gut it out last night and to make enough plays to win, like I texted him, that’s what great competitors do. They show up and play through the pain and don’t make it a big deal.”

Bengals offensive coordinator Brian Callahan said Burrow was straightforward about how he felt and what he was comfortable doing in the prime-time game against the Rams. But even at the beginning, the coaching staff was unsure of how Burrow might look. Burrow had important plays in the second half as Cincinnati overcame a slow start to get the win.

Callahan said the offense must be better as the season progresses, even if Burrow is dealing with the calf injury. But Cincinnati’s fifth-year coordinator acknowledged it does have an impact on how the offense operates.

“There’s a minor limitation that we got to work around, and that’s just what it is for the foreseeable future,” Callahan said Wednesday.

When it came to his mechanics, Burrow said generating velocity without putting too much pressure on his right calf is something he has thought about. He initially took time off throwing immediately after he suffered the injury in late July so he didn’t corrupt his mechanics.

The soreness Burrow felt on Tuesday wasn’t as prevalent on Wednesday, when he said he felt much better. Had the team held a full practice, Burrow would have likely been a full participant, according to the team’s injury report.

The quarterback’s practice workload will be monitored on a day-to-day basis as the team prepares for Sunday’s game against the Tennessee Titans (1-2), coach Zac Taylor said on Wednesday.

With a smile, Burrow declined to get into any specific advice that Rodgers has provided when it comes to playing on an injured calf. But the Cincinnati star is all ears.

“[I’m] going to continue to use that as a resource,” Burrow said of Rodgers.” He’s a great guy. Whenever you have a guy like that that’s willing to help, you’re going to use it.”

PITTSBURGH

With their punter’s availability in question, the Steelers have decided to Wing it.  John Breech of CBSSports.com:

It’s a good thing that Brad Wing didn’t give up on his NFL career, because he’s officially back in the league after six years away.

The punter has signed a practice squad deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers, who decided to add some insurance at the punter position this week after Pressley Harvin III suffered a hamstring injury during the team’s 23-18 win over the Raiders on Sunday night.

Although the Steelers are expecting Harvin to play this week, he did miss practice Wednesday. When it comes to hamstring injuries, you can never be too cautious, which is likely why the team decided to sign Wing.

For Wing, the signing means that he’s now with an NFL team for the first time since 2017. During his first stint in the NFL, the former LSU punter played a total of four seasons. After going undrafted in 2013, Wing signed with the Eagles, but he was cut before the start of the season.

One year later, he latched on with the Steelers and ended up spending the entire season with them. Wing, who’s from Melbourne, was an early part of the Australian punting movement that has slowly taken over the NFL. The Seahawks (Michael Dickson), 49ers (Mitch Wishnowsky) and Saints (Lou Hedley) all have an Australian punter. The Texans also have one (Cameron Johnston), but he’s currently on IR. The Eagles also had one (Arryn Siposs) before cutting him prior to Week 3.

As for Wing, after a short stint in Pittsburgh, he signed with the Giants in 2015 and ended up spending three seasons with them before being released in March 2018. Following his time with the Giants, Wing bounced around, going from spring league to spring league. In 2019, he spent time in the Alliance of American Football (AAF), and that was followed up by a one-season stint with the XFL’s San Antonio Brahma’s in 2023.

Wing had a huge season in the XFL, ranking in the top-3 in punts, punting average, total yards, and longest punt, and that’s likely a big reason why the Steelers decided to sign him. The Steelers also looked at a few other punters — including Drue Chrisman, Blake Gillikin, Pat O’Donnell — before making the decision to sign Wing.

The 32-year-old hasn’t played in an NFL game since December 2017, so if he does get a chance to play this weekend, he’ll have gone nearly six full years between games.

AFC EAST

MIAMI

WR JAYLEN WADDLE has cleared the concussion protocol and is good to go Sunday against the Bills in the early season battle for AFC East supremacy.  The Dolphins didn’t need him last week to score 70 on the Broncos.

NEW YORK JETS

What else can QB ZACH WILSON say?  Rich Cimini of ESPN.com:

New York Jets quarterback Zach Wilson was sacked four times in a 24-hour span — three times by the New England Patriots on Sunday and once the next day by Joe Namath, the most iconic player in franchise history.

Commenting for the first time on Namath’s scathing criticism, the embattled Wilson insisted he wasn’t upset by the comments.

“I mean, he’s passionate,” Wilson said Thursday, smiling. “He’s obviously one of the greats, so as an offense we’ve got to do everything we can to try to prove him wrong.”

Namath, 80, fed up with Wilson’s struggles, blasted the first-rounder on “The Michael Kay Show” on ESPN New York radio. He said that Wilson’s performance was “disgusting” and that he’s “seen enough of Zach Wilson,” predicting the third-year quarterback never will develop into a good player.

Wilson, thrust into the lineup when Aaron Rodgers went down with a season-ending Achilles injury on the fourth play in Week 1, has struggled mightily. His QBR is a career-low 26.7, which ranks 33rd out of 34 qualified passers. The only quarterback below him is the Chicago Bears’ Justin Fields (21.0).

