The Daily Briefing Monday, October 3, 2022

This from Mike Florio:

Through four weeks (after tonight), the NFL season has been as exciting as ever. Maybe more exciting than ever.

There’s a reason for it. According to the league, there have been 49 games within one score in the fourth quarter this season. That’s the most ever through four weeks of a season.

In Week Four, every game except Sunday night’s Super Bowl LV rematch between the Chiefs and Buccaneers were one-score games in the fourth quarter. Fourteen games, all within one score in the fourth quarter.

That ties the all-time record. The record can be set if, tonight, the Rams and 49ers are in a one-score game in the fourth quarter.

It’s making for an unpredictable and exciting season, with only one unbeaten team and no teams with more than three losses. Everyone is alive. Anyone can make a run. Any team can win any game.

It may drive those of us who are supposed to know what’s going to happen crazy, but as a fan it’s the best kind of season the NFL can have.

NFC EAST

NEW YORK GIANTS

Peter King on RB SAQUON BARKLEY’s continued excellence in 2022:

Barkley’s splashy return to form continued this week in the Giants’ win over the Bears with 31 carries for 146 yards, his second game of the season surpassing 100 rush yards. The Bears’ defense has been its (relative) strength this season, but they had few answers for Barkley. Daniel Jones added 68 yards on the ground and rushed for two scores of his own before leaving the game with an ankle injury. When backup Tyrod Taylor entered concussion protocol, Barkley stepped up to play Wildcat QB. “Like you were eight years old playing with your friends,” Barkley said post-game of watching Brian Daboll draw up plays on a grease board on the sideline.

– – –

The Giants will help make London NFL history on Sunday per Michael David Smith ofProFootballTalk.com:

Sunday’s Giants-Packers game will be the NFL’s 32nd regular-season game in London. And the first to match up two teams with winning records.

With the Giants and Packers both at 3-1, the league has finally ended a long streak of sending mediocre or worse games to London, where the NFL is eager to build a large fan base.

Ten London games have matched up two teams with losing records, while the other 21 London games have had one team with a winning record or a .500 record, but not until Giants-Packers on Sunday have both teams had a winning record.

The NFL sometimes sends bad teams to London because those teams struggle to fill their home stadiums and don’t mind giving up a home game to play overseas: That’s why the Packers have never played in London before, as their fan base buys tickets both at Lambeau Field and on the road. But sometimes the London games are just the victims of bad luck, with the games looking good on paper when they’re scheduled, only to have the teams playing in London struggle early in the season.

Here are the 32 London games so far, with the teams’ records heading into the game:

2007: Giants (5-2) vs. Dolphins (0-7)

2008: Chargers (3-4) vs. Saints (3-4)

2009: Patriots (4-2) vs. Buccaneers (0-6)

2010: Broncos (2-5) vs. 49ers (1-6)

2011: Bears (3-3) vs. Buccaneers (4-2)

2012: Patriots (4-3) vs. Rams (3-4)

2013: Steelers (0-3) vs. Vikings (0-3)

2013: 49ers (5-2) vs. Jaguars (0-7)

2014: Dolphins (1-2) vs. Raiders (0-3)

2014: Lions (5-2) vs. Falcons (2-5)

2014: Cowboys (6-3) vs. Jaguars (1-8)

2015: Jets (2-1) vs. Dolphins (1-2)

2015: Bills (3-3) vs. Jaguars (1-5)

2015: Lions (1-6) vs. Chiefs (2-5)

2016: Colts (1-2) vs. Jaguars (0-3)

2016: Giants (3-3) vs. Rams (3-3)

2016: Washington (4-3) vs. Bengals (3-4)

2017: Jaguars (1-1) vs. Ravens (2-0)

2017: Saints (1-2) vs. Dolphins (1-1)

2017: Cardinals (3-3) vs. Rams (4-2)

2017: Vikings (5-2) vs. Browns (0-7)

2018: Seahawks (2-3) vs. Raiders (1-4)

2018: Titans (3-3) vs. Chargers (4-2)

2018: Jaguars (3-4) vs. Eagles (3-4)

2019: Raiders (2-2) vs. Bears (3-1)

2019: Buccaneers (2-3) vs. Panthers (3-2)

2019: Bengals (0-7) vs. Rams (4-3)

2019: Texans (5-3) vs. Jaguars (4-4)

2021: Jets (1-3) vs. Falcons (1-3)

2021: Dolphins (1-4) vs. Jaguars (0-5)

2022: Vikings (2-1) vs. Saints (1-2)

2022: Giants (3-1) vs. Packers (3-1)

PHILADELPHIA

Peter King sings the praised of the undefeated Eagles and QB JALEN HURTS:

It is sunny, on Jalen Hurts’ side of the street. You know why? Because his team won the game. The Eagles won it in a different fashion than in the bombs-away way they’d won in September, running it 50 times for 210 yards, keeping the ball for almost 40 minutes. Fine with Hurts.

“The point about today,” Hurts said, “is more so about the conditions of the football game and not letting that deter us from our goal and our execution and what we wanted to do. Our ball security – we had that interception early, the pick-six. But you look at the turnover differential, I think it was five to one, just one for us. (True.) We put ourselves in a 14-0 hole. We hadn’t been in a hole like that all year. In these conditions, we played a different game. We just handled it.”

This is the thing you notice about Hurts. He knows the only thing that matters is winning, particularly in a city like this one. Winning humbly, winning with a worker-bee attitude, winning with gratitude.

Philadelphia is ferocious and merciless. Cross Philadelphia, and you’re dead. Play with a Philadelphia attitude – as Hurts did Sunday, down 14-0, knowing he’d sacrifice anything to score on the fourth-and-goal run, and car-crash into the end zone – and you can be a king.

Time will tell if that happens with Hurts here. But his center, Jason Kelce, already thinks Hurts is “the epitome of what a Philadelphia athlete is. He’s the ultimate underdog, and this city loves underdogs.”

The quick bio doesn’t really start off as an underdog story: Hurts was coached by his dad in Channelview, Texas, and recruited by Nick Saban to quarterback Alabama in 2016. He won the job as a true freshman, kept it for two years, lost it to Tua Tagovailoa in 2018, and transferred to Oklahoma for the 2019 season. (I wonder how many quarterbacks have been both first-team all-SEC and first-team all-Big 12. There’s at least one.)

