7 Storylines for Week 4 of the 2024 NFL Season: Is the Castle Crumbling?

The beginning of bye weeks and some matchups of pretty meh teams make for the lightest set of storylines so far this football season. Two teams are still perfect though and that’s always a story, including whose castle might feel like it’s crumbling down…

1. “Once I Had An Empire in a Golden Age” — Saints (2-2) at Chiefs (4-0)

The Chiefs look to stay perfect in their quest for the elusive Super Bowl three-peat, but a rash of injuries and a run of razor-thin margins are casting reasonable doubt on their ability to get to the finish line.

• They’re the fifth team in NFL history and the first this century to start 4-0 with a point differential of 20 or fewer. Two of the previous four missed the playoffs and none made it to the Super Bowl.

• A win this week would make the Chiefs 5-0 for the fifth time in franchise history and first since 2018. They lost their first playoff game three of the four times they started 5-0 and didn’t make it to the Super Bowl in the other.

  

While many of the Chiefs weapons are injured, Patrick Mahomes is not. They’re going to need him to play like the best football player I’ve ever seen (which he is) at some point if they’re going to keep winning into February.

• I am of course a Swiftie, and we love our numerology (I’m not really one of THOSE Swifties), so I must point out that Mahomes is in a slump that now encompasses his last 13 regular season games. The slump immediately follows his utterly enchanting first 87 regular season games. 87 + 13…I choose to believe it means he’s about to catch fire.

The Saints have lost two in a row by five total points while scoring 36 combined after coming out of the gates with 91 points and a +62 margin during their 2-0 start.

• Derek Carr made four bad throws last week and had two passes dropped, according to SportRadar via Sports-Reference. That was the same number of bad throws he had in the season’s first three games combined, while his receivers had only dropped one of his passes in Weeks 1-3.

  

2. A Long Trip to Face a Familiar Foe — Jets (2-2) vs Vikings (4-0) (in London)

The Vikings will look to improve to 5-0 for the first time since 2016 and the 9th time in the Super Bowl era. Only the Rams have started 5-0 more often (10 times) in that span.

• There are 12 teams who’ve started 5-0 at least four times in the Super Bowl era — the Vikings are one of two not to have won a Super Bowl (also the Cardinals) while the other 10 teams have combined to win 32 of the NFL’s 58 Super Bowls (those 10 being the 49ers, Broncos, Chiefs, Commanders, Colts, Cowboys, Eagles, Patriots, Rams and Saints)

It’s fair to be skeptical if Vikings QB Sam Darnold can sustain his MVP caliber play (I am) given how much better he’s been this season than the rest of his career. So far he’s not showing any signs of regression to the mean, but he’ll have to hope seeing the Jets doesn’t awaken his New York form.

• The Jets drafted Darnold with the third overall pick in 2018, going 11-25 in his 36 starts over three seasons while he threw 45 touchdowns and 39 interceptions and completed just under 60% of his passes. He completed 68.9% with 11 TD and 3 picks during the Vikings 4-0 start.

• Darnold had his most bad throws of the season (6, previous high was 3) in last week’s win at Green Bay, but they came in the Vikings’ most aggressive passing game thus far — his average depth of target was more than 2 yards further than any of the first three weeks at 10.3 yards. He finished with his highest QB rating and second-highest yards per attempt of the season.

The Vikings will also see a familiar face under center in Jets QB Aaron Rodgers, who faced them 30 times with the Packers including one playoff win. Rodgers will hope seeing the Vikings actually does awaken his past form after following up his best game of the season in Week 3 with one of the worst of his career in Week 4.

• Rodgers has a 17-11-1 record as starter against the Vikings including the playoff win, completing 68.1% of his passes for over 7,400 yards, 57 touchdowns and only 8 interceptions in 1,030 dropbacks (0.7% interception rate).

• He completed 57.1% of his passes and averaged 5.4 yards per attempt without a touchdown pass in last week’s loss to the Broncos — the seventh time he’s been under 60%, 6 yards per attempt and touchdownless on at least 10 pass attempts in an NFL start (including playoffs) while his 5 sacks taken were the most in those seven games.

3. A Unique Matchup On This Week’s Slate — Bills (3-1) at Texans (3-1)

The only game between two teams above .500 sees the AFC East-leading Bills visiting the AFC South-leading Texans. Both will at worst still have a share of their division lead when Week 4 ends, but one is certainly more accustomed to starting fast.

