play1:07Why Daniel Dopp says Rashee Rice has WR1 upside on any given weekDaniel Dopp congratulates fantasy managers who stashed Rashee Rice and highlights why he has WR1 upside on any given week.
play0:30Travis Hunter hauls in 34-yard pass for 1st NFL TDTrevor Lawrence airs one out to Travis Hunter for Hunter’s first career NFL touchdown.
play0:20Daniel Jones flicks TD pass to Michael Pittman Jr.Daniel Jones connects with Michael Pittman Jr. to extend the Colts’ lead over the Chargers.
play0:28Daniel Jones and Tyler Warren link up for another Colts TDDaniel Jones fires another dart, this time to Tyler Warren, as the Colts extend their lead over the Chargers.
play1:13Jonathan Taylor goes off with a trio of TDs for ColtsJonathan Taylor torches the Chargers’ defense, finding the end zone three times for the Colts.
Why Daniel Dopp says Rashee Rice has WR1 upside on any given weekDaniel Dopp congratulates fantasy managers who stashed Rashee Rice and highlights why he has WR1 upside on any given week.
Daniel Dopp congratulates fantasy managers who stashed Rashee Rice and highlights why he has WR1 upside on any given week.
Travis Hunter hauls in 34-yard pass for 1st NFL TDTrevor Lawrence airs one out to Travis Hunter for Hunter’s first career NFL touchdown.
Daniel Jones flicks TD pass to Michael Pittman Jr.Daniel Jones connects with Michael Pittman Jr. to extend the Colts’ lead over the Chargers.
Daniel Jones and Tyler Warren link up for another Colts TDDaniel Jones fires another dart, this time to Tyler Warren, as the Colts extend their lead over the Chargers.
Daniel Jones fires another dart, this time to Tyler Warren, as the Colts extend their lead over the Chargers.
Jonathan Taylor goes off with a trio of TDs for ColtsJonathan Taylor torches the Chargers’ defense, finding the end zone three times for the Colts.
After six months of waiting for the NFL to return over the offseason, what we see in the first few weeks of action feels stickier and more meaningful than anything else, and we form opinions quickly.
Over the past four weeks? The Chiefs are fourth in EPA per play, a figure which rises to first when we remove garbage time (those plays in which one team’s chances of winning are below 10%) from the equation. They’re second in points scored per drive. And if we again remove garbage time drives, the Chiefs have scored touchdowns on 56% of their possessions since the start of Week 4. The league average is 26%.
Since Week 4, that has jumped to 0.8%, which is right around the middle of the pack. The Chiefs aren’t snatching balls out of thin air, but their receivers are holding their own and not letting their star quarterback down.
Why Daniel Dopp says Rashee Rice has WR1 upside on any given week
The tight ends also got in the mix Sunday. A blown coverage on a deep crosser led to a 44-yard catch-and-run for Kelce, while Noah Gray picked up 28 yards on a fake screen-and-wheel up the sideline. The Chiefs have struggled out of 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TEs, 2 WRs) this season, but they had a 61% success rate with two or more tight ends against the Raiders, their best mark of the season.
For all the optimism and explosive plays coming out of Jacksonville’s 4-1 start to the season, it was pretty clear to anyone paying close attention that Trevor Lawrence and the offense weren’t holding up their end of the bargain. That offense was producing the occasional big play, but the operation simply wasn’t living up to realistic expectations.
Even through that 4-1 start, the Jags led the league in procedural penalties, the sort of unforced errors that have little to do with what happens after the snap. They were plagued by illegal shifts and false starts. The offense took delay of game penalties, even in critical spots or from dead-ball moments. Lawrence threw an illegal forward pass after crossing the line of scrimmage in Week 1 against the Panthers, then did it again in Week 5 against the Chiefs.
On top of that, the Jags were sloppy with the football. Lawrence lost a fumble trying to leap over the pile for a fourth-and-short touchdown against the Chiefs, only to have the ball punched out of his hands. Brian Thomas Jr. struggled with drops, which has led to picks for Lawrence; the QB seemed to throw one brutal interception per game, which usually came in the second half.
The other 14 turnovers helped create shorter fields for the Jags. Through those first five games, the Jaguars had 14 drives start on their own 40-yard line or closer to the opposition end zone. Those drives produced five touchdowns, four field goals and three failures via a missed field goal or fourth-down stuff. (The other two ended in kneel-downs to seal up victories.) The Lions and Colts were the only teams to start more often in what’s generally considered to be positive field position.