Doug Pederson didn’t see a short (6-1) quarterback with good mobility (4.59 seconds in the 40-). He saw a smart quarterback who knew when to run but didn’t use it as a crutch, with a plus-arm that many draftniks didn’t see, with a chip on his shoulder that he’s used in the right way. GM Howie Roseman wanted a good backup QB for Carson Wentz because he’d been hurt a lot, and so late in round two in April 2020, here came Hurts.

He’d been through so much at such a high level by the time he got to the Eagles that Wentz feeling threatened by him was something he never paid attention to. That wouldn’t help him be a better player. “First time he ever stepped in the huddle as a rookie was in Green Bay,” Kelce said. “You want your quarterback to be confident in his ability but almost stoic. He made everyone feel he was in complete control. Ever hear that saying that 80 percent of how you communicate is by body language? Jalen’s definitely one of those 80-percent body-language guys.”

He’s got one other Rocky Balboa trait: To knock him off, you’re going to have to knock him out. He just sprang up from that hit by Devin Lloyd Sunday. I don’t know how. But that was a powerhouse right hook from Apollo Creed, and Hurts acted like it was a glancing blow.

“I’ve never lost faith,” Hurts told me. “I’ve been at the top of the mountain and I’ve been in the valley low. Through it all I’ve always been who I am and I’ve tried to stay true to who I am – being a man of God and keeping Him at the center of everything. I’ve never lost faith. I’ll never ever ride waves. Never get too high, never get too low. I just always try to keep the main thing the main thing and control what I can and try to be the best quarterback and best man I can be for my team.”

Talk to people around the Eagles, and you’ll hear this recurring theme about Hurts: This is the first year he’s had the same offense two seasons in a row, so of course he’d be a better player. And he certainly is. Who’d have thought, a quarter of the way through the season, that you’d look at the leaders in yards-per-pass-attempt, the category that most often has the big throwers atop the list, and see this man in first place:

Jalen Hurts, 9.1 ypa

Having two deep threats, A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, helps. But it’s more than that. It’s the quickness of his decision-making. It’s comfort in the system. It’s, even when he tucks and runs, as he did down 14-0 near the goal line Sunday, the discipline of going from 1 to 2 to 3 so fast, and knowing the throw’s not there and knowing instantly the best option is to run. That knowledge base is helped by having the exact same people around him daily for a second straight year—Kelce the center, Sirianni the head coach, Steichen the offensive coordinator, Brian Johnson the QB coach, Kevin Patullo the passing game coordinator.

As Sirianni said post-game, the benefit of players like Tom Brady and Drew Brees and Philip Rivers commanding the same offense year after year is obvious. “They have a mental rolodex, and they know when the defense looks a certain way, they’re going here with the ball, period.”

I fully expected Hurts to say what a great relief it was to finally have the same offense and same mentors for a second year. But he didn’t. Again, he saw the sunny side.

“I’ve always tried to use that as a positive,” he said. “I learned something from Lane Kiffin, from Brian Daboll, from Mike Locksley, from Steve Sarkisian, at Alabama. Learning all those different ways of thinking of football conceptually really helped me. Then coach [Lincoln] Riley at Oklahoma. Then coach Pederson. Now my coaches here.

“I’ve been a sponge. I’ve observed and learned. I apply their lessons to the way I think.” All the way back to high school, and coach Averion Hurts in Channelview, Texas.

“Everything’s simplified in high school,” he said. “You play your best when you have a simple mind, right? Sometimes, when I run a play now, and it’s something like high school, I think, ‘I ran that play for coach Hurts back at Channelview.’”

One other point about Hurts that’s compelling. It’s too early to think the Eagles are certain that Hurts is their quarterback for the next 10 years. Why make that call now anyway, when there’s no real reason to? It’s certainly trending that way – that Hurts will be the franchise guy here. But until he is, and until the Eagles have to lay out the money for Hurts, they can build a more complete team. That more complete team was on display Sunday in the south Philly rain.

The Eagles signed free-agent pass-rusher Haason Reddick for three years and $45 million; he had two strip-sacks of Trevor Lawrence in the fourth quarter. And Roseman took advantage of the Giants’ horrible cap management by pilfering corner James Bradberry for one year and $7.25 million. With five minutes left in the third quarter and the Jags down 20-14, Bradberry baited Lawrence into a huge interception at the Eagles’ seven-yard line.

The Eagles are a continuum. From the looks of it, the 24-year-old Hurts will be at fulcrum for a long time. Good for the Eagles. Bad for the rest of the NFC East.

NFC SOUTH

ATLANTA

Sunday’s win came at a cost for the Falcons – who are now tied for the NFC South lead.  Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com:

Falcons running back/receiver/returner Cordarrelle Patterson won’t be on the field for the next four weeks.

Patterson was placed on injured reserve today. That means he’ll miss at least four weeks.

Although Patterson has played in all four games this season, he has been dealing with a knee injury and he needs a minor procedure.

Patterson is the Falcons’ leading rusher with 58 carries for 340 yards and three touchdowns, and he also has four catches for 28 yards and one kickoff return for 27 yards.

NFC WEST

SAN FRANCISCO

Mike Sando of The Athletic talks to some of his anonymous execs about how the 49ers have handled the QB position:

At worst, the 49ers misevaluated Garoppolo; succumbed to groupthink when they made an expensive major move to replace him; hastened the closing of their championship window by parting with draft choices that could have bolstered the roster around Garoppolo; and then took undue risk by going all-in on a developmental FCS prospect with 19 college starts.

At best, the 49ers smartly trusted their offensive-minded head coach (Kyle Shanahan) regarding Garoppolo’s inability to take them all the way; paid market price for a chance to upgrade with a high-ceiling prospect; would be watching Lance develop this season if not for an unlucky injury; still could come out great if Lance develops next season; and can ride it out with Garoppolo in the meantime.

Did the 49ers need to upgrade from Garoppolo at all? They were leading Kansas City by 10 points in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl with Garoppolo three years ago. Last season, with Lance already on the roster, they were a dropped interception against the Rams from reaching the Super Bowl again. They were that close, and they still gave up three firsts and a third for Lance.

I’ve enlisted two NFL execs and an evaluator to debate the merits.