The Jets organization was hit hard by Namath’s remarks, but most coaches and players were careful not to fire back. Namath, who led the Jets to their only Super Bowl in 1969, still is revered by the franchise. No one wanted to start a war of words with the Hall of Fame quarterback.

Wilson, who showed up for his news conference wearing a T-shirt that read, “I Got Your Back” (recently distributed to every player), downplayed the criticism.

“Obviously, Joe was an unbelievable player, but this locker room is very tight-knit and we’re working to get better,” said Wilson, who has met Namath only once — a training camp visit in 2021.

Offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, presiding over a unit that has scored only three touchdowns in three games, echoed Wilson’s sentiment, saying, “Joe Namath was a great, great football player. He has every right to his opinion, and we have every right to prove him wrong.”

Tight end Tyler Conklin, defending Wilson, said Namath went too far.

“I don’t like it because that’s my teammate,” Conklin told ESPN. “I don’t like it. It’s harsh to say that.

But the Jets (or at least their secondary market) are seeing a surge in ticket prices for this week’s game.  Brian Brushard of Forbes. Com:

Ticket prices to the New York Jets match-up against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, an already highly anticipated game between two heavyweight AFC teams, skyrocketed this week following reports that the Jets’ home game will be attended by Taylor Swift, watching her rumored new romantic interest, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

Ticket price for Sunday’s game, which had been slumping in sales following Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ season-ending achilles tear in his New York debut, have bounced back amid the media hysteria surrounding Swift and Kelce, with ticket prices on the secondary market increasing by 43% from Tuesday to Thursday, according to data from TicketIQ.

That price increase brings the cheapest seats to Sunday’s game at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey to $124, while the average ticket price jumped to $511, a 28% increase over that same time—according to TickPick, the cheapest ticket to the game, called the “get-in” price, jumped roughly 43%, from $83 to $119, following reports that Swift would be in attendance.

Tickets to the Jets’ next home game against their divisional rival Philadelphia Eagles start at $123 on the secondary market, while their home games in November range from $52 to $110 for the cheapest seats.

THIS AND THAT

QBs CANDIDATES FOR A BENCHING

Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com has six candidates to be benched.

We know QBs ZACH WILSON, DESMOND RIDDER and SAM HOWELL haven’t done much.  And Ridder has a semi-viable back-up in TAYLOR HEINICKE.

What about RYAN TANNEHILL?  JUSTIN FIELDS?  RUSSELL WILSON? Okay, let’s see who he’s got.

Let’s sort through the quarterbacks whose situations are most vulnerable after the first three weeks of the NFL season. I’m not rooting for anyone to get benched, but there are a handful of teams that have to be concerned about what they’ve seen from their starters. There are others that already were wondering about their options before the season and might be aggressive about making a move, even if their starter is playing reasonably well at the moment.

One quarterback who isn’t on the list: Justin Fields. On the merits of the Chicago offense, he could be benched. His 21.0 Total QBR ranks last in the league. The Bears rank 28th in yards per play (4.4), 29th in yards per game (250) and 31st in expected points added on offense (minus-27.8). He has looked lost for long stretches of games and has shown virtually none of the upside Bears fans were so excited to see more often in 2023.

For a few reasons, I don’t think benching Fields makes sense. The Bears’ primary backup is Nathan Peterman, so they aren’t going to be upgrading to a successful veteran if they make the switch. This is Fields’ third season, so they need to evaluate as many of his reps as possible before making a decision about his fifth-year option for next spring. That they seem to have made the wrong choices around him is obvious, but benching him won’t solve any of those mistakes.

I’ll sort through six passers from most likely to be benched to least likely. The quarterbacks at the end of the list might be candidates for a change sometime in December if their teams are out of the playoff hunt. The one at the top might be about to start his last game with his current team.

1. Zach Wilson, New York Jets

Where do we begin? It was unfair to judge Wilson by what we saw against the Bills in Week 1, when he was forced into the lineup because of Aaron Rodgers’ torn left Achilles tendon. Facing one of the league’s best defenses with no first-team reps on about 30 seconds’ notice, he always was going to look bad.

Since then, things haven’t gotten much better. Any suggestion that Wilson would have been chastened by his quick fall from grace or picked up much from Rodgers during their summer together in New York hasn’t been borne out by what we’ve seen. Sadly, if anything, he looks worse than he did over the previous two seasons. Wilson’s 26.7 Total QBR is comfortably the worst of his career and 10 points below where he eventually landed in 2022. It’s actually worse (24.7) if you remove the emergency snaps against Buffalo from the equation. His completion rate (52.4%) and yards per attempt (5.6) are at career lows.

In trying to keep the offense afloat and avoid turnovers with Wilson, it appears offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett’s plan has been to keep things simple and try to eliminate anything that might be challenging. Wilson is averaging 6.6 air yards per throw, which is down about 1.5 yards from last season. One-third of his passes are at or behind the line of scrimmage — the second-highest rate in football — and 7.1% of his passes are deep (20-plus yards downfield), which ranks 27th.

