The Winners and Losers of the NFL Week 4

Every week this NFL season, we will break down the highs and lows—and everything in between—from the most recent slate of pro football. This week, Micah Parsons’s return to Dallas had no winner, many of the undefeated teams struggled, the Chiefs (finally) looked like themselves again, Jaxson Dart pulled off an upset in his debut, and more. Welcome to Winners and Losers.

Not a Loser: Jerry Jones

Jerry Jones didn’t lose, which has to feel like a win, since Jones’s Cowboys seemed destined for nationally televised embarrassment in Micah Parsons’s much-hyped return to Dallas on Sunday Night Football. Instead, Jerry was treated to a highly entertaining game with an unsatisfying ending—a 40-40 tie. Is this what watching the Sopranos finale felt like in real time? I’ve had a good time watching it, but where is the payoff? I was expecting a parade of Jerry jokes and Cowboys schadenfreude. I would have settled for making fun of the Packers for dropping another winnable game! Ties stink.

This does indeed feel like a win for the Cowboys, who were fresh off a Week 3 ass-kicking by a mediocre Bears team. And while the Dallas defense still has problems that Matt Eberflus isn’t capable of solving, the first four games have confirmed that Dak Prescott is back. I doubt the Cowboys will win enough games for Prescott to insert himself into the MVP discussion in a meaningful way, but he looks as good as he did in 2023, when the Cowboys made the playoffs and he finished second in the voting to Lamar Jackson. Sunday’s game against Green Bay was a masterclass in pocket management and downfield passing.

And Prescott pulled it off without CeeDee Lamb, who was out with an ankle injury. George Pickens, who’s already developed a strong rapport with his new quarterback, isn’t a bad WR1 in a pinch and checked in with 134 yards on eight catches. Prescott didn’t force-feed Pickens, though. He made good use of all his receiving options, with eight Cowboys being targeted multiple times, and Prescott’s best play of the night came on a throw to running back Jalen Tolbert. Per Next Gen Stats, that throw was one of the most improbable completions of the past eight years.

Prescott’s quick processing and pocket movement helped neutralize Parsons, to an extent. While Parsons did finish with eight pressures on 29 pass rush snaps, he had just one sack (for zero yards) and certainly didn’t wreck the game in his return to Jerry World. Prescott was pressured on just 26.1 percent of his dropbacks and finished with 319 passing yards and three touchdowns on 40 attempts. He was so good, Jerry’s post-game defense of the Parsons trade for once didn’t sound like complete bullshit.

Still, the Cowboys' pass rush really could have used Parsons on Sunday night. Green Bay quarterback Jordan Love was sacked only once despite a 2.85-second average time to throw. Green Bay’s offensive line, which was coming off a horrific performance in Cleveland, had no problem keeping Love clean against Dallas. Eberflus insists on playing soft zone coverage, which doesn’t pair well with a toothless pass rush. There was so much room for Love to operate underneath, and he didn’t miss a single pass under 10 air yards, going a perfect 28-for-28, per Next Gen Stats.

Love was on his game all night, but nearly cost the Packers a chance to tie it at the end of overtime. With six seconds remaining in the extra period and Green Bay trailing by three with possession at the Dallas 16-yard line, head coach Matt LaFleur let Love take one last shot at the end zone. Love held the ball and exhausted nearly every second of the game clock before firing a pass to the back of the end zone. The ball hit the ground with one tick left on the clock.

The clock running out on that play would have given us a more satisfying ending, but perhaps a tie was the fitting result. Neither quarterback deserved to lose, but Jerry didn’t deserve a win either.

Winner: The Chiefs Offense

There was a time when scoring 37 points felt like a regular occurrence for the Chiefs. But heading into Sunday’s win over the Ravens, Kansas City hadn’t scored more than 30 points in a regular-season game since Week 12 of the 2023 season. Thanks to Patrick Mahomes’s four-touchdown performance, a benchmark he hadn’t hit since Week 7 of 2023, that drought finally came to an end.