“If Jimmy did not get you where you want to be, then where do you want to be?” an NFC exec said. “Because I can tell you this: 29 or 30 other teams aren’t where you were. Who is adding one player that takes multiple years to get the answer on, to a Super Bowl-caliber team that you built, to get you to win the Super Bowl? How does that work?”

Ideally, it works the way it worked for Kansas City, although the Chiefs never reached a conference championship game, let alone a Super Bowl, when Alex Smith was their quarterback.

The Chiefs were among seven teams in recent seasons that invested at least a first-round pick in seeking a quarterback upgrade after having a winning record in at least one of the two previous seasons. These teams did not assume the same risks when making these moves, as we’ll soon see.

• Cleveland (2022): 19-14 over previous two seasons, had Baker Mayfield, acquired Deshaun Watson

• San Francisco (2021): 19-13 over previous two seasons, had Garoppolo, acquired Lance

• Los Angeles (2021): 10-6 in 2020, had Jared Goff, acquired Stafford

• Indianapolis (2021): 11-5 in 2020, could have kept Philip Rivers, acquired Carson Wentz

• Baltimore (2018): 9-7 in 2017, had Joe Flacco, drafted Lamar Jackson

• Kansas City (2017): 12-4 in 2016, had Smith, drafted Mahomes

• Philadelphia (2016): 27-21 over previous three seasons with multiple QBs, drafted Wentz

Stafford had started 39 games in college, plus 221 total games in the NFL, when the Rams acquired him. The Rams knew what they were getting. The 49ers were at the other extreme with Lance.

“To me, the only analysis that is worth making right now is, was the one game Lance played (in 2020) and the rest of his college career enough to say this guy was worth three first-round picks?” an AFC exec said. “The deal itself is totally defensible. Look what the Eagles gave up for Wentz or the Rams gave up for Goff.”

The NFC exec pushed back on that line of thinking.

“These other teams did it, so we have to, too?” he said. “Then let’s guarantee everybody $240 million when you have a civil rap sheet against you.”

The 49ers did not do that, but they did follow a familiar path in the draft, giving up multiple early picks for unproven talent.

“It’s way understated how much those three first-round picks could have benefited Jimmy and the team, and helped protect him from his ‘not durable’ tag,” the evaluator said.

It’s an interesting question while the 49ers’ offensive line deteriorates. San Francisco held the 12th pick in the 2021 draft before trading it as part of the trade-up for Lance.

Cherry-picking star players the 49ers might have selected 12th wouldn’t be fair. Looking at the five players taken beginning in that spot seems more reasonable: pass-rusher Micah Parsons, tackle Rashawn Slater, guard Alijah Vera-Tucker, quarterback Mac Jones, linebacker Zaven Collins.

Would you rather have one of those players selected at random, plus the future picks San Francisco traded away, or would you rather have Lance?

“The fact Lance played only one game in his final year (of college) and you knew he wasn’t going to play much in his first year with the 49ers, it made the consequence of injury in year three much more significant,” the AFC exec said.

It also means the 49ers have reason to invest in a quality backup next season, under the assumption Garoppolo will leave and Lance will be the starter. If Lance falters or is injured again, then what?

“When you say the 49ers were not where they wanted to be, so making a big move is understandable, remember, there are people starting Davis Mills, OK?” the NFC exec said. “You are trying to not be that team, where you are constructing things through your media-relations department trying to get people to come to your stadium. ‘Exciting brand of ball! We have the best punt returning in the league!’ There are 10 of those guys, so that is a real, live bucket.”

The 49ers are not there yet. There’s a better-than-hoped chance they might be there soon.

LOS ANGELES RAMS

Peter King on DT AARON DONALD:

There’s an avalanche of newfangled (and very valid) stats we can use as measurable metrics in football today. When I started covering the game in 1984, the NFL was three decades away from tracking the speed and exertion of players with tiny trackers embedded into uniforms, for instance. In the eighties, you had to trust your eyes.

My eyes told me, covering Lawrence Taylor and the New York Giants for four of their glory years, that Taylor was the best defensive player I saw then, and I’d probably ever see, a merciless roadrunner/hostage-taker of offensive souls. Not only was Taylor a sack machine and fast enough to beat any tackle on the edge, but he could bull-rush like a nose tackle. Boy, was he mean. Effectively mean.

Today, I’m here to say Aaron Donald joins Lawrence Taylor on my personal two-player Mount Rushmore of Defense of the last four decades. Donald, truly, is probably better, and I can’t believe I’m saying that. But you know how Bulls-philes who love Michael Jordan said there’d never be anyone like Jordan, ever? Maybe not. But LeBron’s close. Kobe’s close. Same with there’ll-never-be-another-Joe Montana. Well, Tom Brady came along. I’m not a fan of watching some all-timer play and saying there’ll never be another one as good, or nearly as good. There almost always is.

Metrics say it, and my eyes see it in their 39th season of watching great players play: Aaron Donald is at least as destructive, and at least as impactful, on a game as Lawrence Taylor was.

The final bit of proof came eight days ago, in Arizona. Donald was lined up across from right guard Will Hernandez of the Cardinals, in an uncommon (for Donald) one-on-one, no-chip-help look. Per Next Gen Stats, Donald was 6.15 yards from Murray, in the shotgun, at the snap of the ball. When Donald beat Hernandez to the inside on the pass-rush, Donald was 2.36 yards from Murray when both were in full gallop, Murray trying to evade Donald. Donald dove at Murray at the Arizona 34-, and clipped the QB’s ankle with one outstretched whack of the hand, and Murray went down. Murray intentionally grounded the ball while going down, but the officials ruled he was down before releasing it, and that was Donald’s 100th sack.

Next Gen Stats records speeds of everything, including players at all points of the game. The burst of Donald coming off jousting with Hernandez showed him running 14.09 mph to catch Murray. What’s significant about that? Donald, while sacking Murray, had a faster burst to catch a quarterback than any of the great edge players in football—Micah Parsons, T.J. Watt, Khalil Mack, Myles Garrett, Joey Bosa, Nick Bosa—had in the first three weeks of this season.

This is the essence of Aaron Donald: At 31, after seriously considering retirement last winter, he can still bull-rush and toss aside a 335-pound guard, then catch one of the fastest quarterbacks in NFL history for a sack.