You can understand the logic, but it’s neutering any hope the Jets have of scoring on offense. Wilson needs to piece together a handful of first downs for this team to score, and that’s just not realistic. He is still being pressured at the league’s second-highest rate despite the short passes, and when there’s a man on him, disaster strikes. He is 6-of-30 for 54 yards with eight sacks and an interception when pressured this season; his 3.7 QBR in those situations ranks 31st. Every passer is relatively bad under pressure, but the Jets can’t count on landing on a single drive in which he goes unpressured for 10 or 12 plays and it leads to a scoring opportunity.

As it is, the 1-2 Jets have scored three offensive touchdowns in three games. The one against the Bills came on a short field after an interception. The score against the Cowboys came on a 68-yard pass to Garrett Wilson in which the star wide receiver generated 55 yards after catch. The touchdown against the Patriots on Sunday was really the first complete possession the Jets have had all season, a 13-play, 84-yard drive with seven first downs. If the Jets were hoping it was a sign of things to come, the ensuing three drives produced a total of two points … for New England.

You don’t need me to tell you Wilson is not a starting-caliber quarterback. I already wrote earlier this week about how the Jets created a disastrous situation around him in the scenario in which he might need to start by not doing enough to address the offensive line and by putting every one of their offseason eggs into the “Are you friends with Aaron Rodgers?” bucket.

Why didn’t the Jets add anybody more imposing to back up Rodgers than Tim Boyle? And why is coach Robert Saleh still out here saying things like this?

There’s an important thing to remember here. Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas were the people who drafted Wilson with the No. 2 overall pick in 2021. They convinced themselves he was a franchise quarterback. The quotes from the organization about Wilson and his strengths from before the draft sound like they were watching an entirely different quarterback. Nobody is more invested in seeing Wilson emerge as a viable quarterback than the people in charge of this organization.

Unfortunately, it’s time. When you have Joe Namath describing Wilson’s play as “disgusting,” it’s telling. It isn’t as if the Jets have had decades of great quarterback play before now. Namath bit his tongue and endured the likes of Browning Nagle, Ray Lucas, Brooks Bollinger and Sam Darnold. Heck, Namath said Nagle would handle the adversity of playing in New York “just fine.” You can only imagine how much worse Wilson must look to the Hall of Famer by comparison.

I wrote about the Jets’ options when Rodgers went down injured. The trade candidates around the league aren’t particularly realistic, at least right now. There’s a chance Kirk Cousins or Ryan Tannehill come available if their teams start 1-6, but the Jets might be right there alongside them. Matt Ryan or Philip Rivers shouldn’t be coming out of retirement to get the snot beat out of them behind this offensive line.

Of the free agents who were available, I was surprised to see the Jets pass up Carson Wentz to sign Trevor Siemian to their practice squad this week. Siemian has been a backup-caliber player during his time in the NFL, but he has been better than Wilson. Former Saints coach Sean Payton had Siemian running a low-risk, low-reward offense during his last significant stretch as a starter in 2021. Siemian threw 11 touchdown passes against just three interceptions but averaged 6.1 yards per attempt and completed 57.4% of his passes. If the Jets want to stick with this style of offense and focus on protecting the football, he’s a better option than Wilson, but they still have virtually no ceiling on offense.

Siemian will be inactive against the Chiefs this week, but the Jets have to consider pushing him into the starting lineup as early as Week 5 at Denver. The fans are obviously upset with what they’re seeing, but reports of player unrest are more significant. Saleh had to bench Wilson last season when it became clear his credibility was being threatened by endorsing Wilson as the best option on the roster. That he was actually the best option through Week 3 is only through cronyism and naivete. This season is lost, but unless Saleh and Douglas follow through with the choices they need to make to show they’ve moved on from Wilson, it’s going to jeopardize the two executives’ futures with the organization.

2. Sam Howell, Washington Commanders

We knew virtually nothing about Howell as he entered the season as Washington’s starter. He fell to the fifth round in the 2022 draft, sat for the majority of his rookie season and started only in Week 18 after Taylor Heinicke urged the coaching staff to play Howell instead. He looked good in that 26-6 win over the Cowboys, but his 19 pass attempts in the game were his only throws of the season.

Well, we now have 99 more attempts of regular-season Howell action to add to our sample. There are things to like. The raw product he puts out there is compelling and sometimes extremely impressive. In terms of negative plays, though, he looks every bit the quarterback who has made four NFL starts. He won’t make it through the season playing this way.

Let’s start with the positives. Howell is fun to watch when things are working. Some of the throws he has made have been world-class. This throw to Terry McLaurin is both the right decision (deep post versus quarters coverage) and inch perfect. McLaurin has to make a great catch, but this pass is thrown into a spot where only he can come down with the football.

For a 6-foot-1 quarterback, Howell has more zip on his passes than you might think when he gets the time to set his feet and deliver. He’s capable of hitting throws to either sideline from the pocket. The 23-year-old also has scrambled for 42 yards and three first downs on five tries, including the game-winning touchdown against the Cardinals. If you catch him on the right snap, he looks like he should have been a top-10 pick.

In whole, though, Howell is too destructive to keep the 2-1 Commanders afloat for long. He admittedly is coming off of a disaster game against a great Bills defense, but no quarterback can survive with this sort of penchant for ending drives. He has a 5.1% interception rate and a 16.1% sack rate through three games. The latter figure is the NFL’s worst mark, while the only passer with a more significant interception rate is Jimmy Garoppolo.