• The Bills are exactly 3-1 for the fourth straight season and 3-1 or better for the sixth straight season. They had only one start of 3-1 or better in the six years immediately prior to this stretch from 2012-18. A 4-1 start would be their fifth in the last six seasons, with last year the only exception (3-2).

• Houston is off to its best four-game start since 2016 and has as many wins through four games this season as it had in the first four games of the 2020-23 seasons combined (went 3-12-1 over the first four games of those seasons). The Texans are looking for their best five-game start since 2012, when they were 5-0 — they’ve won five AFC South titles since the last time they started 4-1 or better including three with a losing record through five games.

Bills QB Josh Allen remains among the MVP favorites despite having his toughest game of the season so far in the team’s first loss last week. It’s fair to say his teammates did not do him many favors.

• Allen was pressured nine times last week after facing just eight total pressures in the season’s first three games combined, leading to more sacks last week (three) than through the first three games (two). When he did manage to attempt a pass, his receivers weren’t doing him favors either with five drops after having just one in the first three games.

• Even after the rough outing, Allen is on pace for career-highs in completion percentage (69.3%), touchdown percentage (6.9%), QB rating (116.5) and passing yards per attempt (8.1) while he’s yet to throw an interception after throwing a career-high 18 last year.

Allen needs only to look across the field for a role model as Texans QB C.J. Stroud is coming off his best game so far this season in Houston’s bounce back win over the Jaguars following his worst game in their lone loss at Minnesota.

• Stroud had his first 300-yard game of the season and his first multi-touchdown game since Week 1 against the Jags while taking a season-low 2 sacks. Houston is 10-2 in Stroud’s career when he throws multiple touchdowns compared to 4-6 when he throws fewer than two scores.

4. Still Seeking Revenge for Larry Brown — Cowboys (2-2) at Steelers (3-1)

It’s a Super Bowl XXX rematch as two of the four franchises with at least five Lombardi Trophies square off.

• The Cowboys were one of only three franchises with as many as four Super Bowls when they won their fifth following the 1995 season — tied with the 49ers for the most wins at the time while the Steelers were next with four.

• Dallas and San Francisco are still tied with five Super Bowls, one behind the Patriots and Steelers who’ve combined to win eight since the 1996 season. Three other teams now have at least four while having combined for seven Super Bowls since the Cowboys or 49ers won one (Chiefs, Giants and Packers).

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin seems on the verge of admitting he’s starting Justin Fields over Russell Wilson by choice, but isn’t quite there yet. Fields is coming off a game which has only been equaled 10 other times in NFL history (granted, once by Wilson) and nearly bailed out the Steelers defense on its worst day (season-highs in points, passing yards and rushing yards allowed) in last week’s loss to the Colts.

• Fields had his second career 300-yard passing game and first as a Steeler, also the first time he’s had a QB rating of 100+ this season (104.0, eighth-best in his career).

• He added 55 rush yards and a pair of scores on the ground, making him the ninth player with the 11th known game with 300 passing yards and a touchdown as well as 50 rushing yards and two more scores in NFL history.

The Cowboys are coming off a mini-bye following their first win since Week 1 last Thursday against the Giants. The defense perhaps had an effort to build on with season-lows in rushing yards and points allowed, but again, it was against the Giants. The offense continued to struggle.

• Dallas has finished under 100 rushing yards in three straight games and hasn’t had more than 102 rushing yards in a game this season. The Cowboys are last in the NFL averaging 75.3 rushing yards per game and 30th of averaging 3.54 yards per rush. They’ll face a Steelers defense which is third allowing 86.8 rushing yards per game, second allowing 3.73 yards per rush and tied for the NFL lead having allowed just one rush TD.

• Couple the inability to run the ball with Dak Prescott getting off to a slow start and you have an offense that’s struggled to put points on the board since routing the Browns in Week 1. Dak’s on pace for his lowest completion percentage since 2017, the lowest passing touchdown percentage of his career, and both his lowest passing success rate and highest sack rate since 2018.

5. Not Quite What We Expected — Ravens (2-2) at Bengals (1-3)

One could argue this game is more important than it looked a month ago when these were the AFC teams with the second-and-third-highest odds to win the Super Bowl coming out of the preseason. The loser will be in rough shape with regards to the playoffs, historically speaking.