It’s perfect and just, really, that Donald has more sacks than any player in football since he broke into the league in 2014, and his 100th came against a quarterback who runs a 4.38 40-yard dash in full retreat mode.

“I’m an edge rusher playing inside,” Donald told me the other day, driving home from work.

Those six words have to be the most accurate and telling words that Donald has ever spoken about football, because an edge rusher stout enough to dominate inside is exactly what Donald is.

 “I think I’ve opened some doors about the position since I came into this league,” he said. “When I was drafted, I wasn’t that 6-4, 300-pound interior lineman everyone was looking for. I was 6-1, 280 … but really I played at 265. I heard it all: You ain’t big enough. You can’t be an interior defensive lineman in this league at 265.

“I think what people forget is, my sophomore year at Pitt, I played the edge. I played 5-technique. (A 5-technique defensive end plays just outside the shoulder of the tackle and has to be powerful against the run as well as a good rusher.) And I played pretty well. So if I had to do it now, I think I could do it. I don’t know how successful I’d be, but I know I could it.”

Donald would be pretty damn good. But the shorter path to the quarterback fits his quickness and power like no other player in football—outside or inside. One more Next Gen Stats piece of gold: Since NGS began compiling stats in 2016, he has 458 quarterback pressures, 86 more than any other defensive player in football.

There are other Taylor/Donald things to consider. Donald, entering the Rams game at San Francisco tonight, is averaging .77 sacks per game in his 130-game career, rushing mostly from the inside; Taylor averaged .77 sacks per game in his 184-game career, rushing largely from the outside. Donald had two fourth-quarter sacks, critical plays, in his lone Super Bowl win over Cincinnati. Taylor had no sacks in either of the Giants’ Super Bowl wins he played in. That matters, but it’s not huge.

Both play angry. I once saw Taylor, in a replacement game in 1987, try to gouge the eyes of a Buffalo tackle who’d consistently played him dirty. In August, I saw Donald rip off the helmet of teammate Ron Havenstein in a camp brawl and hurl it in the air. Not a good trait, obviously, but indicative that even in practice Donald plays with intensity. Their competitive streaks match.

If I had to draft one of them at 22, I’d take Donald. I can’t think in my little football world of a bigger compliment to give a defensive player than to say I’d choose him over Taylor.

Donald is not a big talker, especially about himself. But on his ride home Thursday, it was clear he knows what he’s done so far, and also that he knows he still has more greatness to chase.

“My expectation entering the league was never this,” Donald said. “It’s so hard to talk about it, honestly, hearing my named mentioned with all the greats. Hard to find the words. I’ve surpassed anything I’ve ever dreamed of, but I have so much more to do. I won’t let it all soak in till I’m finished, whenever that is.”

Donald has committed to play through the end of 2023. Selfishly, I hope there’s more.

SEATTLE

The Athletic:

What universe are we living in where Geno Smith is a leading fantasy point scorer with 320 passing yards and two touchdowns and 49 rushing yards and a touchdown, Jared Goff lights it up for 378 yards and four touchdowns, and the Seahawks and Lions combine for 93 points?

QB GENO SMITH has back-to-back 300-yard passing games for the first time in his career.

The Seahawks have scored 48+ points in a game eight times now after putting 48 on the Lions Sunday.  Two of those have been in their last six games – and both vs. Detroit.  Seattle had 51 vs. the Lions in Week 17 last season.  The Seahawks had never had a game without a punt until Sunday.  In those two games against Detroit, they have had a total of one punt.

It all leads to this tweet from Mike Sando of The Athletic:

@SandoNFL

It seems ridiculous to think there is even a remote shot #seahawks upgraded at QB this season

It is ridiculous. But there is a chance

It’s not settled. Playing DET helps. But right now, if you had to play a game next wk, you could reasonably prefer Geno Smith to Russell Wilson.

AFC WEST

DENVER

It doesn’t look good for RB JAVONTE WILLIAMS.

There is concern that Denver Broncos running back Javonte Williams suffered a serious knee injury in Sunday’s loss to the Las Vegas Raiders, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported.

Although Broncos head coach Nathaniel Hackett said he had no update on Williams’ status following the game, Hackett told reporters that Williams would have an MRI on Monday to determine the full extent of the damage.

There isn’t a lot of optimism that the results will be favorable, however.

Williams was carted off on the first play of the third quarter Sunday, going down after a 1-yard loss. He couldn’t bear any weight on the knee and spent time in the medical tent before heading to the locker room and being ruled out for the game.

Williams entered the game as the Broncos’ leading rusher (176 yards through three games) and ran 10 times Sunday for 28 yards. He’d been splitting time with Melvin Gordon, who fumbled for the fourth time this season. The Broncos instead turned more often to Mike Boone late in the loss.

If the injury is as serious as expected, the Broncos will need to replace their leading rusher and second-leading receiver. Williams has 47 carries this season for 204 yards and 16 catches for 76 yards.

KANSAS CITY

On a big night for QB PATRICK MAHOMES and the Chiefs, he hit 20,000 yards through the air.

Patrick Mahomes entered Sunday Night Football with 19,848 yards. It didn’t take him long to reach 20,000.

Mahomes is 16-of-27 for 160 yards and two touchdowns after one possession in the second half.

The Chiefs quarterback passed the 20,000-yard mark in his 67th career regular-season game. That makes him the fastest ever to hit that mark.

Matthew Stafford hit 20,000 passing yards in his 71st career game.

AFC NORTH

PITTSBURGH

Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com on the whys and wherefores of Sunday’s QB switch:

Sunday wasn’t a great day to be a struggling NFL quarterback. Several of the passers who flailed through the first three weeks of the season didn’t turn things around in Week 4. One appears to have paid for it with his job, as Mitch Trubisky was benched at halftime for the Steelers, who turned to rookie first-round pick Kenny Pickett. Unfortunately for coach Mike Tomlin’s team, Pickett then threw three interceptions in an eventual 24-20 loss to the Jets.

With just under a quarter of the season in the books (thanks, 17-game schedule), this is about the time in which teams have enough game tape to start seriously reevaluating their offseason decisions. Teams desperate to turn things around after slow starts are going to make adjustments. Some of those can be schematic. We can see teams rotate players in different ways or even make changes to less visible parts of their roster.

