If You Thought the Chiefs Were Dead, That’s on You

Another Sunday is in the books, and the MMQB takeaways for Week 4 are here. Let’s go …

If you somehow thought the Chiefs were through, that’s on you. Week 1 was rough for Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid and the crew out of Kansas City. Week 2 was even worse. But those losses (by six points to Jim Harbaugh, Justin Herbert and the Chargers in Brazil, then by three to the reigning champion Eagles) were made out to be a much bigger deal than they ought to have been.

The reality NFL folks would rather you not talk about: September really doesn’t mean that much, especially for teams that have been there and done that before.

In fact, ever since the league’s work rules were overhauled in the 2011 CBA, a lot of people working for perennial contenders have referred to these early stages of the season as a sort of extended preseason, when they could figure out their team, find out where that team’s strengths were and then lean into that stuff accordingly. And the Chiefs, because of their circumstances early this year, probably illustrate that dynamic more vividly than most.

Rashee Rice was suspended to start the year and is still serving his six-game penalty. Xavier Worthy went down in the opener. A rookie, Josh Simmons, is starting at left tackle, as part of a position group that’s replacing veteran leader Joe Thuney at guard.

Of course it wasn’t going to be perfect. And what was wrong was addressed.

“I think the word that comes to mind, that’s come up the most in conversation is energy,” linebacker Drue Tranquill told me postgame. “I feel like when our energy is good and our leaders are passionate, vocal and executing on a high level, it seems like we click. There were a few times last year where we started slow in the first half. They were getting out in front of us or the offense was struggling to get going. It even happened today a little. Credit to Baltimore going down to get a touchdown at the start.”

And credit to the Chiefs for making that the highlight of the Ravens’ visit to Arrowhead.

Between the nine-play, 70-yard, game-opening drive Tranquill referenced and Justice Hill’s 71-yard touchdown run in garbage time, the Chiefs held the vaunted Ravens offense to just 219 yards and two field goals on 43 snaps. The result: The offense settled in and the Chiefs raced to a 37–13 lead before Hill’s touchdown made the final 37–20.

So are the Chiefs back? The reality is, they never went anywhere. Kansas City just needed to withstand a few injuries and get its mojo back—which is where Tranquill’s insistence that energy was a problem came up.

“I mean, defensively, in Brazil, the Chargers were having their way with us. They were just converting and out-executing us,” Tranquill said. “We didn’t put our best foot forward. That energy and relentless play from the rush results in turnovers. You see it now—we’ve had three picks the last two games. So we have to keep the energy up. It’s a long season.”

And that, by the way, isn’t Tranquill accepting how the Chiefs start the season. It’s to explain it, and explain how the team had to ride it out.

If there was a turning point, it actually might have come last week. The offensive leaders addressed their ground at halftime of that win over the Giants, and implored everyone to take a deep breath and play the game on a play-by-play basis. The results weren’t mind-blowing. But progress was made, and a tight 9–6 game at the half became a breezy 22–9 win.

Similarly, the defense tried to reemphasize the details. This week, against Baltimore, it meant keeping the Ravens’ run game in check (easier said than done), keeping Jackson’s targets in the passing game in front of them and keeping disciplined in rushing the quarterback.

Check, check and check. Outside of Hill’s big run, the Chiefs held the Ravens under 100 yards rushing, sacked Jackson three times and came up with two massive turnovers in the first half—one a fumble recovery by Tranquill, the other an acrobatic pick from fellow linebacker Leo Chenal—to create and maintain separation on the scoreboard.

“That energy and relentless play from the rush results in turnovers,” Tranquill said.

Meanwhile, with Worthy (seven touches, 121 yards from scrimmage) back in the lineup, Mahomes (25-of-37, 270, 4 TDs, 124.8 rating) carried over the efficiency he showed in the second half against the Giants, and, sure enough, the Chiefs were the Chiefs again.

If we’re being real, everyone should’ve seen that coming.

The Chiefs, for their part, knew it was just a matter of time.