It was an encouraging performance for a Chiefs offense that badly needed to show some signs of life. That it coincided with the return of Xavier Worthy, who led the team with 83 receiving yards, makes it plausible that this performance wasn’t a blip and Kansas City’s offense really has truly turned a corner. Add in a game plan that featured some refreshing schematic tweaks from Andy Reid—like an increase in under-center formations—and it’s even easier to believe in Kansas City. I’ll still need to see Mahomes and Co. string together a few more competent displays before I fully buy in, but if this type of offense continues against a stout Jacksonville defense next week (and when Rashee Rice returns from his suspension in two weeks), that may be enough to make me a believer.

Mahomes’s final stat line, plus the team hanging 37 on Baltimore, might oversell Kansas City’s performance. Mahomes averaged just 6.75 yards per dropback, which used to be considered an average game for Mahomes but ranks just 13th among quarterbacks in Week 4. Kansas City’s run game generated a few explosive plays but finished the day with a 27.6 percent success rate, per TruMedia. That might feel like nitpicking—Mahomes was genuinely brilliant when working the intermediate areas of the field—but it just shows how much ground the Chiefs still have to make up before we can consider them officially back.

The performance of Steve Spagnuolo’s defense may have been even more impressive than what we saw out of the offense. Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson never looked comfortable, and he eventually left the game with a strained hamstring. Jackson was hesitant in the pocket, and Spags always had a player designated as a spy on Jackson to limit the quarterback’s movement outside of it. The two-time MVP averaged negative-0.10 EPA per dropback, faced pressure on 48.1 percent of his dropbacks, turned it over twice, and was sacked three times; he had just two successful scrambles. We have not seen Jackson hemmed in like that in a while. And after a concerning opening week performance against the Chargers, the Chiefs defense has now played well for three consecutive weeks.

If Kansas City has gotten over whatever was ailing it during the 0-2 start, we should know in a hurry. After the trip to Jacksonville, the Chiefs will take on a red-hot Lions team in Week 6; the Commanders, who would have Jayden Daniels back, in Week 8; and then the currently undefeated Bills in Week 9. The Chiefs may not need another 37-point outing or four touchdowns from Mahomes to win any of those games, but that would certainly help.

Loser: The Ravens’ Championship Hopes

The Ravens' season is quickly falling apart. Baltimore entered Week 4 without defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuike, who landed on IR with a neck injury; nose tackle Travis Jones; edge rusher Kyle Van Noy; and cornerback Jaire Alexander. Then, during Sunday’s game, they lost Lamar Jackson (hamstring), linebacker Roquan Smith (hamstring), left tackle Ronnie Stanley (ankle), and cornerbacks Marlon Humphrey (calf) and Nate Wiggins (elbow). It might save time to list the Ravens starters who aren’t injured at this point.

And yet, even if Baltimore’s injury luck eventually turns around, the truth is that this team isn’t playing good football. Second-year defensive coordinator Zach Orr’s seat could be heating up in the next few weeks. He’s working with an understaffed defensive line and has been unable to generate a consistent pass rush. The run defense is even weaker. The Chiefs may not be a strong enough rushing team to really expose that weakness, but other top teams have been. The Lions just spammed the same run plays in last week’s win in Baltimore, and Orr couldn’t adjust. The Ravens secondary has played good ball considering the circumstances, but if Wiggins and Humphrey are out, that will be hard to maintain. As bad as it’s been to start the season, it’s possible the defense still hasn’t hit rock bottom.

Baltimore’s offense isn’t inspiring confidence, either. Running back Derrick Henry has gone missing, and perhaps he’s facing a crisis in confidence after losing key fumbles in the losses to Buffalo and Detroit. He had just eight carries in the loss to Kansas City. The passing game is also off the mark. Jackson has been holding onto the ball forever waiting for receivers to get open, and has seen both his pressure and sack rates spike. And now he has a bum hamstring. Even if he can play next week against Houston (saving us all from having to watch a Cooper Rush start) he’ll almost certainly be slowed down—not what you want against a terrifying Texans pass rush.

If the Ravens can get to their bye in Week 7 without falling out of the AFC North race, I’d still consider them the favorites to win the division. The schedule gets a lot easier after these next two weeks, and it’s hard to see the Steelers, whose schedule gets tougher in a few weeks, or a Joe Burrow–less Bengals team running away from the Ravens. But with Baltimore already three games back in the race for home field advantage in the playoffs thanks to two tiebreaking losses to Buffalo and Kansas City, they’ll be looking at another tough road through the playoffs—provided they can make it there.