Interceptions are more damning than sacks, but I’m more concerned about the sack rate of the two. A 16% sack rate is something out of the 20th century. Howell has been hit on more than 24% of his dropbacks this season; the only quarterback who has been hit more frequently is Russell Wilson.

The propensity to take sacks both runs the risk of injury and makes concepts that would be appealing in the playbook vectors for potential disaster. As an example, Howell’s physical ability should make him a candidate to throw on the run. Changing a signal-caller’s launch point slows down the pass rush, gets the quarterback outside the pocket, allows him to reduce the progression and creates scramble opportunities. All of that makes his life easier.

NFL Next Gen Stats defines a quarterback on the run as one traveling more than 8 mph. On those plays, Howell ranks last in the NFL in total expected points added (minus-23.0) and EPA per dropback (minus-1.3). The problem? On 18 dropbacks, he is 8-of-13 for 59 yards, but he has thrown an interception and taken five sacks. Some of those are plays in which he is running for his life, but if offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy can’t trust him to run a naked bootleg without taking a sack, it’s going to cut off what my friend Nate Tice likes to refer to an “easy button” for young quarterbacks.

The interceptions aren’t exactly ideal, either. Howell was a little unlucky to have AJ Epenesa snatch a ball out of the air for a pick-six in Week 3, but Howell’s four other interceptions on the season have come on off-platform throws in which he wasn’t able to drive the ball. Quarterbacks can’t get away with those throws in the NFL unless they have Justin Herbert-level arm strength, and Howell is never going to be that guy. Some quarterbacks make a habit of repeating the same mistake, with Zach Wilson’s propensity for throwing late on the run to the middle of the field as an example. Howell has to recognize he can’t make those throws and adjust accordingly. Ideally, he’s going to be able to anticipate those receivers coming open over the middle of the field earlier, which will prevent defenses from laying waste to him in the pocket.

Even leaving aside the Bills game, Howell wasn’t quite as impressive over the first two weeks as it might have seemed. His numbers against the Broncos were inflated by 88 yards on screen passes, which is nearly double the production of any other quarterback on screen passes in a single game this season. Only five other quarterbacks have had games with more yardage from screens over the past five years. Howell had three different screens gain at least 20 yards; the last time that happened in a game was when Nick Foles did it for the Eagles in 2013, which was coach Chip Kelly’s first season as an NFL coach. Those are great calls from Bieniemy, but his quarterback wasn’t exactly shouldering the load on those plays.

Unlike other quarterbacks on this list, the Commanders have an extremely viable backup. Jacoby Brissett started 11 games for the Browns last season and ranked 10th in Total QBR. His career sack rate is higher than the league average, but at 7.6%, that’s about half of Howell’s through three games. Crucially, Brissett doesn’t turn the ball over, as his career interception rate is just 1.5%. The Commanders rank eighth in points per possession allowed since the start of 2022; their best way of winning games might be by playing defense and protecting the ball on offense.

For now, the Commanders are moving forward with Howell as the starter. Hopefully, what we saw against the Bills was one bad start and a lesson for him to learn as he continues on his path toward becoming a franchise quarterback. With the Eagles coming up Sunday, though, his ability to avoid sacks and protect the ball will be tested. If he can’t hold onto it, coach Ron Rivera will have no choice but to give Brissett a try.

3. Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

These rankings are about who is most likely to be benched as opposed to which quarterback is playing the worst. Mayfield’s play through three games, frankly, has been a pleasant surprise. The guy who ranked last in Total QBR with the Panthers and Rams last season is 17th so far. He has turned the ball over just once in three games, with an interception coming when he was late to recognize an open Chris Godwin against the Eagles on Monday night.

If anything, Mayfield has been let down by disappointing drops for the 2-1 Bucs. The normally sure-handed Mike Evans has three drops in three games, including a pass that likely would have produced a touchdown against the Vikings in Week 1. Other quarterbacks have it worse — Matthew Stafford has had seven of his passes dropped — but Mayfield’s numbers could be even better.

In some ways, Mayfield has produced differently than the quarterback we’ve seen in the past. In Cleveland, he was at his best when he worked off play-action and had time to throw. Stick him in the pocket in an obvious passing situation and the results were usually frustrating.

So far this season, he has defied that scouting report. He has been much better on third down by QBR (seventh in the league) than he has been on first and second down (24th). His 78.1% completion rate is the league’s best on third down, while his 14.9 completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) on those throws ranks second behind Joshua Dobbs. In all, 40% of his third-down dropbacks have produced third downs, well ahead of the league average of 29.6%.

Mayfield also has been brave in the pocket dealing with pressure. Consistent pressure has sometime led to bad habits for the 2018 No. 1 overall pick, who developed a propensity for escaping the pocket at the first hint of danger. He has taken on pass-rushers in the pocket and lived to tell the tale, ducking a couple of free runners to continue on and make plays. A quarterback would obviously rather the ball be out before those rushers get home, but he has been stronger in the pocket so far. He has posted a 96.2 QBR against the blitz this season, the third-best mark in football.