“We want to play our best football come the playoffs,” said Tranquill. “Obviously, you have to win through the regular season to put yourself in that position. But if you aren’t getting better, you will get in trouble. It’s only Week 4, and I certainly think we still have plenty of room to improve in all three phases.”

It’s a good bet they will. And—bad news, other 31 teams—that would mean this particularly impressive Sunday is just the start.

While we’re there, the Rams already look battle-hardened. You know what happened to Sean McVay’s crew in Week 3, when a 26–7 third-quarter lead evaporated in Philly, with a barrage of 26 unanswered points punctuated by Jordan Davis rumbling the length of the field with a blocked field goal to clinch a 33–26 win.

That kind of loss can leave a mark with a team, and most coaches would do some sort of proverbial burial of any evidence of its existence.

In this case, Sean McVay went the other way with his players.

“That was the kind of game a lot of coaches would’ve been like, O.K., move on to next week, and not addressed it at all,” star edge rusher Jared Verse told me early Sunday night. “Sean takes that head on. We gave that team that win. Obviously, that’s a very good Philadelphia team, but we gave them that win. We started going away from our morals and changing up how we play. And Sean made sure to adjust with that. We can dominate any team in the league but we have to be us.”

On Sunday, against the upstart Colts, the Rams showed what that means.

This time around, though, the trouble wasn’t with how McVay’s group finished the game. It was with how they started it. The Colts came in 3–0, looking for a signature win behind red-hot and rejuvenated quarterback Daniel Jones. And the first 52 minutes or so seemed to validate the resurgence of both team and player as real.

Which was about where the lessons of the Philly game, and especially the need to play it all the way through at full intensity, came into focus for a team with Super Bowl aspirations.

“We made mistakes [in Philly] and they were able to come back,” Verse said. “You sit down and say, All right, this was on us. How do I make sure that never happens again? I’m glad it happened against one of the top teams in the league instead of another team that wasn’t as talented. We realized, that’s what can happen if you don’t keep your foot on the gas, take your foot off their neck. This is what my dad always told me, he would say, I don’t care if you’re up 100, or you’re up three, you keep your foot on their damn neck.”

The Rams did keep their foot on Indy’s neck, but not until much later.

L.A. started to turn the heat up on the Colts midway through the fourth quarter, with the offense going on an 11-play, 83-yard drive to tie it at 20—one capped with a fourth-down touchdown pass from Matthew Stafford to Puka Nacua. Next came Verse’s strip sack of Daniel Jones on a second-and-15 from the Colts’ 42, with 2:10 left, just two plays after a 53-yard Jonathan Taylor touchdown run was called back on a holding call.

In the huddle, after the penalty, Verse told his teammates, to “calm down—don’t play outside yourself, do your one-of-11.” And on the sack, Verse’s one-of-11 came as a result of getting Jones’s cadence down, getting a jump off the snap and having left tackle Bernhard Raimann on his heels after bull rushing him all day. “When the game’s that way,” Verse said, “he’s going to sit back a little bit.” Which allowed for Verse, in turn, to run around him.

That forced a punt, which was immediately followed by an 88-yard touchdown from Stafford to Tutu Atwell. Three plays after that, a Kam Curl interception clinched it. “That boy, Kam, is just a dog,” Verse said. “Ball in the air, I saw Kam line it up and said, Yeah, he’s taking this one home.” And Curl, of course, did.

So that left Indy as the team leaving a visiting stadium with a lot of regret, in this case, over a blown lead, two devastating mistakes by receiver Adonai Mitchell (the holding penalty on Taylor’s would-be touchdown, and an unforced fumble on another would-be touchdown prompted by an attempt to celebrate early), and the fact that just 10 defenders were on the field for Atwell’s long touchdown.

Meanwhile, the Rams’ belief in where they are, clearly unshaken through last week’s meltdown, was only further cemented.

“You could’ve asked me this if we were 0–4. I would say the same thing. I 100% believe we have one of the best teams in the league,” Verse said.