Winners: Brian Daboll and Jaxson Dart

Brian Daboll’s desperation move paid off—at least for one week. After previously laying out plans to treat 2025 as a redshirt year for first-round pick Jaxson Dart, Daboll benched starting quarterback Russell Wilson just three weeks into the season. It felt like a transparent attempt to earn some goodwill from a fan base that was growing increasingly frustrated with the dismal state of the offense. Throwing Dart in the lineup against the undefeated Chargers (and their excellent defense) didn’t sound like the best plan, but after a 21-18 upset win in Dart’s debut, Daboll has to be feeling good about the move. For the first time since New York went on playoff run to conclude the 2022 season, there’s some semblance of positive momentum surrounding the Giants. I don’t remember the last time Daboll looked as happy as he did when embracing Dart after Sunday’s final whistle.

The man is beaming. It was a win Daboll desperately needed—and Dart did just enough to help the Giants bring it home. Daboll didn’t put too much on the rookie’s plate in the dropback passing game, but made him a focal point of the run game. The 22-year-old finished the day with only 111 passing yards and a shovel-pass touchdown, but he added 54 rushing yards on 10 attempts. Only three of those attempts were scrambles, one came on an aborted snap, and the rest were designed runs, including this quarterback draw that opened the scoring

Daboll put the ball in the rookie’s hands on a crucial third-and-short play in the red zone late in the game. The play is designed to look like a zone read, but it’s a designed keeper with running back Cam Skattebo beelining to the edge to make a block.

It was expected that Daboll would leverage Dart’s athleticism in the run game, but the extent to which he did it against the Chargers was surprising—and maybe even a little concerning. Dart took a number of big hits and even had to leave the game for a few snaps after a long scramble to get evaluated for a concussion. “I know 6 is probably going to be sore,” Daboll said of Dart after the game. “He gutted it out. [He’s] a tough son of a you-know-what.”

Dart is already adding value in the run game but will need to be a better passer if the Giants are going to maintain the positive vibes—which will be more difficult after star receiver Malik Nabers is believed to have suffered a torn ACL in the first half of Sunday’s win. Dart displayed some shakiness in the pocket that affected his accuracy. He also held the ball too long on a few plays, which led to sacks, and he never really pushed the ball downfield. But the game wasn’t totally devoid of passing highlights. Dart all but clinched the game with a third-down conversion when he calmly read the Los Angeles zone blitz and found an open Theo Johnson over the middle to move the chains.

Even if Daboll put together a conservative game plan for Dart, there’s still a clear belief in his ability. The rookie quarterback may be the only one capable of ensuring Daboll’s continued employment next season. So far, so good.

Losers: Undefeated Teams

The Chargers were one of four teams that took their first L of the season on Sunday, joining the Buccaneers, 49ers, and Colts in the “previously unbeaten” club. Even the Eagles, who beat the Bucs in Tampa to remain undefeated, can’t be feeling great after an ugly showing for their offense in the second half. Jalen Hurts didn’t complete a single pass after halftime and Philadelphia finished with negative-1 yard of total offense over the final 30 minutes. Receiver A.J. Brown had as many cryptic post-game tweets (two) as he had receptions on Sunday, including this gem that seems to indicate the star receiver isn’t happy about his role in the offense.

The Bills were the only 3-0 team having any fun on Sunday after cruising to a 31-19 win over the still-winless Saints. Meanwhile, the Chargers, Bucs, Niners, and Colts combined for 11 giveaways in their losses. Indianapolis and Tampa Bay were two of three teams that hadn’t committed a turnover coming into the week. Regression punched each of those teams in the mouth on Sunday. Colts QB Daniel Jones didn’t quite revert to a pumpkin against the Rams, but he did toss a game-ending pick in the final minute.

Brock Purdy, who returned for the 49ers after missing two games with turf toe, also had some ugly moments in San Francisco’s first loss of the season. He threw two interceptions—each on a tipped pass—and was stripped of the football at the start of a potential go-ahead drive late in the fourth quarter.

Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert threw his second and third interceptions of the season. Both were a bit unfortunate. Herbert was picked off on a tipped pass at the line of scrimmage, and his receivers botched a pick play on the second one.

Making matters worse for Herbert , he could be without his blindside protector, Joe Alt, moving forward after Alt suffered a high ankle sprain. Alt started the year at right tackle but shifted over to the left side for an injured Rashawn Slater. Now both are out, and Herbert’s pressure rate is on the rise.