Has Mayfield benefited from his schedule? A little. I’m not sure there’s a more dramatic bounce than going from the Vikings and Bears to the Eagles, and unsurprisingly, he ranked 11th in QBR over the first two games and 25th afterward. (Opponent adjustments will become more significant as the season goes along.) He definitely has played different sorts of defenses so far: Mayfield and the Bucs had to prepare for a blitz- and man-heavy Vikings team in Week 1 before moving on to the Bears and Eagles, who play zone at a much higher rate than Minnesota. Playing solid football behind an iffy offensive line for this three-week span is a positive.

So, why isn’t Mayfield lower on this list? He was in a closer battle before the season than any of the other quarterbacks we’re discussing today. Kyle Trask, a second-round pick in 2021, hasn’t proved anything as an NFL quarterback, but the Buccaneers waited until Aug. 22 before naming Mayfield as their Week 1 starter, suggesting that Mayfield entered the season on a shorter leash than any other passer in the league. The front office that drafted Trask at the end of Round 2 would probably like to see whether it has anything in him before the end of his third campaign in the league, but Mayfield has grown the gap between the two with his play.

4. Desmond Ridder, Atlanta Falcons

When Atlanta coach Arthur Smith was approached after the Week 1 victory over the Panthers and asked why wideout Drake London had been targeted only once, he was more than happy to poke the proverbial bear. “Let the fantasy guys worry about that,” Smith told reporters. “We’ve got to clean some things up. … We don’t care. Drake London doesn’t care. All we care about is 1-0.”

Well, the Falcons are 2-1, which is a good start for a team hoping to contend for a playoff berth. Unlike last season, though, they aren’t being carried by their offense. Marcus Mariota & Co. ranked 12th in offensive DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average) last season. This season, with Ridder taking over as the full-time starter and first-round running back Bijan Robinson added to the fold, they rank 24th. Without a player-of-the-week performance from new safety Jessie Bates as part of a three-takeaway game in Week 1, they would likely be 1-2.

Robinson has been as advertised, as he ranks third in the NFL in rush yards over expectation (RYOE). The passing game? Not as much. Ridder is averaging 4.6 yards per dropback, which ranks 31st, behind Zach Wilson and Justin Fields. Nobody expected the Falcons to morph into the Chiefs, but the hopes that Smith and Ridder would be able to marry the rushing attack with a more expansive passing game haven’t come through.

We’ve already seen how this could work in Tennessee, where Smith served as the team’s offensive coordinator for two seasons before taking the Falcons job in 2021. The Titans threw less often than any other team. When they did throw, it was usually Ryan Tannehill hitting chunk plays off of play-action. With London and tight end Kyle Pitts — two recent top-10 picks — on the roster, Smith has super-talented pass-catchers capable of running away from defenders with the ball in their hands. Mariota wasn’t a great fit for that offense, but maybe Ridder would be with a full offseason of preparation.

So far? Not so much. Ridder’s 36.1 QBR on play-action ranks 26th in the league. Watching his 28 pass attempts there, I see more screens and throws into the flat than I do shots downfield. His average pass there is traveling about 8.0 yards in the air. When it comes to the sort of seven-step drop hard play-action Smith thrived with in Tennessee, there’s really about four plays in three games. Two were completed, one with a spectacular leaping catch from Pitts in coverage. Ridder missed Pitts on what could have been a long completion against the Lions on Sunday on one of those two incompletions.

Throwing screens is great, especially when a team has Robinson and an effective offensive line, but this offense is missing a regular vertical component. Ridder’s four plays of more than 25 yards in the passing game have come on that Pitts catch on a 50-50 ball, a fade to London, a flea-flicker to Mack Hollins and a swing pass to Robinson against a broken coverage. Those plays where Tannehill was able to hit A.J. Brown on digs with space to roam after the catch aren’t present in this offense, and it’s something it needs.

The other big concern for Ridder is the same issue that impacted Mariota a year ago: sacks. Mariota had a lengthy track record of taking sacks at astronomical rates and continued to do so in Atlanta, as he went down on 8.5% of his dropbacks. Ridder was sacked on 7.3% of his dropbacks as a rookie, so the hope was that he would be able to avoid those frustrating plays as he grew into his starting role.

So far this season, Ridder has been sacked on 12% of his dropbacks. It’s extremely difficult to get sacked that often and sustain a great offense; Russell Wilson has been able to pull it off at times by being a terrific downfield passer, but Ridder hasn’t shown that ability yet. Mobile quarterbacks can occasionally take more sacks as they scramble to extend plays, but most of Ridder’s sacks have taken place in the pocket. Left guard Matthew Bergeron has given up a handful of pressures, but Ridder is still feeling out when to stick in the pocket and when to bail.

The sacks have to go away. The Falcons are averaging 2.2 points per drive on the possessions in which Ridder doesn’t take a sack and 0.5 points per drive on the ones in which he does. Backup Taylor Heinicke has generally posted a better sack rate as a pro, taking sacks on just under 7% of his dropbacks as part of a middling Washington offense over the past couple of seasons.

