The Chiefs juggernaut rolls on, but it’s slim pickings at quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ disposal, with a stud wide receiver set to miss the rest of the season.
The injury drama swirling around Christian McCaffrey has intensified after a shock new development.
Meanwhile, there’s plenty been said about the relationship of Jets star Aaron Rodgers and his head coach Robert Salah. Is there trouble in paradise?
Read on for all of the talking points from Week 4!
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Offended Brady claps back at Baker jab | 00:57
STEEP HILL FOR CHIEFS TO CLIMB
It may sound strange, but it’s probably fair to say that the Kansas City Chiefs are one of the least convincing 4-0 teams in recent history.
How could this be, considering the Chiefs are gunning for a third straight Super Bowl?
They were an Isaiah Likely toenail away from losing the opening game to Baltimore, beat Cincy with a buzzer beating field goal, scraped past Atlanta before coming from behind to defeat the Chargers.
Their four wins have been by a combined 16 points. Their experience in close games and the class in the clutch of the likes quarterback Patrick Mahomes, pass rusher Chris Jones and linebacker Nick Bolton have helped get them over the line.
There’s a skill in overcoming adversity to find a way, and the Chiefs have well and truly mastered it.
You have to tread carefully if you plan to write off the Chiefs, as they’ve looked ordinary at times during the seasons before putting it altogether to win Super Bowls.
But even though they’ve started 4-0, if the Chiefs are to win a third-straight Super Bowl, it will perhaps have to require Mahomes’ greatest ever season.
An already banged-up pass catching corps lost another star for what appears to be the season when Rashee Rice injured his knee against the Chargers.
Bizarrely, it was Mahomes who accidentally caused the injury, cannoning into Rice when attempting to make a tackle following an interception.
He’s the third key piece of the Chiefs offence to go down this season following offseason recruit Hollywood Brown and running back Isiah Pacheco.
After Rice’s injury, Mahomes only has rookie Xavier Worthy, role player Justin Watson, the barely used Skyy Moore and an inconsistent Juju Smith-Schuster as wide receivers.
Tight end Travis Kelce has been prolific over the past decade, but he’s not getting any younger and he’s started very slowly this season.
In addition, after the injury to Pacheco, Kansas City’s running back depth leaves a lot to be desired.
Mahomes accidentally injures his own WR! | 00:55
The Chiefs’ defence is one of the league’s best, but with these injuries on the offensive side of the ball, Mahomes is going to have to play career-best football.
This isn’t a knock on the Chiefs, but if they manage to reach the Super Bowl again, it would be a Herculean effort from Mahomes and this coaching staff.
The Rice injury in particular, if confirmed to be season-ending, would be a hammer blow to their offence.
Worthy is still very much a developmental player who has speed to burn but is yet to develop enough nuance in his route running to be used as a more versatile piece in the passing game.
Smith-Schuster looks like the best replacement for Rice’s role but doesn’t have the same yards-after-the-catch ability to make the most of the short and intermediate targets the sophomore receiver was getting.
It begs the question, while mid-season trades for wide receivers aren’t that common, could the Chiefs make a splashy move before the deadline?
Davante Adams is the one name that keeps coming up given his frustrations in Las Vegas. On Wednesday it emerged he had informed the team he would preferred to be traded ahead of the deadline. It remains to be seen if the Raiders would be open to trading him to a team in the same division.
Other veteran options include Amari Cooper, who was on the trade block in the offseason, and DeAndre Hopkins, although he is more of a contested catch receiver who doesn’t really fill the hole left behind by Rice.
Some other less splashy names include Carolina’s Jonathan Mingo, who is buried on the depth chart and could be had for cheap while Demarcus Robinson is another alternative, although the Rams have injuries of their own (Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp) to contend with.
Perhaps Christian Kirk is another option with rookie Brian Thomas emerging and Jacksonville 0-4?
Either way, it makes for an intriguing few weeks, although for now the Chiefs are still yet to confirm it is indeed a torn ACL for Rice, with further MRIs still required.
INJURY DRAMA INTENSIFIES WITH STAR RUNNING BACK
It’s been an indifferent season for the San Francisco 49ers.
Starting the season as Super Bowl favourites, it hasn’t been a dream start, with running back Christian McCaffrey missing the first four games and the 49ers building a 2-2 record.
While it was anticipated that McCaffrey would miss just one or two games, the running back is now facing a much longer stint on the sideline after it was revealed that he has tendinitis in both legs.
Also known as ‘bilateral Achilles tendenitis’, McCaffrey has visited Germany to receive treatment on the injury.
It’s unclear if this is a recent development for McCaffrey or something he’s been dealing with in the offseason.
While the 49ers are off to a sluggish 2-2 start, their running game hasn’t skipped a beat without McCaffrey, with backup Jordan Mason thriving in an expanded role.
Mason has 447 rushing yards through four games, which is the second most in the league.
It may not be what fantasy owners who drafted McCaffrey No. 1 overall in fantasy drafts this season want to hear, but there’s no shot San Fran rush the star RB back.
While the 49ers are playing down the latest McCaffrey development, expect his return date to be pushed back at least a couple of weeks.
TITANS-DOLPHINS GAME PRESENTS INTERESTING QB QUESTIONS
Two teams with two very different dilemmas at the quarterback position.
The Titans have their first-choice starter, although there are questions as to whether he should be that guy. Meanwhile, the Dolphins are without their number one option and it is quickly becoming clear that unless Tua Tagovailoa is healthy, this will continue to be one of the worst offences in the NFL.