But over these past two losses? The Jaguars have had one short field, which came against the Rams on Sunday in London. It quickly evaporated after an illegal man downfield penalty and a 13-yard sack on a free rush in which Lawrence didn’t have a hot answer and tried to scramble his way out of pressure. Instead, the Jags were knocked out of field goal range and had to punt down 21-0.
Not much has changed on the long drives. The Jaguars were 24th in points per possession on drives starting inside their own 40-yard line during the 4-1 start, and they’re 27th by that same metric on those same possessions over the past two weeks. The defense hasn’t been able to force any turnovers over that span, though, and that has put all of the pressure on the Jaguars’ offense to sustain long, successful drives.
That’s where the procedural penalties continue to bite them. The Jags have added 10 more procedural penalties on offense to their ledger over the past two games, tying them for the league lead. That’s without considering penalties like offensive holding and illegal blocks above the waist, the sort of calls efficient offenses ideally avoid as much as possible.
Trevor Lawrence airs one out to Travis Hunter for Hunter’s first career NFL touchdown.
The most unnecessary of those penalties came against the Seahawks in Week 6. As Thomas wrestled a 50-50 ball away from Seahawks cornerback Josh Jobe for a touchdown in the third quarter, a flag hit the other side of the field, with rookie hybrid player Travis Hunter getting flagged for being offside. The penalty didn’t matter a ton in the big picture, since the Jaguars continued the drive and eventually scored a touchdown anyway, but other less conspicuous calls do make a difference.
Drops, a problem plaguing the Jags seemingly since Lawrence arrived in town, continue to be a concern. Thomas came under scrutiny earlier in the season for shrinking in tight quarters and failing to make some tough catches. I’m not sure those complaints were completely warranted, but I did think that story was behind us now. Instead, this is still an issue.
Thomas had three potentially catchable balls fall to the ground Sunday, including a dig where the pass was knocked out of his hands by a big hit from Kamren Kinchens and an out that was nearly brought in by a leaping Thomas. And last week, Thomas didn’t do a good enough job of bringing in a dig thrown at his helmet, producing a three-and-out in an eight-point game in the fourth quarter.
The Jags have the second-worst catch rate over expectation of any offense in the NFL this season, ahead of only the Bears, per NFL Next Gen Stats. And while it’s easy to pick on Thomas given his stardom, everyone is to blame. Tim Patrick had a bad drop against the Chiefs that should have produced a pick, only for three different Kansas City defenders to exaggeratedly whiff on catching the ball. Dyami Brown dropped a would-be touchdown pass that hit him in the hands against the Bengals.
There’s talent here, but the Jags make too many mistakes to reliably and consistently win games with their offense right now. The defense has proved its ability to lead the way, but it’s always going to be tough for teams to force multiple takeaways every week. When the onus has fallen on the offense, the Jags have generally fallen apart this season. Until they clean things up, that’s not going to change.
The Bills are on what became a well-timed bye this week, but after a disappointing loss to the Falcons on “Monday Night Football” last week, their sudden downshift is worth discussing here.
Well, schedules can be a funny thing. The Bills did win their first four games over that span, although the Dolphins put up a fight in Western New York in Week 3, and the Saints got within two points during the fourth quarter before Josh Allen eventually pulled away. A little sloppy, perhaps, but the Bills were stacking wins, and that’s what mattered.
What has gone wrong for the Bills? I’ll start with the simplest possible explanation: They’ve been able to lean on a formula that nobody else in the league has managed to match, and that formula has come undone, especially over the past two games. If anyone is capable of rounding back into that form, it’s the Bills, but what they were doing was mostly unprecedented in league history.
It’s the turnovers. The offense simply never gave away the football. Between their bye week in November last year and the win over the Dolphins, the Bills played 12 games (including playoffs). Their offense turned the ball over exactly one time. That has never happened before, and it has never even been approached. Nobody else in league history has had a stretch of 12 games with fewer than four turnovers on offense, and the team that pulled that off was last season’s Eagles.
We live in an era where turnovers are at historic lows, but NFL teams aren’t supposed to be able to play three months of football and turn the ball over one time. That interception, which came last year against the Patriots, was a third-and-16 deep ball from Allen that was picked off in the end zone and amounted to an arm punt. The Bills essentially had not dealt with a meaningful turnover since their Week 11 game against the Chiefs.