Given how little the Falcons are asking of their quarterback right now, benching Ridder for Heinicke doesn’t seem to have much of a point. They’re running at the third-highest rate in football in neutral game scripts and throwing the seventh-shortest passes when the play doesn’t call for a screen. As long as Ridder gets the ball out more often than he did against the Lions, I would be surprised if Smith made a move to Heinicke. Unlike last season, though, make no mistake: The offense is struggling through three games.

5. Russell Wilson, Denver Broncos

If you were making a list of everything wrong with the 0-3 Broncos right now, Wilson shouldn’t be anywhere near the top. The defense blew leads in Weeks 1 and 2 and might as well have not bothered showing up for the Week 3 Dolphins game. Injuries have hindered the Broncos on both sides of the ball, as key players such as safety Justin Simmons and wideout Jerry Jeudy have missed games. Denver’s rushing attack is generating the most expected yards per carry (4.9), but its backs have actually averaged 4.4 yards per attempt; the ensuing gap ranks 28th.

Wilson has been inconsistent. He still has a dramatic first-half/second-half split, as his league-best 93.0 QBR before the break drops to 17.1 afterward, which ranks 30th. He hasn’t taken well to coach Sean Payton’s quick game, as Wilson’s 48.1 QBR when holding the ball for 2.5 seconds or less ranks 30th too. Wilson ranks sixth, however, when he holds the ball for longer than that 2.5-second clip.

There are positives to hold onto. Some of the elements in which Wilson excelled before his disastrous 2022 campaign are beginning to show signs of life. He ranks third in QBR on play-action, up from 24th a year ago. He is eighth in QBR against split-safety coverages — an issue that gave “Mr. Unlimited” trouble during the second half of 2021 and into 2022 — and third against disguised coverages. He has a league-high five completions on throws traveling 30 or more yards in the air; he had only 10 all of last season.

Does that all add up to a great passing attack? Not yet. Wilson is getting pressured at the second-highest rate in the NFL, and that isn’t always because of offensive line breakdowns. There are too many moments during games in which he seems to get to the end of his drop and freezes because nobody’s open and/or he doesn’t know where to go with the ball. Whether that’s due to the growing pains of getting used to a new offense, poor receiver play or Wilson not seeing what he expects and not having answers is something only he and Payton can know.

On the merits of his play alone, Wilson shouldn’t be benched. He ranks 13th in Total QBR, and the Broncos are 13th in expected points added (EPA) per dropback. While they didn’t trade all those first-round picks in the hopes of landing a just-above-average quarterback to lead a just-above-average offense, anyone who can remember what this offense looked like in 2022 should be happy with what he has done so far. Denver also will get the Bears and Jets over the next two weeks, games it would expect to win.

Then again, the Broncos should have beaten the Commanders and Raiders at home and instead lost to both. They just lost by 50 points to Miami, which could unravel their season altogether. Their four games after the Jets matchup in Week 5 include a home-and-home with the Chiefs, the Packers and the Bills. There’s a chance they are 1-8 heading into the second half of the campaign.

If that happens, Payton will be left with a difficult choice. The Broncos can get out of Wilson’s deal after 2023 by designating him as a post-June 1 release, but they would be forced to eat $85 million in dead money in the process. That’s more than double the NFL record for any one individual player (Matt Ryan). Would they install backup Jarrett Stidham for the season’s second half, sit Wilson to avoid a major injury and tank in the hopes of landing one of the top two picks in next year’s draft? Probably not, but I’m not sure we can be confident about how anybody reacts to getting blown out by 50 points.

6. Ryan Tannehill, Tennessee Titans

The 1-2 Titans don’t have much happening on offense. They rank 30th in the league by DVOA, ahead of only the Bears and Jets. Star running back Derrick Henry is averaging 3.2 yards per carry. He actually has generated two rush yards over expectation on his 51 attempts, but only two backs with at least 30 carries have a worse expected RYOE figure this season. In other words, the holes simply aren’t there for Henry to break through.

The passing attack isn’t faring much better. Tannehill is on pace to set a career low in yards per attempt (6.6) and career highs for sack rate (13.5%) and interception rate (3.6%). Some of those numbers should regress to the mean as the season continues, but you get the idea: He isn’t producing much at the moment.

The vaunted play-action attack that reignited Tannehill’s career after he joined the Titans in 2019 still has some meat on the bone. He is averaging 9.9 yards per attempt when he uses play fakes, which is the fifth-best mark in the league. The problem is what happens when offensive coordinator Tim Kelly asks him to simply drop back and throw in passing situations. Tannehill is averaging 2.8 yards per dropback in those situations, which is the worst mark in the NFL. The best versions of the Tennessee offense used to dominate in play-action and hold its own in the dropback game. Now, it’s solid in play-action and hopeless without it.

It’s unfair to pin all of this on Tannehill. An offensive line that looked like trouble heading into the season has been disastrous. Right tackle Nicholas Petit-Frere has been suspended six games for violating the league’s gambling policy, while rookie first-round pick Peter Skoronski has been sidelined for the past two games after undergoing an appendectomy.