Making a change at quarterback, though, is the biggest decision a coach can make. Think about how it transformed the Titans in 2019, when Ryan Tannehill took over a 2-4 team and helped get it to the AFC Championship Game. The same move can tear a team apart and get a coach fired, as Doug Pederson found out with the Eagles when he benched Carson Wentz for Jalen Hurts in 2020.

It’s no fun rooting for quarterbacks to get benched, but it would be naive to ignore what’s happening or wonder about what teams might do to kick-start their offenses in the weeks to come. Let’s talk about the Pittsburgh situation and then get to a few other quarterback jobs around the NFL where the current starter might be in danger. It’s risky to make a move too early, but I wonder whether the Steelers might have made their move too late:

Pittsburgh Steelers

Tomlin is one of football’s best coaches. I don’t like disagreeing with the 50-year-old Steelers leader, because he has more than earned whatever benefit of the doubt he needs over the past 15-plus seasons. I might take issue with some of his game management decisions at times, but just because I don’t think he’s necessarily the most analytics-focused coach in the league doesn’t mean he can’t be aggressive at times or make wise choices. You don’t go 15 years without a losing record by not being a smart operator.

With that being said, I’m not sure I understand how and why Tomlin made the choices he has made over the past two weeks at quarterback. After Trubisky struggled for the third straight week in a 29-17 loss to the Browns in Week 3, Tomlin publicly refused to even consider the possibility of changing his quarterback in advance of Sunday’s game against the Jets. After suggestions earlier in September that the Steelers might keep Pickett on the bench for the entire season, it seemed as if Tomlin wasn’t close to making any sort of change.

And then, down 10-6 at halftime Sunday, he suddenly changed his mind. Trubisky came out, Pickett went in. With Tomlin saying he felt like the team “needed a spark,” Pickett might have burned too hot. The rookie went 10-of-13 for 120 yards and scored two rushing touchdowns in his debut, but he threw three interceptions, including a pick on a Hail Mary to end the contest.

It’s fair enough for Tomlin to say the team needed a spark. I just have one follow-up question: What changed? The Steelers won the opener against Cincinnati, but it required five takeaways, a blocked extra point and an injured long-snapper. Trubisky wasn’t a meaningful part of the offense. In Week 2, they scored 14 points on nine drives in a loss to the Patriots. Four days later, Trubisky & Co. scored 17 points on 10 meaningful drives in their loss to the Browns. Didn’t they need a spark then, too? Wasn’t it clear they would need a spark against the Jets before the game began?

Trubisky, 28, wasn’t great in the first half against the Jets, but it also wasn’t as if he was any different than the guy we saw checking down over the first three weeks of the season. He went 7-of-13 for 84 yards with an interception stemming from a Diontae Johnson drop. He was sacked three times, and he exhibited a habit of drifting out of the pocket at the end of his dropbacks, but those are issues we saw before the Jets game, too.

If there ever was an ideal time for the Steelers to transition from Trubisky to Pickett, it would have been shortly after the loss to the Browns, which took place on a Thursday night. They were facing a mini-bye, which would have given them 10 days to prepare Pickett. The Jets matchup — a home game against a team that ranked dead last in passing DVOA — was arguably the most favorable spot on Pittsburgh’s schedule for a young quarterback.

Instead, Pickett came in Sunday without recent first-team reps, without a game plan installed to take advantage of his strengths and without being put in position to prepare mentally for the game as a starter. He looked good when he was running quick game and throwing up 50-50 balls for his talented group of receivers, but when he wasn’t comfortable or had to work through his progressions to try to find someone later in the play, it usually ended badly.

One of the best arguments for not making the change to Pickett in Week 4 was the Steelers’ immediate schedule afterward. They are about to face a brutal slate of opposing defenses, with matchups against the Bills, Buccaneers, Dolphins and Eagles before their Week 9 bye, and the Saints immediately thereafter. In an ideal world, they might have waited all the way until December, when they get the Falcons, Panthers and Raiders.

By making the move anyway during Week 4, Tomlin has realized the worst of both worlds. He didn’t get the benefits of having Pickett fully prepared and now likely has the No. 20 overall pick in line to start against that devastating string of opponents. If Tomlin goes back to Trubisky, Steelers fans — and Trubisky himself — will know the veteran is a short-timer, which won’t do wonders for Trubisky’s confidence. It also wouldn’t feel great for Pickett to get his opportunity and immediately find himself back on the bench after a three-interception half.

The future is Pickett, and a couple of years from now, it probably won’t matter much whether he showed up in Week 3 or Week 4 as a rookie. If the Steelers want to win in 2022, though, I’m not sure either Pickett or Trubisky would be the ideal option. They need someone who protects the football, avoids takeaways and lets the defense win games, which is what Cooper Rush has done during his 3-0 stretch filling in for an injured Dak Prescott in Dallas. The 2019 Steelers didn’t have much at quarterback with an injured Ben Roethlisberger, Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges, but when they won the turnover battle, they went 8-3. They were 0-5 otherwise.

It’s entirely possible Pickett is named the starter for Week 5, looks more assured after a week of practice as the man under center and hits the ground running from there. Roethlisberger threw two picks in his 2004 debut filling in for Tommy Maddox and then won each of his first 15 regular-season starts. If the Steelers go on a winning streak, this loss won’t feel like a big deal.

As the Steelers try to maintain Tomlin’s streak of seasons at or above .500 and compete in the AFC North, though, they don’t have much of a margin for error. Waiting until halftime to insert Pickett felt like an unforced one.

AFC SOUTH

TENNESSEE

The Athletic:

Is Derrick Henry back? It certainly looks like it. Building on last week’s encouraging outing that helped carry the Titans to their first win of the season, the big back had an even better performance while helping his team improve to 2-2. Henry, who missed the final nine regular-season games of 2021, on Sunday racked up 114 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries (5.2-yard average) and had 33 receiving yards on three catches. It marked the first 100-yard rushing day for the 2019 and 2020 rushing leader since Week 6 of last season. The performance also carried significance because entering Sunday, the Colts had held opposing running backs to 2.6 yards per rushing attempt.

