play0:52Is the Browns’ defense a valuable fantasy pickup in Week 5?Tristan H. Cockcroft explains why he has the Browns’ D/ST ranked top five headed into Week 5 vs. the Vikings.
play1:25Is Emeka Egbuka a trade candidate in fantasy?Field Yates is happy to see Emeka Egbuka put up big points in fantasy but is unsure how long that will last.
play0:51Jonathan Taylor impressed with Daniel Jones as Colts QBJonathan Taylor joins “The Rich Eisen Show” to discuss what it is like having Daniel Jones as his quarterback.
play1:47Eisen: Daniel Jones is doing things we’ve never seen a Colts QB doRich Eisen sings the praises of Daniel Jones after his impressive start to the NFL season.
Why Jordan Palmer is so impressed by Josh Allen’s pursuit to get better (2:26)Jordan Palmer joins “The Rich Eisen Show” to discuss Josh Allen’s growth as a game manager. (2:26)
Is the Browns’ defense a valuable fantasy pickup in Week 5?Tristan H. Cockcroft explains why he has the Browns’ D/ST ranked top five headed into Week 5 vs. the Vikings.
Tristan H. Cockcroft explains why he has the Browns’ D/ST ranked top five headed into Week 5 vs. the Vikings.
Is Emeka Egbuka a trade candidate in fantasy?Field Yates is happy to see Emeka Egbuka put up big points in fantasy but is unsure how long that will last.
Field Yates is happy to see Emeka Egbuka put up big points in fantasy but is unsure how long that will last.
Jonathan Taylor impressed with Daniel Jones as Colts QBJonathan Taylor joins “The Rich Eisen Show” to discuss what it is like having Daniel Jones as his quarterback.
Jonathan Taylor joins “The Rich Eisen Show” to discuss what it is like having Daniel Jones as his quarterback.
Eisen: Daniel Jones is doing things we’ve never seen a Colts QB doRich Eisen sings the praises of Daniel Jones after his impressive start to the NFL season.
We’re four weeks into the 2025 NFL season, which can mean only one thing: It’s time for my quarter-season NFL awards. (Well, technically my 23.5% season awards in the 17-game era.)
This should be familiar to you if you’ve been a longtime reader, but there’s a new category this year: the Protector of the Year award, which will go to the best offensive lineman in the NFL. I’ll hit that, Coach of the Year, Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year awards for defense and offense, and finally my pick for MVP.
That would push things to the secondary, where the obvious favorite before the season would have been two-way uber-prospect Travis Hunter. Instead, Hunter is off to a muted start as a pro, racking up 118 receiving yards through four games with the Jaguars while playing less than 40% of the snaps at cornerback. Hunter has not made much of an impact, and players such as Tetairoa McMillan and Nico Collins have run slants in front of him for first downs.
We’re left with candidates who might not have been obvious options before the season. Cornerback Will Johnson was excellent for the Cardinals to open the year, but he has missed the past two games with a groin injury. Slot corners such as Jacob Parrish of the Buccaneers and Billy Bowman Jr. of the Falcons have flashed. I’ll start in the secondary, where I’ve been very impressed with one rookie on a team that has more young talent on defense than anybody else.
Mukuba is making plays all over the field and has instantly looked as if he belongs in one of the league’s best defenses. Jihaad Campbell has also been a quick study at linebacker, though the first-rounder did allow a 72-yard touchdown to Bucky Irving up the sidelines on a scramble drill in Week 4.
After paying Brock Purdy and shedding expensive players on both sides of the ball this offseason, the 49ers needed their rookies to contribute under new defensive coordinator Robert Saleh. They have. First-rounder Mykel Williams has been physically imposing, especially against the run, and has made multiple plays in the backfield. Marques Sigle won a starting safety job in camp. Alfred Collins and CJ West have been helpful in the defensive tackle rotation.
The Browns are fifth in the league in EPA per play through four games. And although the defense has been able to lead them to only one victory, shutting down a Packers offense that averaged more than 31 points per game in its three other games might be the single most impressive defensive performance of the season so far.
Myles Garrett is going to be featured elsewhere in this column, and there have been impressive performances from guys including Maliek Collins and Isaiah McGuire up front. But Schwesinger has been close to a revelation. The Browns lost Jordan Hicks to retirement and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah to a career-threatening neck injury, so Schwesinger — a second-round pick — was a Week 1 starter and served as the “green dot” defender relaying calls from the coaching staff.