The past two weeks would show that faith in his team, and the Rams’ faith in themselves, is real.

The NFL’s International Series is only going to keep growing. The 2025 edition kicked off in Brazil in Week 1 and carried over into Dublin on Sunday morning. In a lot of ways, the league (and its owners) already have eyes on where things are going next.

For clarity’s sake, this year, the NFL is playing seven of its max eight allowable games overseas, while going into two new countries (Ireland and Spain) and three new cities (Madrid, Berlin and Dublin).

To try to figure out what’s next, about an hour before the Steelers and Vikings kicked off Sunday, I talked to the NFL’s managing director of international, Gerrit Meier, who’s now in his third season running the league’s business ops outside the United States. I covered a lot of ground with the former WWE and Red Bull exec. Here’s some of what we dove into …

• Something I didn’t know: The NFL is opening a headquarters in Spain, which will give the league a home office in eight foreign countries. The others are Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the U.K., Germany, China and Australia, and each represents an acknowledgment that just playing a game abroad isn’t enough to drive interest in the sport in a country.

“The ambition to go international itself, it’s not a new ambition,” Meier said. “I think the point we’ve gotten ourselves to now is, O.K., how has the world changed? And if we truly want to be a global sport, what are the different elements that go into that? And we’ve seen that just having a game, that’s not enough. Just having media, that’s not enough. So just talking about the various elements, we realized there’s something bigger.

“We have to think about year-round activation, we have to think about building fandom, we need to really push engagement. So we used the last few years to look at the world and say O.K., what markets could potentially allow us to do that? And then working backwards, what are all the necessary steps to do that?”

• A big piece of it is pushing participation overseas. The problem is that football as a participatory sport doesn’t export like soccer or basketball do. The NFL’s workaround there has been flag football, while also establishing ways for those interested in (and predisposed for) the tackle version to get involved.

“Very importantly, look at basketball, look at baseball, look at the others, a high percentage of foreign players, playing at the highest level,” Meier said. “So we already have a little bit of that, but we definitely don’t have the same percentage of international-born players playing in the NFL. So we have an international player pathway program, we’re building academies, we want more international players because we know it grows fandom in those markets.”

• Another way to build it out would, of course, be to put a team (or teams) overseas. And when the International Series launched back in 2007, the goal was to have a team in London within 15 years. Obviously, the NFL didn’t hit that target, in part because since then the league’s game plan for growing the sport in new countries changed.

“I don’t think it’s on the front burner for us as we think through it,” Meier said. “You just think of it on paper, how would it work? Can it be only one team? Or would it have to be two or four teams? Would it even work with a 17-and-3 season [regular season vs. preseason games] or does it need to be an 18-and-2 season? Proximity matters, so is that more a conversation for Canada or Mexico, or is this truly a conversation as it comes to Europe with time zone differences and everything else?

“So this is not like we wouldn’t be looking at it, it’s definitely something that should be contemplated at some point. I would imagine we would want to look at developmental leagues. I don’t think NFL Europe back in the day was set up to a degree that it provided success, but if you actually look at how it developed fandom for the long run in countries like Germany, it actually had some positives. So all those elements are important.”

• In the short term, next year, Meier says, the league is “pretty confident we’re going to get our full slate of games,” meaning eight of them. And we already know the NFL will be in Rio de Janeiro and Australia as new markets. So one question I had, after hearing the Brazil game (held in São Paulo the past two years) might move out of Week 1, and into the middle of the season to accommodate Australia, was how all that might work, especially with Friday out of the equation now due to the antitrust rules.

Add it up, and I’d say there is potential for a Wednesday-Thursday setup for the Week 1 kickoff game and the Australia game, and Brazil happening at some point after Week 1.

“We’re thinking about it a lot,” Meier said. “We do not have a Friday to play next year. Those were benefits we got through the schedule and the way it fell for last year and this year. We used both Fridays for Brazil. That Friday is not available for next year to us, regardless of where we play. So that, of course, imposes the question, Where do you play a Brazil game, which is still very much on the time zone plus/minus with the United States?