Left tackle Andre Dillard, who received $10 million guaranteed in free agency in March, has looked no better in Tennessee than he did in Philadelphia. Left one-on-one against Myles Garrett in Week 3, Dillard allowed three sacks and two knockdowns of Tannehill. He already has allowed five sacks, per Stats LLC, and he hasn’t shown the functional strength left tackles need to hold up against pass-rushers.

I would never rule out coach Mike Vrabel doing something drastic if he thinks it’ll help. Remember, when he initially benched Marcus Mariota for Tannehill in 2019, Vrabel was transparent about his decision in saying that he wanted to “spark” the offense. Vrabel hinted that Mariota could return as the starter later in the season, but Tannehill excelled and kept the job.

In 2023, though, the Titans don’t have a veteran on their roster ready to take over. Malik Willis threw 61 passes as a rookie last season and struggled mightily, leading them to promote Joshua Dobbs into the starting role ahead of their third-round pick when Tannehill was out with a right high ankle sprain. Rookie second-rounder Will Levis missed time in training camp and didn’t project to be an immediate starter. Tennessee also guaranteed Tannehill’s $27 million base salary for the year by keeping him on the roster for Week 1; if one of those guys were really ready to play, it likely would have cut him or asked him to take a pay cut.

Could we see Levis or Willis in December if this continues and the Titans fall out of the playoff hunt? Of course, given that Tannehill is in the final year of his deal and hasn’t signed an extension. With Tennessee just one game back of the Colts in the AFC South after three games, Vrabel isn’t about to torpedo his team’s season by going to a developmental option under center. While I wouldn’t be surprised if the team made a change at left tackle, Tannehill should feel comfortably ensconced at QB for a couple of more months.

SWIFT REACTION

Charlotte Carroll of The Athletic on the NFL’s response to the Taylor Swift appearance in Kansas City:

“We knew,” said Ian Trombetta, NFL SVP of social and influencer marketing, “it was going to be a culture moment like we haven’t seen (in some time).”

With that moment was an unprecedented opportunity to engage an entirely new audience that might not be typically tuning into an NFL broadcast on a Sunday afternoon. But the league also had to be somewhat careful about not overdoing things.

“Anytime she was doing something, cheering for Travis, Travis was doing something and celebrating whatever that may have been, we knew we had to push that content very quickly,” Trombetta said. “But not at the expense of our other clubs or frankly the other players who were doing amazing things as they always do every single week.”

Still, Trombetta wanted the NFL, at least on the social side, to “lean in” as much as it could and connect with all the Swifties now fixated on football.

One post with the simple caption, “In her RED era,” was a nod to Swift’s album titled “Red” as well as Swift’s outfit in support of the Chiefs.

The NFL even cheekily updated its X (formerly Twitter) account bio to “NFL (Taylor’s Version)” — a nod to Swift re-recording her albums — along with a header photo of her at the game. NFL TikTok changed its bio to “9/24/23. Taylor was here.”

While the Fox broadcast and NFL produced plenty of Swift-related content, it was the fans — both of the pop icon and the NFL — who took it and ran with it. Among the highlights were hilarious posts explaining football and a TikTok trend teasing significant others about Kelce’s minuscule fame level compared to Swift’s.

A photo of the pair in Kelce’s convertible led to memes as the “getaway car,” and contrary to Swift’s lyrics, it started plenty of good.

“The internet can be a really fun place,” Trombetta said. “And ultimately, this is what this is about. What’s powerful, I think with football and with our league as a whole, is the fact that we can bring people together. And in this case, we’re bringing Taylor Swift fans, especially young women, to the NFL and having a lot of fun with it.

“And at the end of the day, that’s really what it comes down to is celebrating the game, and having some fun, and we’re certainly leaning into that as much as we can.”

Whether it was the NFL’s efforts, or simply Swifties jumping quickly aboard the Kelce bandwagon, the results were staggering.

The Swifties showed out.

According to Fox, an estimated 24.3 million total viewers tuned into Sunday’s Chiefs-Chicago Bears game (yes, there was another team involved). It was the most-watched game of the week on any network and it ranked highest among these demographics: females 12-17 years old, females 18-34 years old and females 18-49 years old.

3-WAY TRADES

In response to the big NBA deal, Tyler Sullivan offers a pair of proposed three-way NFL trades:

The NBA was turned on its head Wednesday after the Milwaukee Bucks were able to pull off a three-team deal with the Portland Trailblazers and Phoenix Suns that landed them All-Star point guard Damien Lillard. That blockbuster now has the Bucks firmly set as the team to beat in the Eastern Conference and the odds-on favorite to win the NBA title this coming season. It also got us thinking: wouldn’t it be awesome if three-team trades were as commonplace in the NFL as they were in the NBA?

There have been three-team deals done in the past, so no team would be breaking new ground if they were to agree to one today, but they are hardly as common as they are in the NBA. One of the more notable three-team trades in the NFL came all the way back on Halloween Day in 1987, when the Rams, Bills, and Colts completed a massive deal that included 10 players and draft picks, including Hall of Fame running back Eric Dickerson.