AFC EAST

BUFFALO

The Athletic credits QB JOSH ALLEN for the big win in Baltimore:

Josh Allen may not have had his sharpest passing outing (19-for-36 for 213 yards, a touchdown and interception), but the Bills quarterback delivered a gutsy performance on a waterlogged day at M&T Bank Stadium. Determined to not be outdone by the elusive Lamar Jackson, Allen showed his own escapability and mobility and rushed for 70 yards and a touchdown. More importantly, Allen and company showed they can win a close game after rallying from a 20-3 second-quarter deficit to tie the score at 20 late in the third quarter. And with four minutes left in the game, Allen directed a game-winning 77-yard drive capped by a 21-yard field goal with time expiring. After going 0-6 in games decided by a touchdown or less in 2021, and losing by two to Miami last week, the Bills finally figured out how to pull off a narrow victory in this possible AFC Championship Game preview.

MIAMI

Whether or not he is capable of playing in good health this week is almost immaterial at this point – the Dolphins can’t risk anymore media backlash.  Josh Alper ofProFootballTalk.com:

Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa will not be on the field in Week Five.

Tagovailoa went to the hospital after hitting his head on the turf and being diagnosed with a concussion during last Thursday’s loss to the Bengals and head coach Mike McDaniel told reporters on Monday that the quarterback will not play against the Jets this week. McDaniel said that it is too early to come up with any kind of timeline for when Tagovailoa might be back.

With Tagovailoa out, Teddy Bridgewater will start on Thursday with Skylar Thompson serving as the backup.

Tagovailoa also hit his head in Week Three and stumbled while getting up, but he was cleared to return to Miami’s win over the Bills with what was called a back injury. That caused the NFL Players Association to start an investigation into how the injury was handled and the decision-making came under even more scrutiny when Tagovailoa was injured in Cincinnati.

The NFL and NFLPA announced they are making changes to the concussion protocol over the weekend to eliminate the “gross motor instability” loophole that allowed players to return if doctors found it was not caused by a concussion. It will now be on the list of no-gos that cause players to be ruled out immediately.

The NFLPA also exercised its right to fire the Unaffiliated Neurotrauma Consultant who cleared Tagovailoa to return to the game. They cited “failure to understand his role” and “hostility during the investigation process” as the reasons for the move.

NEW YORK JETS

Since watching QB ZACH WILSON go toe-to-toe with QB TOM BRADY and the Bucs in Week 17 of 2021, the DB has been something of a believer in Wilson.  He returned to the lineup and the Jets won Sunday in Pittsburgh.  Peter King on how he did it:

And while we’re at the business of strange NFL developments, consider this: Teams repping New York City (Jets, Giants) are a combined 5-3. Teams repping the state of California (Niners, Rams, Chargers) are 5-5.

Anyway, what the Towel-wavers probably cannot fathom is Jets QB Zach Wilson carrying a 20-10 deficit into the last 13 minutes, driving New York 81 yards in 11 plays for a TD to narrow it, and then driving 65 yards in 10 plays for another TD to win it. “That was some of the most fun I’ve had playing football,” Wilson said. Well, overcoming a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter by completing 10-of-12 to beat the team Mike Tomlin coaches is a pretty big deal.

THIS AND THAT

QB SWAPS

After the Steelers dumped QB MITCH TRUBISKY, Bill Barnwell of ESPN.com looks at 5 possible QB changes upcoming in the next few weeks.  Before we see who they are – we are not sure there are better options behind QB DAVIS MILLS of the Texans or BAKER MAYFIELD of the Panthers.

Carolina Panthers

If the Panthers had a rookie first-round quarterback waiting in the wings, I’m not so sure Baker Mayfield would have made it out of Week 4. Facing a Cardinals defense that ranked 31st in DVOA, he averaged 5.5 yards per attempt, had three passes batted down at the line of scrimmage and turned the ball over three times in a 26-16 loss. (One of those came on a handoff to Rashard Higgins, who looked to be more guilty for the turnover.) He was vociferously booed in the fourth quarter at home, and the highlight of his day appeared to be silencing the boos with a garbage-time touchdown drive.

The Panthers didn’t convert a single third down until that fourth-quarter drive, and their 25.5% conversion rate on third downs is the worst mark in football through four games. In watching their failures on third downs Sunday, many come down to Mayfield. He was stuffed on a third-and-1 sneak to start the game. He missed an open Tommy Tremble for one first down with a throw to the wrong shoulder, then did the same thing on a corner route to an open DJ Moore, whose attempt to catch the wayward pass led to it being intercepted. On a mirrored route concept in the fourth quarter where it was clear Shi Smith ran his route to the correct depth, he sailed what should have been another easy completion.

Despite throwing his average pass below the league average of 7.4 air yards per throw, Mayfield’s off-target pass rate is 10th worst in the league. ESPN has a stat called adjusted completion percentage, which weighs completion percentage by air yards and removes drops and throwaways. His 58.5% adjusted completion percentage ranks 31st out of 32 starters, ahead of only Chicago’s Justin Fields.

Fields can at least call on his rushing ability to boost his overall product. Mayfield’s QBR after four weeks is a scarcely believable 15.3. ESPN has QBR going back through the 2007 season, and the only quarterbacks to get off to a worse four-game start than Mayfield in 2022 are JaMarcus Russell, Tyler Thigpen, Jimmy Clausen and Blaine Gabbert, the latter of whom managed it twice. Those players were each less experienced and in worse situations to succeed than Mayfield, who has been able to throw to Moore and Christian McCaffrey this season.

You could argue Carolina’s usage of McCaffrey suggests the brain trust of Matt Rhule and new offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo bear some of the blame for Mayfield’s struggles, too. McCaffrey had been turned into a between-the-tackles grinder through the first three weeks while failing to catch a single pass on a route more than 5 yards downfield.

Sunday brought that stretch to a close, as McCaffrey outjumped overmatched Cardinals linebacker Zaven Collins for a touchdown on one of Mayfield’s two third-down attempts. Owing in part to a negative game script and a reported quad injury, McCaffrey had more targets (nine) than carries (eight). It was the first real signs of the hybrid role we saw the star back fill during his 2018-19 peak. It’ll take me a week or two before I believe in this staff to use McCaffrey in his best possible role consistently.

McAdoo might want to at least threaten the run, because the only thing that has kept Mayfield afloat has been play-action. The Panthers are still giving him play-action rates above league average, but at 29.1%, he’s still within four percentage points of the average mark. His QBR on those dropbacks is a respectable 57.0. When he doesn’t use a play-fake, his QBR is 6.7. That’s the third-worst figure of the past 15 years for any quarterback through the first four weeks of the season. Only Gabbert and Russell were worse.