“Then, of course, something as quirky as Australia, which obviously is on a completely different timeframe, but you still have to make a viewable window for the United States. So you’re 100% right, we need to look at it.”

• And in the long term, I just thought it’d be interesting to see what the next frontiers might be for the league.

“[Roger Goodell has said] he’d really like to see us push to go to Asia, beyond Australia, with Australia not being directly Asia. We talk about that area, talk about that space,” Meier said. “We’ve talked about how we have an interest in the Middle East region. Again, it’s a different type of space, different type of market, we have to evaluate what it is. There’s still additional countries left in Europe that we haven’t been to—France, Italy are places we’re exploring, that we’re looking at.”

For now, though, the focus is more so on what’s happening this season, with a few more new places on that horizon. And while we’re there, a quick minute on the team that left Europe with a win …

The Steelers now have a real chance to look at an imperfect start to the season, reset, and do so with sole possession of the AFC North (for now, and headed into Week 5 if the Bengals lose in Denver Monday night). Through four games, Pittsburgh’s actually been outscored 98–96. The Steelers needed to rally to beat a still winless Jets team in Week 1, needed a slew of turnovers to beat the Patriots in Week 3 and needed to hold off Carson Wentz to beat the Vikings in Week 4 (with a convincing loss to Seattle mixed in).

But your record is your record, and the Steelers are now 3-1. They come out of Ireland to their bye week, and will return to play the Browns and the Jake Browning–led Bengals in a five-day stretch. Then they will have a 10-day runup, potentially at 5–1, to play Aaron Rodgers’s old friends from Green Bay on Sunday Night Football in Week 8.

And if you look at the rest of their slate, it’s pretty manageable.

The bottom line: Mike Tomlin’s group now has time to work out the kinks, and build a plan for the rest of the season by leaning into its strengths, with so many new veterans integrated.

The potential for that did show itself Sunday. Rodgers was as efficient as he’s been as a Steeler, going 18-of-22 for 200 yards and a touchdown. That touchdown was to DK Metcalf, who’s continued to make the price Pittsburgh paid for him look like a steal. That score covered 80 yards, as part of a five-catch, 126-yard afternoon. The young line came together, and the run game benefitted. The run defense finally tightened up. And while the pass defense had issues, the Steelers picked off Wentz twice and sacked him six times.

Tomlin said afterward, “We made it a little bit more entertaining than maybe it should have been,” and credited the Vikings for that. But the coach was acknowledging how much better he thinks his team can be, based on the flashes it’s shown.

He also knows that by scratching out wins like the Steelers’ first three of the year, they’ve won no style point—but given themselves a shot to get there. We’ll see in a few weeks what they do with that.

The Jaguars have my attention. In the locker room after the game, first-year coach Liam Coen listed for his team some reasons for that. For the first time in franchise history, the Jags have forced three turnovers in four consecutive games. They rushed for 151 yards, at a clip of 4.7 per carry. They didn’t allow a sack. Parker Washington ran a punt back 87 yards for a touchdown. And Coen even had a little postgame confrontation (we’ll get to that).

Add it up, and the Jags’ 26–21 win over the previously unbeaten 49ers didn’t belong to one piece or another of that roster—everyone had a hand in it. As a result, Coen’s belief in the players has morphed into confidence that the end of games like Sunday will play out like this one did.

“I think it’s the belief he has in us and we have in him,” quarterback Trevor Lawrence told me postgame, from the team plane. “The confidence—and knowing there are more things we can do better offensively as the season goes on. The belief and confidence is there as a team. It’s hard to find a way to win in this league, and the way he attacks that has spread throughout the team, for sure.”

Part of that is very functional.

For Lawrence, it’s through his first full-on exposure to the Shanahan-McVay version of the West Coast offense—which is new for the quarterback in the amount of answers it presents for him and the detail it demands.