I’m not sure what to make of any of these losses. If Alt comes back in a few weeks, the Chargers should be just fine. The Buccaneers nearly pulled off a comeback against the defending champs. The Colts were underdogs against the Rams and played competitively against a legit NFC contender. Purdy should be better after knocking off the rust from missing two games. I don’t think we need to adjust our expectations for any of these teams, but their struggles on Sunday show that this season is wide open and that there are a bunch of flawed teams at the top of the standings.

Winner: Tomlin Ball

Sunday’s win over the Vikings in Dublin was the platonic ideal of a Steelers performance in 2025. They bullied Minnesota at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Pittsburgh’s big blitzes overwhelmed a makeshift Vikings offensive line, which has had to replace multiple injured starters, and Carson Wentz was sacked six times. The offense controlled the ball on the ground, which set Aaron Rodgers up for success through the air. Well, sort of.

Rodgers didn’t exactly air it out against an aggressive Vikings defense. He finished with an impressive line in the traditional box score—completing 18 of 22 passes for 200 yards and a touchdown—but he averaged just 2.6 air yards per attempt and just 2.17 seconds per throw. It wasn’t an ambitious outing for the 41-year-old quarterback, and he showed little interest in holding on to the ball long enough to allow Brian Flores’s blitzes to get home.

A consistently dominant Steelers rushing attack allowed Rodgers to play so conservatively. Kenneth Gainwell, who was filling in for an injured Jaylen Warren, generated a positive EPA on 68.4 percent of his carries, giving him the highest success rate for a Steelers running back in a game since 2016, per Next Gen Stats. Pittsburgh’s game plan was seemingly built on being the bigger and tougher team in the trenches. It had 13 designed rush attempts with six offensive linemen on the field and averaged 5.5 yards per carry on those plays. The sixth OL, guard Spencer Anderson, provided the extra muscle, and offensive coordinator Arthur Smith played him alongside the 6-foot-7, 264-pound tight end Darnell Washington, who may as well have been a seventh offensive lineman. The Vikings’ defensive front couldn’t cope with all that size.

The Steelers defense turned in an encouraging performance as well. The Vikings were able to move the ball up and down the field, but Pittsburgh was able to get Wentz on the ground and force the two interceptions. Pittsburgh came up with a big stop at the end of the game after Mike Tomlin’s conservative decision-making gave Wentz one last chance to tie it.

The Steelers are now 3-1 and lead the AFC North heading into the Week 5 bye. With reeling Cleveland and Cincinnati teams up next on the schedule, they could be headed for a 5-1 start before a juicy Week 8 matchup against the Packers—Rodgers’s first chance to play his longtime team. The schedule gets a lot harder after that game, so it’s certainly too early for any victory laps. Still, the Steelers are finally starting to resemble a Tomlin-coached team after a concerning start to the season. Time will tell whether that’s a good thing.

Winner: Statistical Regression

The regression monster finally came for Baker Mayfield. With Tampa Bay on the verge of completing an 18-point comeback in the fourth quarter, Mayfield escaped a sack, rolled out to his right … and threw the ball directly to Eagles linebacker Jihaad Campbell in the end zone.

That was the first interception of Mayfield’s season, but he was certainly due. He entered the week tied for the league lead in turnover-worthy plays, with seven, per Pro Football Focus, and he added three more to his ledger on Sunday against Philadelphia. Before the Campbell interception, the Eagles, like Tampa’s past three opponents, were unable to punish Mayfield for the mistakes. Mayfield had an interception reversed, and he recovered his own fumble earlier in the game. He barely avoided a fourth turnover-worthy play on Emeka Egbuka’s 77-yard catch-and-run touchdown. Mayfield just barely sneaked the pass between safeties Andrew Mukuba and Reed Blankenship to allow Tampa’s star rookie to make the catch.

Outside of that and a few daring escapes from the pocket, Mayfield didn’t play well against the Eagles. Tampa Bay may have won the game easily if it had gotten a steadier performance from the quarterback. The special teams unit played well after an early blocked punt was returned for a touchdown. The defense also kept the game within reach with a dominant second half. Tampa Bay had its chances to complete the comeback, but this time, Mayfield wasn’t able to get the team over the hump.