Inside the pocket, Mayfield’s 6-foot-1 size makes it easier for defenders to bat down his passes, which led to an interception and a fourth-down failure against the Cardinals. The solution in the past has been to get him out of the pocket, but even that’s not going very well anymore. He has a 5.6 QBR on throws outside the pocket in 2022, the fifth-worst mark in football. Even that is buoyed by a 75-yard touchdown pass to Robbie Anderson on a blown coverage; Mayfield is otherwise 6-of-15 for 69 yards on those throws. The 75-yarder counts, but it’s likely not indicative of what will happen for Mayfield in the weeks to come.

Of course, that assumes Mayfield has weeks to come in the starting role. Sam Darnold is eligible to come off injured reserve this week after suffering a left high ankle sprain in August, and while it’s unclear whether the former Jets starter is ready to play immediately, even the limited play from Darnold in 2021 was better than what we’ve seen from Mayfield. With McCaffrey on the field last season, Darnold posted a 63.3 QBR. Mayfield has a 14.7 QBR with the star tailback.

Rookie third-round pick Matt Corral would also be in the mix if he hadn’t suffered a season-ending left Lisfranc injury over the summer. What has happened in 2022 strengthens Corral’s chances of starting in 2023. Mayfield and Darnold are both free agents, and unless one of them turns things around dramatically by the end of the season, it’s unlikely either returns. The Panthers should make another significant acquisition at quarterback before their 2023 camp, either to push Corral or to play ahead of him, but I don’t think he’ll be competing with his current teammates.

Then again, Rhule and McAdoo might not be in position to coach Corral by 2023. Rhule’s future seemed to depend on the Panthers taking a step forward this season, and at 1-3, any progress made seems to have been incremental at most. His Panthers are now 1-26 when the opposing team scores at least 17 points, the worst mark in football over that time frame. The rest of the league has won about 38% of the time when the opposing team scores at least 17 points.

Even if Rhule ends up leaving Carolina, Mayfield’s inconsistency, lack of prototypical size and personality won’t help his chances elsewhere. Unless he turns things around before Darnold is ready to play again, this might be his last chance at a steady starting opportunity in the NFL.

Washington Commanders

Whatever honeymoon there might have been between Commanders fans and new quarterback Carson Wentz appears to be expiring. During the first two weeks, a frantic pace and plenty of possessions led them to produce impressive raw numbers in games against the Jaguars and Lions. Wentz, Curtis Samuel and Antonio Gibson all looked revitalized.

Over the past two weeks, the pace has slowed, in part because the Commanders haven’t been able to sustain drives. Against the Eagles in Week 3, they didn’t have a single drive with more than two first downs before the fourth quarter. On Sunday, against the Cowboys, Wentz & Co. had only one drive with more than two first downs in 13 tries.

Teams can succeed playing that way if quarterbacks are hitting huge chunk plays for touchdowns, but that is not the case for Wentz right now. Over the past two weeks, he is 50-of-85 (58.8%) for an anemic 381 yards, an average of fewer than 4.5 yards per attempt. His average completion over that period has traveled 4.2 yards in the air, 31st in the NFL.

Some of that naturally owes to the fact Wentz has needed to get the ball out for survival. Against the Eagles, he was sacked a whopping nine times and knocked down 17 times on 52 dropbacks. Some of those sacks were attributable to his offensive line, which struggled to match power and stop bull rushes against Philadelphia’s excellent front four, but he is also part of the problem. His well-known issues with holding the ball too long and taking unnecessary hits feed into the line’s problems.

When he has been pressured this season, Wentz has been a disaster. His 4.6 QBR under pressure ranks 26th, as he has gone 14-of-37 for just 135 yards. He has taken a league-high 17 sacks in those situations, and Wentz’s minus-11.8 completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) ranks 25th.

Wentz was sacked only twice during the loss to Dallas, which was a step in the right direction. On the other hand, keeping him from avoiding those sacks limited the Commanders to quick game and short passes. On throws traveling 10 or more yards in the air, he was just 3-of-12 for 55 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions.

Oh, the interceptions! Right. That was the other issue for Wentz during the down points of his career, and he had two of them Sunday. One was poor placement on a bomb just before halftime, when he put a pass where only cornerback Trevon Diggs could catch it. The other was a hallmark for Wentz going back to his rookie season with the Eagles, with him trying to throw a dig over the middle of the field, only for it to be undercut by rookie defender DaRon Bland. Wentz now has five interceptions and three fumbles across four games, which isn’t a winning formula for Washington, even if he does occasionally float a beautiful pass into the end zone for a score.

Successful NFL quarterbacks avoid sacks and takeaways, stay on schedule and hit big plays. Teams can get by without doing one of those three as long as they do the other two. Right now, Wentz isn’t doing any. I don’t think the team has soured on him yet, but he can’t continue playing this way for an entire season without running the risk of losing his job.

Washington paid a surprisingly large draft pick haul to acquire Wentz from the Colts, but that’s a sunk cost by now. He can be cut after this season without any dead money on the Commanders’ cap, saving them more than $26 million in cap and cash next year. We just saw the Colts anoint Wentz as their savior and then trade him after a season because they didn’t want to be on the hook for the remainder of the his guarantees, which ran out after 2022.

The bigger issue might be figuring out whether there is someone ready to replace Wentz. Taylor Heinicke was inconsistent at best in replacing the injured Ryan Fitzpatrick a year ago, and it was clear that coach Ron Rivera wanted to upgrade on Heinicke at any cost this spring. I’m not sure he’s on this roster as much more than a backup on game day if the starter gets injured.

The third-stringer is rookie fifth-round pick Sam Howell out of North Carolina. He impressed in stretches during the preseason, when he led the team in both passing yards (547) and rushing yards (94). Howell posted only an 85.8 passer rating during the preseason while playing inferior competition to the other passers, but the organization seems more interested in him than those numbers indicate.