“I don’t even feel like we’re all clicking yet, so there’s a lot more to come,” he said. “But just the way we game plan, our plan for Sunday, what we are setting out to do is very planned, very detailed. It takes a lot of work during the week to get it all dialed up, but we have answers for everything. And that’s the biggest thing, he’s preparing us for every possible look and giving us good stuff to set up for a good play more often than not.”

Most of it, Lawrence continued, is through the “can” system—a staple of the Shanahan offense, where the QB goes to the line with two calls, looks for a coverage indicator from the defense, and either sticks with the primary call or “cans” the play to the second call.

Lawrence said he’s had “cans” on play calls before, just not to the extent he does now.

“This is the most. Almost every play is that way,” he said. “This one has more plays that are two calls. You’re picking the better play between the two. And it’s a lot of checks for different pressures.”

Then, there’s the aforementioned confidence Coen is already showing in his guys, and that showed up with Lawrence in particular at the end of Sunday’s upset win. With less than three minutes left, and the Niners out of timeouts, Lawrence kept a zone-read option and got the edge on the defense, darting down the left side and sliding after picking up six yards. One problem: He accidentally stepped out of bounds, stopping the clock.

Still, Coen’s faith in Lawrence was unshaken. Facing third-and-5 with 2:36 left, rather than run the ball and bleed the clock to the two-minute warning and kick a field goal to push the lead to eight, Coen put the ball in Lawrence’s hands.

“We had a good play schemed up for Hunter [Long],” Lawrence said. “It was a slice route out the back door—to get everyone to play down on the run and then throw it out and have blockers in the front. It was the perfect time for it.”

Lawrence ran it to perfection, Long picked up eight yards and the Jags went into victory formation.

And minutes later, Coen was crossing the field jawing with 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh, who (innocently) had mentioned this week how good Coen and his staff are at (legally) stealing defensive signals. Lawrence said he and his teammates were aware of the back-and-forth going into the game and while “it wasn’t our focus … there is an element of proving yourself and having your coach’s back.”

By doing both of those things, now, the Jaguars have set up a shot to show everyone who they are.

On Monday Night Football, they’ll get Mahomes and the Chiefs.

“They’ve done a great job the last few years,” Lawrence said of the Chiefs. “We’ve played them a lot, it’ll be a good challenge. Obviously, Monday night, a good stage for our team to go out and continue to prove that we’re for real and we can play. It’s just the next opportunity for us. It’ll be exciting.”

For them, and the rest of us, too.

Speaking of those sorts of opportunities, the Patriots are another team with a first-year coach and young quarterback that’s about to get one. Sunday’s biggest blowout—surprise!—came from Mike Vrabel’s revitalized New England team curb-stomping Bryce Young and the Panthers, 42–13, in Foxborough.

As was the case for the Jaguars, the Patriots’ win was a total team effort, sparked by an 87-yard punt return for a touchdown from Marcus Jones. As was the case with the Jaguars, the performance of the quarterback, Drake Maye, was central to the whole thing. And as was the case with the Jaguars, this one only sets up a bigger game next week, with the Pats traveling to Buffalo to face the five-time defending AFC East champion Bills on Sunday Night Football.

“We’ve shown we can do certain things,” Jones told me postgame. “As a team, watching film, you want to make sure you’re seeing what we can do better, to not get too high or too low. But it’s also making sure we carry this momentum into next week.”

And there should be plenty of it to carry, after New England made its progress apparent in a bunch of different ways Sunday.

The most obvious area of improvement came in the turnover department. A week after five turnovers turned what could’ve easily (and probably should’ve) been a signature win over the Steelers, the Patriots didn’t turn it over to the Panthers once, with Vravel having addressed the problem in a very direct manner during the week.

“He told us to get back to the basics,” Jones said. “It’s making sure we do the things that we need to do, trust each other, and have everyone do their job. The main thing was just playing our style of football. Don’t make it complicated.”

That was probably best illustrated on Jones’s game-turning 87-yard punt return touchdown in the first quarter. When I asked Jones what the Patriots’ “style of football” is, he answered it was “playing hard” with a focus on details and fundamentals. Sure enough, on the return, Jones had a convoy of blockers running as hard without the ball as he was with it. And just to show it was no fluke, Jones took another one back 61 yards in the second quarter, to set up another touchdown that gave the Patriots a 28–6 lead at the half.