• Vegas hasn’t given up on either team — the Ravens remain third in Super Bowl odds at BetRivers NY as of Wednesday night while the Bengals have fallen from sixth at the end of August to a tie for 10th.

• If the Bengals fall to 1-4, they’ll be trying to follow a path to the postseason that only 11 of 167 (6.6%) teams that started exactly 1-4 since 1990 successfully navigated. One of 21 teams to start 1-4 since the most recent playoff expansion in 1990 made it, the 2020 Commanders winning the NFC East at 7-9.

• If the Ravens lose to fall to 2-3, they’ll be in better shape but it’s still not great. 283 teams started exactly 2-3 from 1990-2023 and 65 of them made the playoffs (23.0%). It’s gotten easier since expansion to 14 playoff teams (11 of 35, 31.4%), but a loss would certainly make the road to the playoffs tougher.

It’s October, which means there’s no reason to talk about Joe Burrow in September! He’ll turn the calendar from his least favorite month for the sixth matchup with fellow former Heisman winner Lamar Jackson.

• The Ravens are 4-1 in the Lamar-Burrow matchups. Last year was the first time they both took the field for both regular season Ravens-Bengals games after having one head-to-head each year from 2020-22. Burrow’s only win over Lamar came by a 41-17 margin in Baltimore in 2021.

6. Keep Going, Jayden — Commanders (3-1)

As a fan of a rival NFC East team, I should be rooting for the demise Jayden Daniels and the Commanders. As someone who’s admired his footballering just about every fall weekend for the last five years, I just can’t bring myself to do anything else.

• The Commanders had their first punt and first turnover since Week 1 last week, snapping an unprecedented span in the NFL since at least the 1938 season at two consecutive regular season games without either thing. They’re still the first team known to have a three-game span totaling no more than one punt and one turnover.

• They’re the third team known to have three straight games with no more than one punt and no more than one turnover in each, joining the 2019 Ravens and 2022 Dolphins both of whom had their streaks stopped at three.

• Daniels has the highest completion percentage (82.1%) through the first four games of his career of any NFL QB since at least 1970 (min. 30 attempts), 6.5% better than any other QB in that span. He’s also got the highest completion percentage for any QB through the first four games of a season since at least 1970, half a point ahead of Luke McCown’s legendary 2015 season in New Orleans.

7. It’s All About Perspective — Cardinals (1-3) at 49ers (2-2) and Packers (2-2) at Rams (1-3)

I gave the numbers in the Bengals-Ravens preview about starting a season 2-3 as far as reaching the playoffs go. Perspective being everything, two of these teams would love to improve to 2-3 while the other two would be rather disappointed to fall to it. I expect the teams that were expected to be good to get to 3-2 without too much trouble but let’s see if I can find one interesting thing about all four teams anyway, as a treat.

• The Cardinals have finished under 300 total yards in all three losses this season, dropping them to 4-23 (.148) since the start of the 2019 season (Kyler Murray era) when they have under 300 yards of offense. Only the Lions (2-15, .118) have a worse record when they fail to reach the 300-yard plateau since 2019. The Chiefs (9-2, .818) have the best record in the same span including playoffs while 29 of 32 teams are under .500.

• The 49ers are 2-0 at home where they play the Cardinals and 0-2 on the road, so let’s look ahead at San Francisco’s visit to Seattle. On Thursday, the 49ers will look to avoid losing their first three road games in a season for the first time since 2018. They’ve started 0-3 on the road 16 times and only finished one of those seasons with a winning record (10-6 in 1991) while missing the playoffs every time.

• The Packers are 1-1 both with and without Jordan Love starting under center. With Love back, it might be time to worry more about the Magdalena Green Bay defense — this is the 11th time they’ve scored 100+ points while starting 2-2 or worse (but never actually worse). Only three of those 11 seasons ultimately resulted in double-digit wins (1989, 2003 and 2009) and only one of them resulted in a division title (2013 at 8-7-1).

• I truly don’t think there is anything interesting about the Rams right now so here’s a fun fact. One of my besties who is both my ex and the Steelers fan for whom I make most of my Mike Tomlin jokes went on a date with Sean McVay in middle school. I still refer to him as her “other ex-boyfriend.”