I don’t know if Mayfield’s shaky outing will be enough to derail his burgeoning MVP campaign, but if his turnover luck does take a turn for the worse in the coming weeks and he starts getting burned for some of these reckless decisions, it won’t be long before it veers off the tracks.

Loser: Brock Purdy

There are at least 265 million reasons why a quarterback controversy between Purdy and Mac Jones is out of the question But that’s not going to stop the Sports Take Machine from doing what it does best. If you don’t think we’re getting a “Who should start for the Niners?” segment on First Take at some point this week, you underestimate Stephen A. Smith’s takesmanship. Purdy coughing up three turnovers in Sunday’s loss to Jacksonville—his second two-pick game in as many starts this season—will fuel those debates, especially after Jones turned in two relatively clean performances while Purdy was sidelined with a turf toe injury. While I fully expect Purdy and Kyle Shanahan to clean up the turnover problem, if San Francisco’s now highly paid QB doesn’t stop floating throws above his receivers’ heads or start executing Kyle’s plays how they’re designed, quarterback controversy talk that seems premature now could turn into a serious discussion down the line.

Still, the regression we’ve seen in Purdy’s timing and accuracy since his breakout season in 2023 is a big red flag. We’ve almost seen two different versions of Purdy over the past couple of seasons. Two years ago, he operated Shanahan’s scheme with computer-like efficiency. Receivers were getting open, and Purdy was delivering the ball on time and on target. There was a shift during the playoff run that season. Purdy struggled early in games against Green Bay and Detroit but eventually found a groove by escaping the pocket and creating on the move. That carried into last season, when the 49ers offense was depleted by injuries to key skill position players. Purdy’s scramble rate jumped, and he held on to the ball longer than he did the season before. He took more sacks and threw more interceptions. Purdy was doing what he had to do to keep the offense afloat, but it came at the cost of his efficiency numbers.

That’s the version of Purdy we’ve seen so far in 2025. He’s already thrown four interceptions in just two games. He’s been off target on 12.3 percent of his throws, per TruMedia. His average time to throw is 0.2 seconds higher than Jones’s, which shows Purdy is not processing at the same speed as his backup did during his two starts. Purdy’s pressure rate is also 15 percentage points higher, though Purdy has been better than Jones at escaping the heat and avoiding sacks. This more untamed version of Purdy is a better player than the best version of Jones, but the offense has run with more efficiency when Jones has started.

As long as that’s the case, the controversy will persist on the airwaves. And the longer it remains the case, the more likely it is to seep into the building. Purdy can quiet that talk by getting back to his old ways. Right now, it feels like he’s trying to prove he’s worth the $265 million price tag. He can’t forget how he earned that money in the first place.

Winner: Liam Coen

Coach fight!

God, I love a toxic postgame handshake. What you just saw was Jaguars head coach Liam Coen getting after 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh after Jacksonville’s 26-21 win in Santa Clara. Coen’s beef with Saleh stems from Saleh’s comments last week in which he accused the Jaguars coach of “legally” stealing defensive signals.

It’s hard to tell if Saleh was doing some dry snitching at the podium or if he was actually trying to compliment Coen. The Jaguars’ first-year head coach clearly took it as a dig—and one aimed at Sean McVay’s coaching tree, not just Coen—and the win imbued him with enough confidence to confront Saleh after the game.

Coen earned the right to talk his shit. Before a shaky fourth quarter, he had the Jags offense rolling. Jacksonville’s run game, which now ranks fifth in EPA per attempt, continues to produce, and Sunday may have been quarterback Trevor Lawrence’s best performance of the season. If Coen can coax some consistency out of his quarterback and his young receiving corps, Jacksonville could end the season as a top-10 offense. That would be a remarkable achievement for Coen, who had just one season of NFL play calling experience before taking the Jags job.

Coen’s play calling has been impressive, but he’s also checking off the other boxes you want to see from a head coach. His first defensive coordinator hire looks like a hit. Anthony Campanile has the Jags defense flying around the field and creating havoc. After the Jags forced three Brock Purdy turnovers on Sunday, Jacksonville’s 13 takeaways lead the NFL. Coen has also made smart decisions as a game manager on fourth downs and hasn’t second-guessed his process when questioned by the media.

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