By then, though, the signs of New England’s week-over-week improvement were all over the place, and probably most evident in the Patriots’ second-year quarterback.

“He’s a competitor,” said Jones. “He rallies the guy up.”

And Maye is playing better and better on top of that.

Two things, in particular, have shown it. First, there’s been a different skill-position focal point in the offense each week. In Week 1, it was Kayshon Boutte. Week 2, it was Rhamondre Stevenson. Last week, it was Hunter Henry. This week, it was Stefon Diggs, with his first 100-yard game in nearly two years. And second, the young quarterback is clearly showing a willingness to be patient when the situation calls for it, and aggressive when it’s time to put the pedal down.

A couple of throws to Diggs actually bring that to life. On a third-quarter third-and-15, Maye exhibited patience in allowing for the veteran to come across on an over route, and delivered it to him for 22 yards. Then, on the final play of the quarter, he acted decisively and aggressively in throwing a back-shoulder dart way downfield to Diggs on fourth-and-3 for a 30-yard gain. So he essentially toggled his approach based on the situation which, when added to how he’s spreading the ball around, is a good sign of how much he’s grown.

And it’s starting to look like that growth is coming across the board.

So are these Patriots just feisty? Or is there a little more than that here for a once-proud franchise coming off back-to-back 4–13 seasons and is on its third coach in as many years?

Next Sunday night in Buffalo should bring some answers on that.

Jaxson Dart has a real chance to change the trajectory of the Giants’ rebuild. I also think the brass in New York has known it for a while. During the summer, they were hesitant to make public that quiet confidence, because it was still Russell Wilson’s team. But at the end of Sunday’s 21–18 upset of the Chargers, it was laid bare for everyone to see.

The match in emotion, and raw excitement, from Dart to coach Brian Daboll (and vice versa) was palpable as they two approached each other near midfield. The language, according to one of the guys involved, may have been a little less acceptable.

“It’s not appropriate for me to say what he told me,” Dart told me postgame, laughing. “It was explicit. It was two competitors fired up to win a ballgame against a tough team. We’ve had a good connection since the predraft process and it’s continued to grow—I love playing for a coach who has a fire like I do.”

The best part for the Giants is how, even with only the small sample size of a single start to go on, the on-field match seems to mirror the marriage of personalities here.

That manifested in two ways Sunday, as I saw it anyway.

The first showed up in the two touchdowns Dart accounted for. Dart’s first touchdown as a pro came on a quarterback draw he took 15 yards to cap the first possession he led as a starter, one that covered 89 yards over nine plays. His second touchdown, which put the Giants up 21–10 in the third quarter, was a simple shovel pass to tight end Theo Johnson from the 3-yard line. In both cases, Daboll’s call played on Dart’s strengths, getting him moving and playing aggressively.

“I realized early on that the NFL is on another level. It’s not as easy as in college,” Dart said. “[Daboll] did a great job giving me freedom to be involved in the game plan. There are a few things I can do with my legs. We added those and that made it easier. It slowed the game down for me.”

That happened, of course, during the week, when Dart was staying late with coaches, going through what he was comfortable with, and what he wasn’t as drilled down on, so they could build a plan that worked for him. And if he needed extra time beyond that, the guys in the quarterback room were there to help.

“This week wasn’t easy for Russ [Wilson]—he handled it like a real pro—and Jameis [Winston] was a huge asset to me,” Dart said. “They are just as involved as anybody. And a lot of times we stay after hours talking through things.”

Then, there was the second way Dart’s connection with Daboll and his staff showed up.

That was at the very end of the game, with the trust they put in the young quarterback.