Using this Lillard deal as the springboard, how about we cook up a few three-team trades in the NFL? Before we do, though, let’s not get too in the weeds with the particulars on each team. We’re not going to go crazy and give you fine readers at home a popsicle headache by trying to get our math in order as it relates to the salary cap and whether or not a team could or could not absorb a player’s contract. We’re merely going to identify a handful of teams and try to work out the light parameters of a blockbuster deal in the same vein as we see in the NBA.

Alright, let’s get nuts.

Cowboys, Jets, and Vikings trade

Jets get: Kirk Cousins

Vikings get: Jets 2025 second round, Cowboys 2024 fourth-round pick, Trey Lance

Cowboys get: D.J. Reed

This is a deal that allows two teams that were eyeing the playoffs entering the season to help keep those hopes alive after dealing with significant season-ending injuries. Meanwhile, the third team in this mix is given the opportunity to hit the reset button early after a winless start to the year and build up its war chest of draft picks.

Why it makes sense for the Jets: New York had high hopes coming into the 2023 season after pulling off the biggest trade of the offseason and acquiring Aaron Rodgers. As you know by now, those dreams of snapping their playoff draught were dashed just four snaps into Rodgers’ tenure after he suffered a season-ending Achilles tear. Since then, the team has turned back to Zach Wilson, and the results haven’t been good. Wilson clearly isn’t able to elevate this roster and has been a key reason for it losing games. So, dipping back into the trade market for an established quarterback makes sense. Cousins is in the final year of his deal and, while he may not have the same ceiling as Rodgers, he’d make them a playoff contender upon arrival. While losing Reed, who is signed through 2024, would be a dent in the secondary, getting a serviceable quarterback is worth whatever they may lose in the secondary.

Why it makes sense for the Vikings: Minnesota tabled contract talks with Cousins until this coming offseason, making him a lame-duck quarterback with no deal in place beyond 2023. Ownership even deflected questions about Cousins’ long-term future with the team this summer. With the Vikings 0-3 to start the year, it’s at least worth having the conversation of starting the rebuild early by moving on from Cousins in-season and gaining future draft capital. They could also throw a dart at former 49ers castaway Trey Lance to see if he can tap back into his potential, which made him the No. 3 overall pick back in 2021. And if Lance again proves to not be a quarterback you can build around, Minnesota will have a worse enough record to be in the mix for a QB in what is expected to be a promising class in 2024.

Why it makes sense for the Cowboys: Dallas lost All-Pro cornerback Trevon Diggs to a season-ending ACL tear he suffered in practice last week, putting a dent into its secondary. While Stephon Gilmore is still manning one of the boundary corner spots, it’d behoove the Cowboys to try and strengthen that unit back up, as they do possess the talent to make a deep playoff run. However, they’ll face several elite quarterbacks along the way, so a player like Reed would go a long way in helping cushion the blow of losing Diggs.

Chiefs, Buccaneers and Bears trade

Chiefs get: Mike Evans

Buccaneers get: Justin Fields

Bears get: Chris Jones

This is a deal that would realistically never be agreed upon due to an uneven distribution of positional value, but it’s fun to think about who would say no to this deal and why when you start to break it down. On paper, it’s pretty fascinating for all sides.

Why it makes sense for the Chiefs: Patrick Mahomes is talented enough that he can make an offense hum with just about anybody. That said, when you take Travis Kelce out of the equation like they were forced to do in Week 1, we saw that Kansas City’s offense can stall out. By bringing in a player like Mike Evans, it’d make this Chiefs offense go nuclear. Trying to prevent Evans from beating you over the top and then slowing down Kelce over the middle of the field would be a literal nightmare for opposing secondaries and would be reminiscent of Randy Moss joining Tom Brady and the Patriots in 2007. Yes, losing a top-10 defensive player in the league in Chris Jones will sting, but K.C. does have a lot of young pieces along its defensive line, and Evans would keep them as an elite offense even as Kelce turns 34 in October.

Why it makes sense for the Buccaneers: Mike Evans is a franchise icon, so moving on from a player of his stature would not be an easy decision. That said, he’s in the final year of his deal, and if the Buccaneers fall out of contention and decide that the next course of action is a rebuild, that could open the door for his departure. And if they could get a quarterback out of the deal, you essentially have to do it. I’m still a believer in Fields, and if he’s put in the right situation, he has elite tools that could make him a franchise quarterback. Inserting him in Tampa Bay and a sturdier offensive line headlined Tristan Wirfs would give us a better chance of seeing his peak potential. While Baker Mayfield has been solid so far, this type of move has the ability to turn the Bucs around overnight for multiple years with a former first-round QB who is still only 24.

Why it makes sense for the Bears: The Bears are the first team that says no in this hypothetical trade. They’d realistically need much more for someone they view (or viewed) as a franchise quarterback given his age. Still, this team has issues all across its roster, including its defensive line. Chris Jones would come in and immediately anchor their front seven and be the face of that side of the ball. Chicago also has the cap space next offseason (second-most in the NFL) to secure him long-term. Fields has struggled so far this season to the point where people are questioning whether or not he is a franchise quarterback. If the Bears front office determines he’s not “the guy,” maybe they’d be interested in shipping him away for a superstar player and picks, while once again falling to the bottom of the league and splashing into the Caleb Williams sweepstakes.