All of that wouldn’t matter if Schwesinger couldn’t make an impact, but he has been excellent in his first month. He has made more than 12% of Cleveland’s tackles, an above-average rate, while whiffing on just 3.1% of his attempts, one of the best rates in the league for a linebacker who has been on the field for virtually every snap. Schwesinger tracked down Jordan Love for a big sack in the win over the Packers, has a couple of tackles for loss and has been a rangy defender against the run.
Is the Browns’ defense a valuable fantasy pickup in Week 5?
We’ll get to Protector of the Year candidates in a moment, and there’s a case that Zabel has been one of the best offensive linemen regardless of experience this season, full stop. NFL Next Gen Stats uses an automated system to track quarterback pressures, and through four games, Zabel might have the cleanest résumé of anybody in the league. He has allowed zero sacks and just one pressure; his 0.9% pressure rate is the best of any offensive lineman, rookie or otherwise.
He has also been fun to watch in the run game, where his athletic traits are played up. Zabel got to the third level to block Juan Thornhill to finish off a 19-yard Kenneth Walker III run against the Steelers. The rookie is not the sort of physical force the Seahawks are going to run behind over and over again, but in a zone-heavy scheme that asks its linemen to be on the move, Zabel is a great fit. He joins Armand Membou of the Jets as the best rookie O-linemen through four weeks.
What a fun start to the season this has been for Egbuka, who was seen as a luxury when the Bucs took him in the first round. By Week 4, injuries and an established level of play had already made him Tampa Bay’s top receiver in a critical matchup against Philadelphia. Egbuka didn’t have his best game, turning 10 targets into 101 yards, but one of those targets was a 77-yard touchdown on a scramble drill that helped fuel Tampa Bay’s comeback to make the game competitive in the second half.
The book on Egbuka in April was that he was going to enter the NFL as a pro-ready wideout without the sort of elite traits most teams want from their top receivers. He has already exceeded those expectations after four games.
As a pass catcher, Warren has been even more efficient than Egbuka and McMillan. He has 263 receiving yards across just 104 routes, good for an average of 2.5 yards per route run. McMillan has 15 more receiving yards than Warren, but he has taken 39 more routes to get there. Warren is 10th among all receivers in yards per route run and second among tight ends behind only Tucker Kraft of the Packers.
And of course, Warren has been even more intriguing as a chess piece for coach Shane Steichen. The Colts have used Warren as a fullback, serving both as a lead blocker and ball carrier on a pair of short-yardage plays — including a touchdown on a fourth-and-1 carry against the Rams on Sunday. On the prior play, the Colts went to Warren out of the Wildcat and ran power with him as the de facto quarterback as if he were Cam Newton.
Those concepts haven’t always been successful — Warren was stuffed on a fourth-and-1 carry out of the backfield against the Broncos — but how many teams have a player they are comfortable running on power and throwing to as the shallow crosser on mesh on fourth down in the same game? Warren is a special talent, and he has been an essential part of the Colts’ offense as the team has gotten off to a 3-1 start.
The NFL’s newest award goes to the best offensive lineman in football. Through four games, it’s going to be difficult for any lineman to separate from the pack. It’s pretty clear which linemen are at the bottom of the pack, but there are still plenty who haven’t allowed a sack, have made a few solid key blocks in the run game and could be considered for this award. The cream of the crop will separate as the season goes along.
Doing my best to account for all that, I think Bolles is playing at a really high level. He has allowed a pressure rate of just 4.6%, the lowest among NFL left tackles, with no quick pressures or quick sacks of Nix. Quinn Meinerz deservedly gets credit as the most fearsome run blocker on the Broncos’ line, but Bolles can hold his own; he bowled over Joseph Ossai on a 16-yard J.K. Dobbins run during Monday’s blowout win over the Bengals.
Dawkins makes it look easy. While Next Gen Stats credits him with two sacks allowed on the year, both of those sacks were extended plays where Dawkins initially won at the line. He has been credited with zero quick sacks and zero quick pressures allowed. His 4.9% pressure allowed rate is the second-lowest figure in the league among left tackles. And he has been in one-on-one blocks 88% of the time, the third-highest rate in the league.
Unlike the guys blocking for Nix and Allen, Sewell knows what to expect with Jared Goff, who scrambles only out of necessity. That makes Sewell’s life easier, but he’s also playing on a Lions O-line with two new starters at guard — which got overwhelmed in the middle against the Packers in the opener before massively improving over the subsequent three games.
If there’s any flaw, it’s that McVay’s game management can be a little too conservative at times, especially with the strength of the Rams’ offense. And yet, the Rams have scored three touchdowns on their three fourth-down conversions this season, including critical scores in their wins over the Texans and Colts. And hey, speaking of Indianapolis …