Up 21–18 with less than six minutes left, Daboll went for it on fourth-and-goal from the 3, a tough down-and-distance situation for any quarterback. Dart scrambled around and found Wan’Dale Robinson in the back of the end zone—only to have the ball clang off Robinson’s hands. But Daboll was undeterred, and put the ball back in Dart’s hands on third-and-5 on the team’s next possession, with 2:38 left. This time, Dart spun one right into Johnson’s belly, just past the sticks, to stamp Daboll’s faith in him and finish off the Chargers.

“The fourth down was a really close play,” Dart said. “I thought we had a chance, but they played it—they had a great defensive play to break it up. That’s the NFL, we have really good players and they do, too. The third down, we knew it would be a tight pressure look or man-to-man coverage. The DC thought we were going to run the ball in that situation. I’m grateful they gave me the opportunity to convert. It says a lot about their confidence in me.”

You’d imagine that confidence should only grow from here—and give these two guys a few more things to celebrate over the next couple of months.

The Falcons’ offensive reckoning of last week seems to have worked. I’ll admit, when I saw the changes last week, it seemed panicky to me. Atlanta was moving OC Zac Robinson from the coaches’ booth to the sidelines, firing receivers coach Ike Hillard and having pass-game coordinator T.J. Yates replace him. Usually switching guys around like this isn’t a great sign for where a team is on a given side of the ball.

But, as I found out after Atlanta’s 34–27 win over the Commanders, there was a little more to the story than met the eye.

Star tailback Bijan Robinson told me much of it stemmed from a string of very honest and open meetings between the offensive coaches and players on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Robinson led them, but they became open forums through which everyone got very real on how a 30–0 shutout loss to the Panthers in Week 3 came to be.

“We all came together as an offense and told each other we can’t put this on film anymore,” Robinson told me. “We had to understand everything we do represents us as individuals, this team, for me, God. We understood if we do what we are supposed to, and the right way, then take everything one day at a time, one play at a time, it will be all right.”

And maybe the most painful part of it was watching the film itself.

“It was bad,” Robinson continued. “You never want to lose by 30. You never want to get shut out.”

A few things resulted from the meeting. The first was an agreement that communication had to improve. In the Panthers game, Robinson explained, the score dictated the offense get away from running the ball. From there, the Falcons called concepts the players were less comfortable with to try to catch up. “Monday, we got back to the drawing board,” Robinson said, “Let’s do what we do best, call what we call. Let’s run our best plays and have fun.”

Then, there was Zac Robinson’s move to the sideline. Bijan Robinson said the OC told him at the end of the first half, “that he should’ve been down here with us the whole time.”

“You plan for that and learn as a play-caller what you like and how to see the game,” Bijan said. “He saw it in a more clear way and fed on the energy. He enjoyed being there to see the whole game and communication. It all just worked out.”

The running back said having the OC on the field was particularly helpful in spots where he’d line up at receiver—having access to him allowed for more specific questions to be fielded in-game, and more detailed answers to be received.

And overall, it would be hard to argue with the results. The Falcons scored 34 points and rolled up 435 yards. Robinson, for his part, had 181 scrimmage yards on 21 touches. And Michael Penix Jr. was 20-of-26 for 313 yards, two touchdowns and a pick, while converting two critical third downs at the wire to put Washington away—plays on which Zac Robinson trusted the second-year quarterback to throw it, even when conventional wisdom may be to play the clock and run the ball.

“It didn’t rattle him—he understood the assignment,” said Bijan of Penix. “He went in the huddle and said let’s get it done. The play he scrambled, if he had a second longer, it would have been another touchdown. For him to understand the game and be calm and collected, I’m proud of him.”

Considering the week the Falcons had, there was plenty to be proud of here.

The trick now will be making sure it’s just the start of something bigger.

“This win can hurt us or help us become the team we need to,” Bijan said. “The biggest thing I learned from last week is to take it one week at a time. Don’t get ahead of yourself, because in the NFL you can lose and it can be horrible quick. You can have one great week and one horrible week. Every game is important because we want to do some big things.”

And at least this week, the Falcons showed themselves capable of getting there.