Starting with the Titans, Will Levis has been a turnover machine to open the season and didn’t even get through his first drive on Tuesday before being picked off by Emmanuel Ogbah.
Clearly wanting to make it up to his team after that interception, Levis then injured his right throwing shoulder while diving for a first down on the following drive.
Veteran back-up Mason Rudolph was called on to fill in and immediately had the offence humming, getting the ball out quick and — more important than anything else — not turning the ball over.
The final numbers weren’t all that exciting, with Rudolph completing nine of 17 passes for 85 yards and a touchdown, but it was enough to get the Titans their first win of the season.
With that in mind and Levis’ struggles, it left Titans coach Brian Callahan with an intriguing headache: Does he still roll with the second-year quarterback, if healthy, moving forward?
It sounds like it.
“Will’s healthy, he’s our quarterback,” Callahan said after the game. “He’s our starter when he’s healthy and we’re ready to roll with him.”
Although Callahan has expressed his frustration already with Levis at times this season, it makes sense that the Titans would ride with him for as long as they can.
As much as they may be a better chance of winning games with Rudolph, that shouldn’t be the aim this season — as funny as that may sound.
More than anything else, this year was about evaluating Levis — giving him a new weapon in Calvin Ridley and an improved offensive line — to see if he can be the guy.
Early indications are that as impressive as his arm is, Levis’ recklessness and decision making under pressure will continue to prove his undoing.
But for now the Titans are happy to ride those bumps along the way, as long as it means giving Levis a chance to respond and prove them wrong.
As for Miami, ESPN’s Adam Schefter said before Tuesday’s game that the hope is that regular starting quarterback Tagovailoa will be available to return from his latest concussion in Week 8.
There were suggestions Tagovailoa, who has suffered three concussions in his career, should consider retiring from the NFL entirely.
Obviously his health comes first regardless, but the Dolphins are certainly struggling without him having managed just 15 points in two games with Skylar Thompson and Tyler Huntley.
That is particularly damning given coach Mike McDaniel is widely considered one of the smartest and most innovative minds in the game, using pre-snap motion and creative schemes to get his receivers open and working for yards after the catch.
The hope was that even with sub-par quarterback play, McDaniel would work out a way to get his top playmakers — Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle and De’Von Achane — the ball in space and they’d do the rest.
But even that has been hard to do, with Hill fumbling the ball on Tuesday night when Huntley attempted a backwards pass behind the line of scrimmage.
The Dolphins, at their best, are one of the most explosive offences in the league but right now, as limited as Tagovailoa may be compared to some of the best quarterbacks in the game, the past fortnight has proved he deserves much more credit moving forward.
In explaining just how valuable Tagovailoa is, NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky said on SportsCenter that the Dolphins offence is “tailor-made” for him.
“It’s probably one of the most intricate offences in the NFL and it’s a lot of stuff that is hard for people to understand at home,” Orlovksy added.
“When you have an offence that has so many moving parts when it comes to the different formations that you get in and all those motions. It’s not just motions but the timing of the motions and then the pass concepts that Mike McDaniel can build with Tua because he sees things before they happen probably better than anybody in the NFL… and that’s his superpower.
“To think you’re going to take any other quarterback and plant him in there and run it that way, let alone after the snap but before the snap with all those moving parts, it’s pretty much impossible.
“If you want to see the value and how good a player he (Tagovailoa) is, watch this offence right now.”
‘MAJOR ISSUE’ BETWEEN RODGERS & JETS COACH (New York Post)
Former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason thinks he has gotten to the heart of the apparent friction between Aaron Rodgers and Jets coach Robert Saleh.
Rodgers and Saleh offered different takes during postgame comments about whether the quarterback’s infamously complex pre-snap cadence is causing confusion on the offence after the Jets failed to score a touchdown Sunday in a stunning 10-9 home loss to the Broncos at a rain-soaked MetLife Stadium.
Speaking on his WFAN morning drive program with Gregg Giannotti, Esiason read the body language of how the Jets quarterback doesn’t interact with the head coach on the sidelines.
“I try to watch to see if I see any interactions on the sideline or anything — nothing,” Esiason said.
“Nothing. I see a guy walking right past that other guy. I can’t imagine that.”
Esiason recalled what it was like to have issues with his head coach back in his playing days.
“Now, I remember those days, because I had those days, with two coaches in particular, and it was because I didn’t trust the guy,” Esiason said.
“I didn’t like the guy. I didn’t know what he was doing and it pissed me off.
If you read my body language back in those days, with those teams that I was on, you could tell that I was pissed off. And when I see Aaron Rodgers on the sideline and I see him after the game in the postgame press conference.”
Esiason said that he was “speculating” based on personal experience, but continued to view Rodgers’ postgame remarks as problematic.
“Yesterday’s postgame press conference — there is a major issue there,” Esiason said.
“Both will deny it. I guarantee it. But there is an issue there. It’s because you have this 40-year-old Hall of Fame quarterback to-be, dealing with a coach that I think he doesn’t respect.”
At the postgame press conference on Monday, Saleh said, “We’ve got to figure it out, whether or not we’re good enough or ready to handle all the cadence.”
“Cadence had not been an issue all [training] camp. Felt like our operation had been operating pretty good. Obviously, today it took a major step back.”
Rodgers disagreed with the coach’s remarks.
“That’s one way to do it,” he said.
“The other way is to hold them accountable.”
Source Agencies