If Wentz proves he’s not the quarterback Rivera craved this offseason, the Commanders could see if Howell is worth starting in 2023. Unless Wentz totally craters further in the weeks to come, though, that move likely would not occur until the second half of the season

New Orleans Saints

I don’t want to touch on the Saints too deeply, having just written about their struggles on offense last week, but Sunday was interestingly a step in the right direction. Despite playing without their No. 1 quarterback (Jameis Winston), running back (Alvin Kamara) and wide receiver (Michael Thomas), they had one of their best offensive games of the season. Andy Dalton went 20-of-28 for 236 yards with a touchdown in leading them to within a double doink of a 28-point day and a win in London against the Vikings.

Instead, the Saints settled for 25 points and a crushing loss, dropping new coach Dennis Allen’s team to 1-3. They turned the ball over twice, but one of those giveaways was a muffed punt. Dalton’s strip sack 63 seconds before halftime was their one offensive giveaway and turned to be the killer blow, as the Saints handed the Vikings a field goal and then lost by three points.

If New Orleans is going to find its way and compete in the South, the best path to winning is likely to follow what has worked in Dallas. Cooper Rush isn’t as good as Dak Prescott, but in three games at the helm, the Cowboys’ offense has turned the ball over just once, and that was on a Dalton Schultz fumble. In their wins over the Bengals, Giants and Commanders, the Cowboys have posted a turnover margin of plus-2. NFL teams that want to win games with middling quarterback play have to play great defense and win the turnover battle.

Of the three Saints who could theoretically start at quarterback next week, Dalton seems to be the one most likely to protect the football. Winston was excellent at avoiding giveaways during the 2021 season, but that’s an outlier relative to his career. Taysom Hill has a career interception rate of 3% and fumbled eight times across his five-game stint as the starter in 2020. He was better at protecting the football a year ago.

Dalton can also struggle with interceptions, so he’s not a foolproof selection. With Winston sidelined for now by transverse fractures in his back, though, the Saints’ starting quarterback needs to rest. Things are quickly falling apart, but if Dalton can protect the football and lead them to victories against the Seahawks and Bengals at home, he might be able to make the job his, even once Winston is ready to return.

Atlanta Falcons

The Falcons aren’t likely to bench Marcus Mariota soon, and after getting off to a 2-2 start, they shouldn’t. Arthur Smith’s offense has been a pleasant surprise, as even with Kyle Pitts off to a relatively anonymous start, the Falcons rank eighth in offensive expected points added (EPA) per play. To put that in context, they are essentially tied in EPA per play with the Bills and Eagles, who have two MVP candidates at quarterback.

Mariota has been effective as a downfield passer and occasionally as a runner, but he has struggled with turnovers. He had three interceptions and five fumbles across his first three games, including red zone giveaways in each of Atlanta’s two losses to start the season. The only blemish for this offense had been seven giveaways, something Smith surely wanted to correct heading into a home game against the Browns.

All of this made me very interested by what happened during Sunday’s victory. Mariota turned the ball over once, throwing an interception to Denzel Ward with 7:05 left in the third quarter on a tight throw over the middle of the field. Smith responded by taking the ball out of Mariota’s hands. The Falcons’ next 15 plays were all runs. Mariota threw just three passes the rest of the way, and one of those was a play in which he dropped the snap, scrambled for dear life after recovering it and then threw the football out of bounds.

I’m not sure correlation is necessarily causation. After all, the Falcons did run the ball on each of their four prior plays before the Mariota interception, so it looked like Smith was already trying to lean on his ground game. They were successful running, so Smith didn’t have any reason to go back to Mariota throwing passes. And when Smith did call on Mariota to complete a pass later in the game, he hit a wide-open Olamide Zaccheaus on a deep over to pick up 42 yards.

At the same time, coaches normally don’t freeze their quarterbacks out of the offense altogether after an interception. Mariota didn’t even have a role as a runner, as he finished this game with two carries for 6 yards (removing kneel-downs). At some point this season, we’re likely to see rookie third-rounder Desmond Ridder. I don’t think that’s coming soon, but Smith’s reaction to Mariota’s interception makes me wonder if it’s closer than we think.

Houston Texans

The bloom might be off the rose for Davis Mills, whose impressive five-game stretch to end the 2021 season has not been followed by similarly impressive play in 2022. With the Texans starting 0-3-1, he has been one of the league’s worst quarterbacks by most measures. He’s below average by completion percentage, yards per attempt and CPOE. His minus-0.23 EPA per dropback is the fourth-worst figure in the league among passers with at least 100 attempts this season.

Teams have been able to just pick apart the second-year quarterback with blitzes so far. Last season, even during that great stretch, opposing defenses were able to flummox Mills with extra rushers. His 34.9 QBR against extra rushers ranked 27th, and the only quarterbacks worse against the blitz who also kept their jobs heading into 2022 were the top two picks from 2021.

The hope was that Mills would be better against extra pressure after an offseason to prepare with the starters, but things are worse. Now, his 17.3 QBR against the blitz ranks 30th out of 32 passers. After playing about one season’s worth of football across three years at Stanford, his inexperience against NFL-caliber blitzes probably shouldn’t be a surprise.

Mills has been even worse on third downs, which has prevented the Texans from staying on the field. There, he has gone 21-of-40 for just 209 yards, producing 5.2 yards per attempt and a CPOE of minus-14%. He has thrown two picks in those situations, including a brutally late interception to set up the game-winning field goal for the Bears a week ago.

Mills is still yet to finish a full season’s worth of NFL starts, so I wouldn’t suggest the Texans should be desperate to bench him for anybody else. They are in a rebuild, and they need to see as many reps from him as possible to figure out whether he will still be a part of that quarterback situation in 2023.

The other issue is Houston didn’t invest much else at quarterback last offseason. Its primary backup is Kyle Allen, who was last seen backing up Heinicke in Washington. Allen has posted an 84.9 passer rating over the past four season, and that was with a coaching staff he already knew in a Turner offense he had been familiar with from his time in Carolina. Jeff Driskel is on the practice squad, and he did figure in as a runner in what looked to be a Driskel-led package during the first two weeks of the season for four offensive snaps.

In this case, Mills’ job is safe, but that’s mostly a product of the options around him rather than his own play. The Texans will likely be drafting a quarterback with one of their first-round picks in 2023, so he might only be keeping the seat warm during a lame-duck season, There were still hopes he could build off of his impressive run to end 2021, but instead he’s looking like a placeholder for a team that might already want to simulate to the offseason.