Give the Eagles credit for surviving. I don’t think enough people are appreciating what Philadelphia is doing each week with a target on its back, but that part of this season in Philly is real.

The Eagles are the champs. They’ll get everyone’s best shot.

And the Buccaneers swung hard Sunday—battling back a 31–13 deficit to make it a one-possession game for pretty much the entire fourth quarter. Tampa Bay had Tristan Wirfs and Chris Godwin for the first time this year, and a fire in its belly to show itself among the NFC’s elite. But twice the Eagles denied Baker Mayfield and the Tampa offense down the stretch.

To me, what was really interesting was how the stops this battle-tested champion got were fueled by guys who don’t have the track record that vets such as Jordan Mailata, Lane Johnson, Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Saquon Barkley or even Zack Baun or Jalen Carter do.

The first came with 7:57 left—when rookie linebacker Jihaad Campbell got under a pass deflected by teammate Reed Blankenship, to thwart the Buccaneers’ only trip to the red zone in the fourth quarter. The second was right after the two-minute warning, when young DT Moro Ojomo came free and buried Mayfield in the backfield. In both cases, these were guys replacing established vets (Campbell, for now, is taking reps that the injured Nakobe Dean might, and Ojomo is filling former Eagle Milton Williams’s old role), and somehow …

The Eagles just keep going.

It’s not flashy or exciting. But clearly, there’s a ton of substance in how they draft, sign, trade for and develop these guys, to the point where they’re ready to make these sorts of plays in this sort of game.

And you’d imagine those guys will only get better at it the more situations like these that they’re in. Which would mean, yes, the Eagles are probably going to be more and more difficult to knock off as the season goes on—and as if Sunday didn’t show us exactly how difficult it is to get the best of them now.

It’s late, so I’m wasting no time. Let’s jump in on the quick-hitting takeaways …

• My first takeaway from the Sunday Night Football tie: The Packers have to do a better job managing the clock. They should’ve had a better shot at winning that game at the wire than they did, obviously.

• And my second takeaway would be that I’m impressed with the fight Dallas showed. To do that minus CeeDee Lamb was pretty impressive. George Pickens might be earning himself some money in the meantime.

• The Lions really seemed to miss OC Ben Johnson in Green Bay a few weeks ago. Since then, they’ve scored 52, 38 and 34 points—41.3 points per game. Give new coordinator John Morton credit, and run-game coordinator/OL coach Hank Fraley his flowers, too. The Dan Campbell Lions’ offensive identity has always run through the line, and having Tate Ratledge and Christian Mahogany ready to take over at guard, thanks to Fraley, is a big reason why that continues.

• I’m a Brian Callahan fan, and still believe in his potential as a head coach. But it sure feels like there are some organizational decisions to be made in the aftermath of the Titans’ ugly loss to the Texans on Sunday.

• Are we going to trust that Sam Darnold’s simply a really good quarterback now?

• I was happy to see Marvin Harrison Jr. bounce back late in the Arizona-Seattle game Thursday. One thing I’ve learned about Harrison is that he can be a perfectionist, and sometimes that slows him down on the field. As such, the Cardinals’ coaches are focusing on trying to get him playing faster and worrying less.

• The Bills’ past two wins have been a bit clunky. For now, I think you chalk that up to being everyone’s big game. They are, after all, alone with the Eagles as the NFL’s only unbeaten teams.

• Shout out to Bears special teams coach Richard Hightower who predicted over the headset, per Ben Johnson, that Josh Blackwell would block a Raiders field goal attempt, and preserve a 25–24 Chicago win. Which, of course, is exactly what happened.

• Why so many blocked field goals of late? I’ll probably dive in on that later in the week. But I don’t think it’s one thing. Both Rams misses in Week 3 were low, while the Browns and Steelers came off the edges to register blocks last week. One interesting element that I hadn’t thought of that a veteran special teams coach raised to me: Kickers are spending so much time working on the dynamic kickoff, that maybe those guys’ short game has suffered. 

• I’m excited to see the Dolphins in their traditional black unis Monday night!

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